Chapter Ten: Light Bearers
"Did you hear what happened to Fireteam Trinity?" Lilei Nizo asked her teammates, looking up from her datapad to the other women. She was sat back on an uncomfortable bunk in the hold of Ozara's heavily modified, retrofitted passenger ship. The huntress shifted her posture and scanned the screen again.
"No," Eve said simply. Her boots thudded in an uneven rhythm against the steel floor as she paced nervously through the hold. She held her chin in one gloved hand as she looked down to the ground.
"What happened?" Ozara-4 leaned forward from her seat on a crate shoved up against the bulkhead. Her bright blue optics glowed with genuine curiosity. She rested her forearms on her heavily plated kneepads.
"Apparently," Lilei read the lines of text once more, her bright silver-steel eyes scanning the words as if they might be secretly lying to her, "They lost two of their guardians on Venus."
"How?" Ozara inquired.
"Which ones? When?" Eve asked. They knew Fireteam Trinity well, and her heartbeat slowed with mounting terror. "That's most of the team." She added in a whisper.
"A few days ago." Lilei addressed the questions in reverse order. "Salvatore-9 and Rafael Solórzano." She read the names slowly. Then she added, "Oh, poor Elise."
"What happened?" Ozara repeated.
"The report doesn't say much. Missing in action and presumed dead during a routine patrol outing. According to Elise, they all split up to cover more ground. Salvatore went dark first, and Rafael was apparently called in for a special assignment for the vanguard." She took a seething breath as if pained. "He never came back."
"Damn it." Eve shook her head. Her nervous pacing did not diminish. "I didn't need to hear that news right now. Not right now."
"Sorry." Lilei looked up to the warlock, then set down the datapad next to her.
"It's fine. We have a little time. Just… damn it." Eve's fists clenched and she looked up to the plain ceiling and the softly humming lightbulb. She took a sharp breath and fought past the lump in her throat. By the Traveler, she thought, that's a big loss.
Lilei turned to Ozara. She needed to give Eve a moment to process this. "What do you think Elise will do?"
The titan woman seemed to frown, as best she could as an exo, and clasped her hands in her lap almost daintily. "Well," She started, "First she'll have to mourn. They were good men. Then she'll have to find another squad, or pick up some younger guardians to fill their boots. It will not be easy."
"And what about their name?" Lilei continued, "Do you think she'll retire the name Trinity? It was rather personal for them."
"That depends." Ozara responded simply. Her optics seemed to dim. "Usually fireteam names are retired only when all the members of the team are put out of commission. I think it's really up to her. She could either put it behind her, or try to fill the gap."
Eve Delaine plopped down in a seat attached to the wall, her emerald eyes drained of their color and vibrancy as she stared ahead blankly. She sighed and hung her head.
Lilei asked, "How do you know so much about it, Oz?"
Ozara looked the huntress in the eyes. "I've been around a long time, Lily. I've seen a lot of guardians come and go. I trained a lot of them myself, only to hear the rumors and read the reports that they're gone." She nodded toward the datapad next to Lilei on her bunk. "It used to feel like a personal failure. Some things you just get used to, even if you don't want to."
"I guess." Lilei grimaced and drew the knife from her hip, produced a whetstone from her belt, and began running it along the edge to sharpen it. She did not looked up from her task, but continued speaking. "What happens to a guardian when they die?"
"They get revived by their ghost." Ozara answered, a wry smile in her voice.
Lilei rolled her eyes. "I meant when they don't come back."
"I know." Ozara shrugged and glanced toward Eve with a frown. The warlock had still barely moved. "No one really knows, though. It's one of the last great mysteries of life. I have a theory, though."
"Titan theories are notoriously foolproof." Lilei's response dripped with sarcasm.
Ozara laughed. "Well, there's an old legend, pre-Golden Age by thousands of years, that talks about the World to Come."
"So what, we just go somewhere else?" The huntress was not impressed.
Ozara shook her head. "No. You see, the World to Come is a perfect place even beyond the dead. The Traveler represents order, light, and good made real. It is the messenger of the World to Come, and when we die, our light shines on to guide the still-living. Guardians become the stars in the night sky that pierce the darkness and offer hope and vision to the rest of us. They live as stars until they are finally called to the World to Come at the end of the universe."
"So we leave and wait around for eternity?" Lilei was still unimpressed, though the fuller explanation gave her thoughts to ponder.
"If that's how you choose to view it, sure. But like I said, that is only my theory. I think it's a beautiful thought, and I hope I am right. Some others think our light, or souls, return to the Traveler. But if that were true," Her voice dropped slightly, "Then maybe it would have enough to have woken up by now."
"I guess we'll never know." Lilei shrugged and sheathed her knife after she was satisfied with its edge.
"And if we do," Ozara agreed, "We won't be able to tell anyone."
Eve at last spoke, softly, but her voice cut through the idle conversation cleanly. "Can we focus, please?"
"Right." Lilei was quick to respond in a tone just shy of apologetic.
Ozara nodded in the affirmative and looked to the leader of Fireteam Hades. Eve sat up straighter in her seat and seemed to have regained her composure almost completely.
"Our last match starts soon. We have our game plan," She looked to each of them in turn. "Lilei cuts to the side for a flank. We test them in the center, Oz, and be ready to move in when we get the signal."
"Or you hear lots of bullets and screaming." Lilei amended.
"Right. Or that." Eve nodded. "We need to be aware of who we're going up against, too. And we won't know that until we're on the ground."
"Any thoughts who it could be?" Ozara asked. "Not many teams are capable of making it this far in the Trials. Naraka? Morrigna?"
Eve shrugged. "Could be anyone. Remember last week?" She grimaced and clenched her jaw remembering their embarrassing defeat at the hands of Fireteam Pluto. "Ever since those idiots pulled a win on us, guardians who never thought they had a chance in the Trials have been pouring in. Remember our first round this week against those Fireteam Leaf kids?" She scoffed in disdain.
Ozara gave Eve a long look. "Those idiots that beat us last week are also our friends, Eve."
The warlock furrowed her brow. "Maybe they shouldn't be."
Ozara could sense the bitterness in her words. Still, she pressed on. "How long are you going to keep this up?"
"I don't know." Eve looked away toward Lilei as if it would stop Ozara from pressing the issue.
It did not. "It's been days, Eve. When are we going to work through it?"
"I don't know. I don't want to talk about it." Eve huffed, crossing her arms.
"Are you sure?" Ozara kept the pressure on.
"Oz," Lilei's words seemed to snap at the air, "She doesn't want to talk about her ex. It's not a big deal. Let it go."
Ozara shifted her attention to Lilei. "It is a bigger deal than you think it is. He was nice -"
Lilei cut her off. "He was a creep, and an asshole. Never did like him."
"I wonder why." Ozara retorted. "At least he was different. And if he wasn't important," She turned to Eve once more, "Then you wouldn't be so broken up about this."
"Oh please, she dumped him." Lilei offered. It fell on deaf ears.
"I'm fine." Eve countered simply. She wanted to go and fight, not discuss her personal life. She sighed.
"No." Ozara stared her friend down. "All you do is work, eat and sleep. Last night you locked yourself in your room and cried yourself to sleep."
Eve stiffened. "That wasn't because of him."
"Then what was it about?"
The warlock frowned. "The Chinese place forgot the extra spring rolls I ordered."
"Eve," Ozara's voice was soft now. "You know that's not a rational thing to sob over."
"I also accidentally tipped the delivery boy an extra twenty glimmer." She muttered.
Ozara hung her head and seemed to sigh in resignation. "All right, we can discuss it later."
"Thank you." Eve said blankly. She took a deep breath and forced herself to stand.
"I just worry about you." Ozara added, looking up to the team leader and watching her gather her things and straighten her rose-red trenchcoat.
Lilei slid into the conversation in an effort to change the topic. "Hey, we should get down there. It's almost time to start."
Eve nodded without a word and motioned for Ozara to open the back hatch of the ship. The titan did as she was bade without hesitation, and the hydraulic system hissed as the airlock was released, the door opened into the cold, clear brightness of midday Old Russia, and the ramp extended down to the ground. The warlock led the way as she readied her blood-red assault rifle.
There was not a cloud in the sky and the sun shone with bright intensity. A light breeze swept Eve and Lilei's hair gently and tickled Ozara's extendable ear antennae. Hollow buildings were rusted shells of their Golden Age selves, made of crumbling brown bricks that barely seemed to hold themselves together. Scattered at the bases of many structures were piles of debris nearly as tall as a person.
Fireteam Hades wove their way through the now-familiar labyrinthian ruins of the Golden Age. Eve looked up to the distant, more structurally sound rooftops surrounding the arena and spied a male guardian, a titan, in faded red armor and flanked by two thin frames painted a similar color. She offered him a silent nod in greeting, and he returned it before resuming his task of scanning the horizon for threats. Redjacks, she knew, were hand-picked by Lord Shaxx to deter any interference in Crucible matches. She had only seen one other today, but she was well aware that there were easily a dozen or more of them, and twice as many battle-ready frame robots, all around them overseeing the Trials of Osiris.
"Well look who finally crawled out of bed." A familiar, grating voice called out from ahead of them.
Leaning against the base of a long-empty rusted water tower, clad in disgustingly bright orange and bulky, spiky armor, was Clarence Roy Smallwood, the titan and de jure leader of Fireteam Orcus. The warlock of the team, Arda Maras, in a navy blue robe and black boots, was leaning against him and grinding her rear end into his crotch slowly as he held her by the hips. The hunter, Klein-3, wore deep red armor with a short gray cloak, and stood just off to the side to watch the women approach.
Clarence made a show of reaching up to squeeze Arda's breasts as he spoke to them, his baby blue eyes locked on Eve. "Your latest lay must have given it to you hard to make you this late." He laughed with a cocky grin and shook his blond locks out of his face.
Arda giggled and fluttered her eyelashes at them, her bright red eyes shining. She gyrated her hips seductively, teasingly as she ran one hand through her jet black mohawk.
"How did you even get this far?" Eve ignored his obvious attempts at denigration. "Weren't you taken down in the first round last week?" Her full lips curled into a sly smirk.
Clarence, flustered, visibly stiffened. "It was a fluke. You got taken out too, by the same chumps." As if suddenly remembering, he added, "The poor little loser you have to put up with in the sack, right? What was his name…" He trailed off.
She ignored his admittedly weak attempt at an insult. "Rules violation," Eve pointed to Ozara. "A dumb bet," She pointed to Lilei. "And I got suckerpunched. At least we weren't all taken out by one titan."
Klein piped up, his pastel pink optics flitting between the three women of Hades nervously. "I think his name was Corey, or something."
Arda scoffed. "Ugh, it was Koru."
"Whatever. I'll call him a little cuck bitch after today." Clarence shrugged and proceeded to slip his hands between Arda's legs to massage her inner thighs gently through her tight pants. "See what you're missing out on, Eve? I know you want me."
Lilei scowled at him. "Trust me, she doesn't."
Arda shot back, "No one asked for your opinion, dyke."
The huntress of Hades stared the warlock of Orcus down. "I'll kill you first." She said simply.
"Try it, butch." Arda pursed her painted lips and blew a mocking kiss at Lilei.
Ozara stepped in close to Eve, but never took her optics from their opponents. "Don't let them get into your head."
Eve nodded and pulled on her helmet, bronze in color and elegantly engraved with a wide-reaching tree. "Yeah. I know." She said simply. Her eyes burned with fury. Her trigger finger twitched.
Lord Shaxx's voice boomed across the arena to announce the beginning of the match. "THE FINAL ROUNDS OF THE TRIALS OF OSIRIS ARE UNDERWAY. PROCEED TO YOUR STARTING POSITIONS AND FIGHT WELL, GUARDIANS." Eve noted that it was markedly generic, and after a moment understood that it had been pre-recorded. Likely, she surmised, to account for the huge influx of new combatants in this week's tournament.
"Well, that's our cue." Klein announced and donned his helmet, ducking behind the water tower quickly.
Clarence and Arda were slower to follow his lead. They kept their gazes on Hades as they did so, then filtered out slowly toward their starting point. Clarence gave Eve a wave that ended with an unsubtle pelvic thrust before he left.
At last Eve took a single step backward, then turned on her heel swiftly. Ozara and Lilei followed.
Ozara's helmet, thickly plated with a T-shaped visor, was simple and lacked complex designs. She hefted her trusty, rusty, somewhat dusty shotgun, remiss that she was barred from bringing her Cabal phalanx shield into this fight.
Lilei put her helmet on, a gilded one with a wide V-shaped visor lined with ornate filigree. She drew her sniper rifle and announced resolutely, "Dibs on the dumb slut."
II
Koru Sen's head throbbed with every heartbeat as the blood rushed to his head. His mouth was dry and his neck was stiff. He forced his eyes open and pushed himself up to a sitting position on the sofa. The pizza was half-eaten and laying in scattered slices in the boxes. He massaged the nape of his neck and recoiled as the sharp stench of vomit assaulted his nostrils. Faintly, he could taste the horrid bile in the back of his throat and it seemed to dig itself into his nasal cavity. He saw the bucket that once held bottles of rum set next to where his head had been, now it held shards of glass and its rim was streaked with dried vomit.
He looked around the ready room but neither of his teammates were there. He managed to stagger to his feet and wipe his mouth before the oncoming headrush fueled by dehydration caught up to him. He plopped back down and focused on breathing and regaining his vision.
"Think," He muttered weakly as he adjusted his white coat. It had become loose and scrunched up in his apparently fitful drunken stupor and ensuing sleep. "What happened?"
He wracked his brain, but nothing came to mind.
"Yup," He mused as he pulled himself to his feet again. "I have a problem."
He made his way to the sleeping area that had been cordoned off upon arrival. He dropped down to his knees to cup a mouthful of the stale water from the washbasin up, savoring its feeling if not its flavor. After a few more deep drinks he rose and wiped his lips clean on his sleeve. He approached the main circular door and it slowly hissed open. Koru stepped into the hallway. The air here was cool, but carried the scent of iron with each pleasant breeze.
Koru's head still pounded, but the pain in his forehead was fading slowly. He trailed his fingers along the wall of the low hallway and stepped up the stairs, through the empty corridors lit by ambient orange lamps. Eventually he made his way up into a wide room full of consoles manned by several Fallen crew members, all of low rank, who snapped their attention up to him when the door opened audibly. He took a few steps into the room, and the technicians seemed to regard him curiously before returning to their tasks. They were stiff in their movements and seemed to keep an eye on him as he wove his way through the room and up a few more stairs to continue on his way.
"Curious." He wondered aloud. "The throne room should be nearby. I wonder where the bridge is?" If Commander Roy and Phoenix were anywhere, it was in one of those locations. Or, he thought, the kitchens. Or the hangar. "They could be anywhere." He sighed in exasperation and kept moving forward.
Eventually the network of criss-crossing hallways brought him to the Kell's throne room. He stepped up to the door and it opened swiftly. Two semicircular computer arrays were freestanding on either side of the sloped chamber, banners hung limply from the ceiling and were being removed by crews of Fallen vandals, and bulbous machinery flanked either side of the room. At the end of the room in the center of the chamber was an incredibly large, high-backed seat made from rough metal and ornamented with trophies from various military conquests, including the heads of Vex units, Hive knight swords, and a few scraps of cloth that might have once been worn by either Fallen footsoldiers or even guardians. Koru shuddered at the thought.
Lined up in front of the throne were a line of Fallen vandals standing stark still. Koru's eyes scanned the line and eventually he noticed Phoenix on the far end of it. He began his approach, and behind the Fallen, he could see Commander Roy sitting on his throne, at last wearing pants and a T-shirt, comically small in the massive seat.
"I'm telling you, they'll never beat me." Phoenix announced as he raised his hand up to his head. He seemed to place something on top, then pulled his arm away slowly.
"They have to, though. They have four arms!" Roy protested.
An attendant Fallen went down the line and handed an object to each of the participants in the competition. One by one they each attempted to add it to, as Koru observed, a growing stack of various items to balance on their heads. The attendant came around to Roy, who snatched several trinkets from him.
One Vandal's hand lightly brushed the bottom of a shock pistol and the entire pile came crashing down around its feet. It jumped, scared the one next to it, and the tumbling avalanche of miscellaneous objects went like a wave down the line, all except for Phoenix, who maintained nearly perfect stillness.
"Dawww h'oh," Commander Roy shook his head and stood up now. "Let me show you how it's done, lads."
The Fallen vandals looked to one another, then to Roy, in a mix of shame and absolute bewilderment.
"Gotta beat four." Phoenix called out smugly. He had a shock pistol, two shock knives, and a small canister of ether atop his head.
"Easy." Roy snapped back and proceeded to place a small metal box on his head. "One," He hastily placed a knife atop it, "Seven…" He reached for a pistol and gingerly rested it on the knife. "There, four!" He smiled, but just when he pulled his hand away the entire collection fell to the ground around him. "Ah, damnit."
"I am the champion!" Phoenix raised his arms up in victory and shook his head vigorously, sending the collected items scattering to the floor. "The king of balancing stuff on my head!" He cried out happily.
Koru interjected sharply, "What are you idiots doing?"
"Huh?" Roy asked.
Phoenix answered. "Rise and shine, Korrie-poo. Roy was just showing me his sweet new throne room. And then these guys were following us around, so we decided to play a game with 'em. Wanna try?"
"No." Koru responded. "Why are you playing games with Roy's bodyguards?"
"Is that what they are?" Roy asked happily. "I thought they were just my fans."
Koru sighed in defeat. He changed the subject. "Why was I left in the ready room?"
"Oh." Roy frowned. "We thought you should sleep off the rum. You downed a bottle on your own." He leaned in and whispered, as if trying to hide it from the bodyguards he was speaking over, "You got a little sad and fighty. So we let you sleep."
"Yeah." Phoenix added, "Somethin' about Eve and how you'll never get her back or whatever. I don't know, I don't remember."
"Oh." Koru's face felt flushed and he looked away, clearly embarrassed. "I didn't mean to inconvenience either of you."
"Roy," Phoenix addressed the titan, "Did Koru just apologize?"
"I think so." Roy agreed.
"But," Koru looked back to them, "Why wasn't I at least made aware where you were? You could have left a note."
"I can't read, bro." Phoenix retorted.
"Figures." Koru scoffed and gave the hunter a dismissive wave. "The two of you together probably couldn't muster the brainpower to operate a blender."
"I take that back." Roy shrugged toward Phoenix. "He's still a dick."
"And furthermore," Koru continued, "How long was I asleep?"
"I dunno, like, ten hours?" Roy answered unconvincingly.
"Ten hours?" Koru's mouth was agape.
"Maybe more. Space time is weird."
The warlock closed his eyes and furtively assessed the situation, accounted for the variables, and calculated the estimated time spent aboard the ketch. "It's been approximately two days since we boarded this ship."
"And?" Roy shrugged.
"Do you realize that we could have used our jumpships to travel to Pluto and back twice in that time frame, with a break for dinner in the City?" Koru's voice was rising. "Now why, praytell, are we not even at our initial destination after forty-eight hours?!"
Roy screwed up his face in thought, or what Koru hoped was thought, before he spoke. "I mean, the Spirits only just got this ship. Ketches aren't very fast, and this one was pretty beat up. It was gonna be slow going."
"You don't see a problem with that?" Koru asked indignantly.
"No?"
Phoenix jumped to Roy's defense. "Hey, at least we got to spend more time together and check out an actual pirate ship, though. It's like a road trip. A bonding experience."
Koru ignored him. "Instead of finishing our mission, we've been wasting time. Time that I could have spent trying to make things right with Eve. Now, who knows what she's up to." He groaned in despair. "She's probably got her legs wrapped around some muscle-bound egomaniac right now, all thanks to you." He pointed at Roy with an accusatory finger.
"Uh, wouldn't that be your fault? I mean technically, you were an asshole to her first." Phoenix asked.
Koru glared at Phoenix but did not reply. Instead he only shook his head and turned around.
"What's your problem?" Roy asked after the warlock.
"You." Koru answered. "And this hangover." He held his palm against his forehead, now throbbing violently with each pulse and digging needles of pain into his brain.
"Pssh, that's because you quit drinkin'. Here," Roy pulled out a silver flask of alcohol. "This'll help."
Koru's shoulders slumped. "I don't think you quite understand how these things work." He took a deep breath and spoke more slowly as if to explain it to Roy. After all, other than the ready room or possibly the hangar, he realized there were few options for where he could go. "I am dehydrated from a massive intake of salt and alcohol. My head is pounding, my knees are weak, and I have very little patience for imbecilic attempts at peer pressure. Also," He amended, "I think I might be depressed."
"Oh, wow." Phoenix let out a low whistle. The sound of it seemed to stab into Koru's agitated eardrums.
"I know what you need!" Roy announced happily and descended the stairs to join Phoenix and Koru on the penultimate level, pushing past his bodyguards absently as he put away his flask. "You need a nap!"
"I just woke up." Koru added glumly.
"No, no silly. You need to go to the naptime closet!"
"Uhh, excuse me?" Koru couldn't quite grasp the words Roy was attempting to string together. "Naptime closet? That isn't what you call the brig, is it?"
"Of course not." Roy wrapped his arm around Koru's shoulder and led him down the steps with Phoenix in tow. "It's a special place I go to get rested up when I feel tired, but it's in the ready room! Come on, I'll show you."
The three guardians were followed by the entourage of a half dozen Fallen vandal bodyguards as they returned to the ready room. The stale stench of vomit assaulted their senses upon entry. Roy pointed to the couch and the chaos of its immediate surroundings as if to signal his posse to clean it up. Three of them went to the task wordlessly.
"Here," Commander Roy led Koru into the bathroom, pushing the door open.
"This is a latrine, Roy." Koru frowned.
"Sit right…" Roy held Koru's shoulders and led him to the corner of the room and let him stand in it before backing away. "Here."
"What am I supposed to do?" Koru shrugged and leaned into the corner.
"Wait for it." Roy smiled wide and motioned for Phoenix to watch.
"This is -" Koru completely disappeared from the corner.
"Ha!" Roy exclaimed with a laugh.
"Whoa," Phoenix's eyes widened in a mix of wonder and terror. "Where'd he go?"
"-stupid!" Koru finished his sentence from the other side of the door, without missing a beat. He hurriedly threw the bathroom door open and joined his teammates inside once again. "What the hell happened?"
Roy ignored his question. "Feel better?"
Koru took a moment to gather himself. "Yes… No headache, and I'm wide awake. What was that?" He asked again.
"That was the naptime closet." Roy nodded deeply with pride. "I found it when you were knocked out."
Koru stared at the corner of the room. He stepped into it again and waited, keeping mental count of how much time had passed. On the fifth beat, he disappeared again, reappearing in the ready room. Notably, he saw, he returned in a slightly different place. He rushed back into the bathroom. He cracked a smile for the first time in what must have been days. "This requires further study!"
Roy patted Phoenix on the shoulder and whispered, "That'll keep him busy."
Phoenix nodded in agreement. He spoke to Koru. "Yeah bud, you figure that thing out. We'll be around if you need us when you get bored of your nerd stuff."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Go play more drinking games." The warlock waved them off and produced a pad of paper and a pen from the pouches on his belt, and was furiously scrawling notes.
"Okay, have a good one." Roy grabbed Phoenix by the shoulder and the two of them left Koru to his own devices.
III
"We cannot continue operations until this issue is resolved. I motion to lock the floor until this is reconciled." A man with olive skin, brown eyes and deep cordial speech pressed his hands onto the table in front of him. He was dressed in robes of red and white. Executor Hideo, representative for the New Monarchy organization, looked around the Tower's council's meeting room.
Seated around the circular mahogany table were the representatives of the other two City-based organizations and Lord Shaxx. The remaining four seats were vacant. The room itself was also circular, offering a spectacular view of the City from a rounded window along the back wall.
Arach Jalaal, speaking on behalf of the Dead Orbit faction, was a lean Awoken man with ashen gray skin, a gaunt face, medium length indigo hair, glowing blue eyes, and a neatly trimmed goatee. He spoke with a rasp. "I second that motion." He looked to Lord Shaxx, who sat with his back to the door. His robes were shades of grays and black.
Lakshmi-2, an exo woman with white and orange finish and softly glowing blue optics, added her voice to the consensus. Her robes were the vivid indigo, yellow and orange of the Future War Cult. "Yes, I believe that is imperative. The Future War Cult has been quite vocal about the loss of the Vanguard."
"It's been three days since the Vanguard have gone dark, and where to?" Hideo continued. "Off chasing treasure on Venus?"
Jalaal added, "They must have known something was coming and fled. It's the kind of prophetic doom we have warning you all about for years!"
Lakshmi almost laughed. "Proselytizing is not worthy of the title 'warning'."
"You're one to talk." Jalaal shot back. "Tell me again how you plan to win an unwinnable war?"
"We would start by sending your fleets away, they only hinder us." The woman waved her hand dismissively toward him. "Cowards will always die first in war. It is their destiny."
Hideo jumped into the discussion again. "What both of you are considering is foolhardy. If we flee, we wouldn't last a decade on the run through space."
"Perhaps with the Awoken fleet's assistance -" Jalaal started. He was promptly ignored.
Hideo continued. "And if we wage a full scale war, our resources would be depleted completely. The City stands as the last safe place for humanity. You would both throw that away for selfish, illusory gains." He cleared his throat. "We need someone to step up and lead us now more than ever. A strong, wise king who can rally us beneath their banner."
"Ugh," Jalaal rolled his eyes. "It always comes back to this."
Lakshmi did laugh this time. "And who will this leader be? Who is so strong, wise, compassionate, responsible, and perfect," she let the word drip with venom, "as to fill such a mythical role?"
"That is not up for me to decide. Princes are not voted on, Lakshmi. They are made apparent." Hideo crossed his arms over his chest.
"Enough!" Lord Shaxx called out from his seat across the table from the bickering rabble. "Every council session devolves into this pointless debate between you three. I'm ending it now. We four are the last leadership the City has, and we need to lead it. Not argue our philosophy." He straightened in his chair and leaned forward. Even now he did not remove his helmet in this company. They needed to see where he stood, and what his role was. He was a guardian, and they would know it. "We need a new vanguard."
Jalaal muttered, "Because that has worked so well thus far."
Shaxx paid him no heed. Instead, the other representatives bickered over a new old point of contention.
Hideo scoffed. "Three voices are spread thin and weak. We need a singular voice. One city, one command, one king."
Lakshmi interjected, her words flowing smooth and soft. "There is power in threes. Balance comes naturally to the trinity, especially in matters of state. If a new Vanguard must be appointed, then I support Lord Shaxx's motion to do so."
"It's much too early to make permanent decisions." Hideo suggested, seeing that his rhetoric had wrought no new rewards, "The Vanguard are our equals at this table. We need to make sure those we appoint are as reliable as the former."
Jalaal sighed with obvious disdain. "Yes, of course. Reliable. The flighty hunter who never wanted to be here was critical to our operations as a governing body."
Lord Shaxx interjected. "Cayde-6 was more competent as a leader than he let on. Without him, most of us would not be where we are today, alive or dead. Hunters have always been deceptive in how much they truly care about others. It is in their nature."
"Nevertheless," Lakshmi addressed the three men, "A new set of three should be appointed. In the past, Commander Zavala was approached to lead the entirety of the guardians' forces. He chose two others to stand with him. Perhaps we could mirror that event again."
"What are you proposing, Lakshmi?" Hideo asked, clearly intrigued now.
"At this table," Lakshmi explained, "Only one of us is a guardian. Yet we all agree that the Vanguard, three individuals who represent the Tower's armed forces, should be guardians, yes? Wielders of the light?" She let the question simmer among the group. She knew her plan, like all others, would come to a vote. She would need to appeal to all of their interests.
"Agreed." Jalaal relented after some thought. "Guardians should lead guardians. We simply supply them and operate within the City."
"They are the Tower." Hideo finished the other man's sentiment for him.
It was almost too easy. Lakshmi went on, "Thus, Lord Shaxx is the only council member with extensive knowledge of the guardians under the Tower's employ. I propose that he have final say on who, from every sect of the Light, to name as the new Vanguard."
"A provisional Vanguard." Hideo amended.
"Ad hoc Vanguard." Jalaal agreed.
The exo woman intertwined her fingers together and rested them on the table in front of her. "I respectfully add that Lord Shaxx also currently holds five votes on the matter."
Hideo stared her down. "Paragraph seven, subsection two of the Third Council Amendment -"
"Makes no mention of a single individual holding multiple seats or casting multiple votes if it is within their capabilities. It is only implied." Lakshmi shrugged.
"I request to draft a new amendment to the Council Constitution." Hideo responded.
"Another day." Lord Shaxx piped up at last only to shoot Hideo's protests down. "If I am to decide the new interim Vanguard, I have a solution in mind. As you all no doubt know, the Trials of Osiris tournament is being held as we speak across the system. For the first time since its inception, it has grown in popularity enough to necessitate nearly all of our arenas to accommodate the combatants. Many of the teams, as you are no doubt aware, sport sponsorships from each of your respective organizations."
The three nodded, silently urging him to continue.
"Therefore, the guardians that show the greatest aptitude for leadership and strength will be selected for the position." Lord Shaxx finished his proposed selection process.
"Interesting." Hideo mused. "Selecting the Vanguard through merit in combat. This could work."
Lakshmi spoke, "An interesting proposal, Lord Shaxx. But if you select a team with known allegiances to any of our organizations," She motioned with subtle nods to the men sitting on either side of her, "This could lead to a considerable conflict of interests."
"Guardians know their first obligation is to the Vanguard and the Tower. However, if abstaining from underhanded gifts and bribery proves too difficult, I remind the Council that this is a temporary solution to the problem at hand. A more intensive process may follow. For now, I see no other choice. We cannot leave the guardians without leadership another day. Now," Shaxx sat up straight again. "All in favor of proceeding to appoint a temporary Vanguard based upon leadership capabilities and martial prowess as shown in the Trials of Osiris tournament?"
"Aye." Lakshmi nodded. She kept silent, but felt the pride of victory swelling in her chest.
"Aye." The corner of Hideo's mouth twitched upwards. The possibilities were boundless.
"Nay." Jalaal frowned. He knew that the more violence-oriented guardians of the Crucible, regardless if new combatants were pouring in after Fireteam Pluto's miraculous underdog victory last week, were harder to work with than his sophistry-inclined rivals. The words he would say if he thought it could make a difference. His objection would have to be enough.
"Aye." Lord Shaxx finished. "With a vote of seven to one, the motion passes."
Hideo breathed a sigh of relief. "The floor is open."
Jalaal spoke. "Now that we've resolved one issue, I would like to discuss the possibility of opening communications with the Reef again."
"They have shown no interest in parley." Lakshmi offered.
"Yet they don't think twice to blow a scavenger ship out of the belt!" Jalaal shot back. "If we can secure official channels, my people would not be used for target practice."
"Well," Hideo started, but was cut off.
A blaring alarm rang in Lord Shaxx's helmet, loud and shrill enough to give all the Councillors pause.
Calmly, Lord Shaxx reached up and tapped the side of his helmet, dipping his head as he listened intently. A stream of words from an artificial voice was garbled and rushed. However, the transmission opened with an unmistakable distress signal: "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY."
Shaxx nodded once, twice. "Understood. Loud and clear. At once. Out." He clicked the call off and pushed himself to stand up. He addressed the rest of the Council, "Meeting adjourned." He hastily turned on his heel and nearly shoved his chair out of his way as he hurriedly threw the door open and walked into the long hallway and out of the room without a further word.
Arach Jalaal, Executor Hideo, and Lakshmi-2 each shared a worried glance to one another. The noon sun peeked out from behind the clouds to bathe the City below in bright light. It was almost time to break for lunch, anyway.