Step three: Get them.
"This is Petra Venj, calling any and all scouts to immediately locate Crow vessel Nighthawk-02. The Queen has been taken, I repeat; the Queen has been taken and the Prince had gone after her, his ship is unresponsive. If any Guardians can hear this, get word to the Tower; Della Tay has the Queen. I repeat…Della Tay… damn it! Someone get those doors open! How long before Variks wakes up?!"—Emergency Transmission, Reef Royal City, approximately 09:10AM Reef Time.
Uldren climbed out of his ship, and dropped to the dusty ground, the sand immediately shifting under his feet. It was roughly halfway through the morning at this small patch of sand near Meridian Bay. Deimos hung low in the sky far above, while Phobos was barely visible low on the horizon, eerily close to the surface. Phobos was one of the things he hated most about mars.
Nobody could get on the thing, and it's close proximity to the surface, despite any and all rationality, made him constantly afraid this thing was going to drop right out of the sky and hit the planet. It was a stupid notion; Phobos had been like this since the collapse, and it had yet to fall. Why would it fall while he was on mars?
Maybe it was just his experience with cruel irony and bad luck talking whenever he had thoughts like that. Like how an ancient labratory can stay standing for hundreds of years, and then I come along and it all comes crashing down...
The ships of his new companions were nearby, and as the ramps lowered, he was met with the sight of two figures of identical height climbing down to meet him. He felt a flash of jealosy at the sight of the helmets they wore, thinking about how stuffy the air was down here, and the heat that pounded at his face.
No matter; the air is breathable, lack of a helmet isn't going to kill me.
It would have been nice, yes; but helmets were a luxury in this case, not a necessity. He finished securing his hand cannon in it's holster, and he felt his scout rifle shift where it was strapped to his back. His headache was finally starting to fade, though he had the feeling it could start back up again if he spent too long in this heat.
It'll be worth it.
The two brothers strode up to him, and he got a better look at them. One of them was a titan, in heavy gear not dissimilar to field plating, and the other was a hunter decked out in the latest Sinaa gear, the Titan donning a short, brown mark with a teal pattern, and the Hunter having a waist-length cloak of similar design.
Both were adorned in dark shades of primarily teal and russet, with bits and peices of brown mixed in as well. Both were roughly the same height; slightly taller than Uldren, which made him slightly more wary of them. He didn't like being lower; while he didn't like heights, there was no arguing their advantage in the field. Being shorter than a partner-in-arms always unsettled him for some reason.
Both of them had auto rifles strapped to their backs, the Hunter had a sidearm of some kind holstered at his left waist, and the Titan had an ornate shotgun in his hands.
"My name is Ethan Price." The titan informed him, holding out one hand to shake Uldren's. He didn't return the gesture, and Ethan lowered his hand before motioning to his brother, sounding a little awkward. "This is my twin, Alfie, though he prefers to be called Alf."
"Alright." Uldren said, mentally fileing their names away for later and taking note of just exactly who they were. He tried to keep his face from showing his suprise, to remain as un-impressed as possible.
But that was awfully hard to do when you were talking to the Guardians who killed Crota.
Price brothers. Everybody knows who they are. I'm fighting with the Price brothers! Mara's safe return to the Reef felt that much more possible. Crota had been killed roughly a year ago, and it had been a relief to the whole system to hear that the tyranical psuedo-god was dead. He'd lost a lot of Crows to that monster and his followers, both robo scouts and awoken.
The story went that the brothers had gone down into the dark, guided by the lone surviver of a fireteam that had attempted the very same thing; except, that team failed. The brothers, having set out to avenge the Warlock member of their now two-man fireteam, had charged the shadowed depths, and come out alive... with Crota's head as a trophy.
Despite the escalated chances of success, Uldren couldn't feel better; not until he physically saw to it that his sister was safe. Price twins or no, he still didn't trust these strange Guardians. He didn't know how they operated. At least if it was Silverhawk and Martin, he would know what to expe-
NO! If it were Silverhawk and Martin, they would get Mara killed! He suppressed a shudder at that the thought that he had, for even one second, wanted it to be Subject Zero and her cowardly partner here with him instead of the two living legends that stood before him.
Ethan's Ghost materialized beside it's owner, it's shell a dark purple with spikes coming out of where it's front shell nodes met. It's shell parted, and blue light came from it's eye as it scanned Uldren. He gave a start backwards.
"What are you doing?" he asked wearily.
"Well, If you would hold still for a few minutes, I would isolate your DNA patterns, and then I would work with Alf's ghost to do a long-rang scan for similar markers, thus locating your sister, but, ahh, well, you keep moving around, and I can't get a lock on you so we might as well forget about it!" the ghost snarked back in a feminine voice. It reminded him of Silverhawk, and his hands twitched involuntarily as he, by instinct, imagined himself strangling something.
Instead vying to glare at the ghost, he allowed her to continue to scan him. If this works... we'll know exactly where Mara is. Finding Tay's ship wouldn't be no trouble; finding where Mara was, or where she'd been taken to, that's what they needed to know. They knew where Tay had landed; now, all they needed to do was find his sister.
Maybe... could I find her if I focus hard enough? As the ghost continued her scan, he mentally reached out, trying to find that flicker, trying to connect with his sister. I don't need this ghost's help... The power of awoken royalty was one he rarely used; all that space-y magical stuff was Mara's thing, not his. He preferred a more physical approach to his problems.
Mainly, shooting them.
But his attempt to find his sister independently failed; he couldn't sense her, not even faintly. Either the brothers didn't notice his eyes had been glowing brighter than normal, or they couldn't tell because of the sun; Ethan was running a cloth over the barrel of his shotgun, and Alf was preping his sidearm. Dumb humans. He thought dizzily. The heat pounded at him on the outside, but as he stopped tapping into his powers, it felt like ice filled his blood, and he suppressed a shiver, feeling slightly dizzy. His headache seemed to rebound, like a metal spike being driven into his head.
"Hmmm. That's odd. I'm picking up some really strange brain activity." the ghost commented, pausing in her scans. He glared at her.
"You don't know anything about awoken royalty, do you?" he sneered, mentally groaning in pain as the borderline migrane pounded at the inside of his skull. She shifted her shell, the top front node lowering in a glare.
If I can't sense her... I've...I've always been able to sense her... It had been years since he'd last used his powers, though. Perhaps he was just a little rusty? He'd never had the advanced mental training that Mara had had. What if she's dead? Could that be why I can't sense her? The thought sent a wild lurch of fear pounding through him. Mara couldn't be dead; she just couldn't!
"There! Ethan, I'm done." the ghost announced after about a minute of awkward silence, shell spinning as she turned to face her Guardian. " Groot, are you getting this?"
A gray-green Ghost materialized next to Alf's head.
"I am Groot." he said in a deep voice.
"I surmised this." Uldren rolled his eyes.
"His vocal processors got stuck in a loop when he took a hit during the battle with Crota." Ethan's ghost informed him, spinning to face him.
"Ever since then, his vocabulary has been limited to 'I', and 'am', and 'Groot'. Exclusivly in that order." Alf added. "That's the reason I named him Groot."
"I am Groot!"
"We're still trying to fix it." his Guardian said. "Why did we have to watch that movie before the battle?"
Uldren shook his head, deciding that he really didn't care what it was the Hunter was talking about, and that it didn't really matter how his ghost's voice got stuck; just that the robot got the job done. He found he had the inability to care about such things, as his headache seemed to occupy every minor part of his reality at this moment.
"Tay's ship is about an hour north from here on foot, if we keep a good pace." Ethan said, pointing his shotgun north. Uldren nodded, and then glanced at the two Ghosts, where in some sort of a trance with each other as they scanned.
"Lets get going." he said, turning north as Alf holstered his sidearm. He squinted as the sun glared hard on the right side of his face. In the distance, he could make out a large Cabal base of some sort, and his stomach lurched. Were they taking Mara there, set out like a treat for a stray animal, a "gift" for the cabal to gloat over.
Maybe they're the ones who hired Tay! If they were... that would be extrememly bad news. Tay had been on the radar for twenty years, but she had never done a contract for the darkness before; not that they knew of. If she had started working for the cabal...
The consequences of such an alliance would not be good. This could be much more than a rescue mission. This could be where we either kill Tay... or face a world where the cabal have the deadliest assasin in the system working for them.
He strafed and slid down the dune that lead up the rocky, cliff-like surface they had landed on, wincing as he felt sand enter his boots. Another reason he hated mars. Sand here, sand there, sand freaking everywhere! He swore the sand was makeing his migrane worse! And the thought of Tay working for the darkness was not helping.
He stumbled slightly as he met the flatter sand, and turned to watch as the twins skid in beside him, Alf easeing into the transfer gracefully, while his brother lost his balance on the way down, and ended up tumbling down to meet them, landing on his face with his shotgun hitting him on the head before landing beside him.
"Very graceful brother; very elegant indeed." Alf congradulated sarcastically, clapping slowly. An idea popped into Uldren's acheing head. He looked up at the two Ghosts, who had zoomed down to meet them.
"Are you two finished with your scan?" he inquired.
"I am Groot."
"Yes. The Queen is, in fact, roughly a mile out from here. I can barely pick up a reading, though, I can't tell her posistion exactly." Ethan's Ghost said at the same time. At least she's alive, then. That brought very little releif, and it didn't explain why he couldn't sense her.
"Can you share those scans with a third device?" he asked. If his plan would work, he could keep an eye on Mara and make sure she was safe before they got there. Perhaps he could even mess with Tay a bit, delay whatever it was she was planning.
"Perhaps. It depends on what kind of a device it is. Why?" there was wariness mixed in with her curiosity, and both the Guardians and Groot looked at him. I suppose I had better satiate their curiosity before they can no longer control themselves.
Uldren activated the controler on his right wrist, a screen that displayed from a metal band imbeded into the cuff of his gauntlet. It was a new feature that had come with Nighthawk the second, and so far, he was enjoying it. With a few taps, he summoned up the device he'd been talking about.
The other four looked at him expectantly as he kept his arm out. Groot looked around.
"I am Groot?"
He gave a startled yell as a pair of night-black talons swiped at him rudely, and the glossy-feathered robot landed on Uldren's forearm.
"Yes, master?" it inquired emotionlessly.
"Oh, a Crow!" Ethan's shost exclaimed, floating a little closer to inspect their new comerade, to which his 'bird' responded by glaring at her.
"That is one realistic bird you've got there." Ethan exclaimed with a whistle.
"They're designed to be inconspicous. I always keep one in storage on my ship if I ever need it" he replied. To Alf, he added, "And if your ghosts can share the signal, I can use him to find Mara, and pin down her location before we arrive."
The Hunter noded. "That sounds like a fair idea. I like it. Groot? Bessy?"
"I am Groot!"
"I can make it work! It's an ingenius plan, by the way." 'Bessy' said at the same time, as Uldren had to bite back a snicker. He raise an eyebrow in Ethan's direction.
"My stepsister. Had a nasty temper." The Titan said simply. To this, Bessy, whirled around with an angry bleep and spin of her back shell.
"Excuse me!?" her Guardian raised both his hands innocently, before bending down to pick up his gun. Bessy turned back to Uldren and his Crow.
"Okay, I'm just going to have to scan you, mister...uhhhh...?"
"I have no name."
"Okay, I'll just call you 'Robert' then. Just hold still for a few moments." her shell parted, and the newly-named 'Robert' stood bolt upright as blue light enveloped him. His feathers puffed indignantly, and he glared at her as if he were being violated in some way.
When Bessy was done, Uldren adressed his shadowy scout.
"Fly north of here. Locate the vessle belonging to Della Tay, and use the scanning tools given to you by that ghost to locate my sister. Delay her assasination at any cost, and when you find her, use your link to the ghosts to send them feed from your discovery. Understood?" he ordered.
"Yes, master."
"Then fly."
The jet black robotic avian spread it's wings and lifted into the martian sky, taking off off north, it's weight leaving Uldren's arm as it pushed off with it's talons. He watched as its black figure was lost to the bright martian sky, and took a deep breath of hot, dry air as he lowered his arm. I really should have brought some water from my ship. But it was too late now; getting back up the hill would be too much of a hassle, and they would lose precious time doing so. Perhaps one of the twins had brought provisions with them?
He shook his head. What was he doing, jealos for water when his sister may never drink again if he wasted time longing for what was not possible at the moment?
"Let's go. We don't have all day." We have only one hour. One hour until I might see my sister again. One hour during which Tay could be doing anything to her. She could be skinning Mara alive for all he knew.
And with this thought, came every other thought, of all the horrific things Della Tay could be doing to his sister. The worrying, the heat, and his attempt at telepathic comunication, all combined with sleep depravation and the stress of the past few hours, made his migrane near unbearable.
They said Della Tay never killed the same way twice. Would she leave Mara out as food for the cabal, like he most thought? That was the least horrific thing he could think of. Would she throw her off the top of the largest vex spire she could find? Would she throw her into the middle of a vex conflux, or force her down into Freehold, where she could be killed by crossfire between the vex and cabal at any moment? Stranded in the desert and left to starve to death?
Each thought made his insides twist, made him want to wail outloud about how unfair it was that they couldn't have landed just a bit closer. If he squinted, and covered his eyes with his hand, he could just make out the black dot of his crow, getting farther and farther away as Uldren and the twins trudged along the dunes.
I'm coming, Mara. I'm coming to get you back. How many times had he made this silent promise already? Not enough, he decided.
I'm coming.
RIP legacy players.
Servers are down for separation, all those who would, at this moment, be kicking some thrall butt, are instead reading about the game they cannot curently play, whilst they wait anxiously for news from the bungie reveal conference thingy.
I thought, to comfrot us all, I'd drop a little treat. But, for realsies this time; no more updates till school starts, and things definitely WILL be slower this year, as I'm doing a co-op Wings of Fire fanfiction with Fatespeaker, and The Riseing Wind desparately needs some new content because it's my most popular fic(if you like dragons and Middle Earth, go read).
I also must wrtie for All The Strange, Strange Creatures(yes, that is an allusion to the Doctor Who soundtrack of the same name), because I I don't let loose a chapter for an AoS fic, the day season fours premiers...I'll be forever shamed.
And MAN! The Forged in Fire ViDoc... I think that cinematic, with Saladin and that other titan, will be the cinematic that breaks us. Flaming armor! ^^
fierywarlock999: And now, to your further excitement...
MaybeALittleBroken: Luckily for him, I know of a nice little island called Kiribati. My condolances for your bad hand, BTW.
Writer's Pen77: I prefer the Narnia battle call.
Order and Chaos: Uldren and Mara really only have each other, where family is concerned. That being said, the subject of their father will be addressed at some point. He plays a rather important role, in what appears to be a series of unconnected events. As for Tay; she's outright insane, we'll see that in next chapter. The death of Uldren and Mara's mother? Well, you've seen written the things Tay has done; simulating the effect of Striker's blow would seem as easy as cake. She probably dropped an electrified cylinder weight on her from a height; wielding the hitting end in the shape of an armored fist is, again, minimal prepparation in comparison to some of the other things this character had done. In my head, the Titan does have Fourth Horsman (just because it looks pretty), but Uldren won't find it too interesting. And yes, I realise that Titans are shamefully underrepresented in this series, between Silverhawk, Andal, Tevis, Cayde, and Martin, but we will meat two new titan side characters at some point in 15 Seconds, and in Wolfsbane we're set to say "hi" to a warlock who is also the first awoken Guardian we'll be working with in the series. Personally...I can't wait to see how many people ship her with Uldren, purely because they hate each other. Heck, this is a long reply.
All that being said, I'm off to drool over the flameing armor again, and freak out. I pre-ordered RoI yesterday, and I keep catching myself doing a little jig. I appologise for any undiscovered blatant and obvious spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors that slipped through my feverant, multiple proofreads. The program I'm useing has no spell check, and I haven't time right now to use the FFN doc manager to check them. Just bear with me, I'll get to them tomarrow, or at least I'll try.
Next Time: WoF fans, say "hello" to Queen Scarlet's awoken alter ego. Things start to get serious, and we get a teaser to an event in 15 Seconds.
Cheers!^^