Chapter 9: The Stranger's Call
"So, what have you got?" Clea questioned as Polari finished her scan of Venus.
Clea was sitting in the Castillo Lancer, twiddling her thumbs as her ghost linked to the vanguard satellites. Unlike the moon, Guardians made trips to Venus regularly, usually to deal with Fallen bases. Thus, satellites were orbiting the planet constantly, and there were several permanent guardian outposts on the surface.
"The coordinates are directly within the Ishtar Academy, and I'll ask once again, are you really going to go into danger based on the word of someone we know nothing about?" Polari once again asked.
Clea set a course for Venus on her navigation computer, saying, "You've been asking me that for the past three days, and the answer hasn't changed"
Once Eris arrived at Vanguard command, all three of the Vanguard leaders were understandably shocked at the sight of Eris, both in seeing her alive after all these years and her new appearance. Regardless they had quickly compensated Clea with a hefty sum of glimmer and ushered Eris away to talk with Ikora.
Now, Clea had no assignments, and that meant it was the perfect time to head to Venus for the mysterious stranger's summon. Guardians were free to do whatever they wanted when they had no missions, and even then, guardians had the choice to refuse nearly any missions from the vanguard. Many times experienced guardians wanted to wait and personally assemble a fireteam based on their preferences.
"Alright, let's test this warp drive, anything I need to know?" Clea questioned.
"Yes, that I absolutely need to do some calculations before we jump," Polari revealed.
Clea noticed her ghost's cautious tone, "This warp drive already came with a navigation computer; what don't I know?"
"The navigation computer is actually supposed to be doing what I'm doing, calculating exactly how long the warp drive needs to be active and when to stop. Basically, I interface with the computer, and it's just a second safety measure, since I can actually think and calculate faster than it." Polari began.
Clea stated at the monitor on the dash and said, "When to stop…I thought you said experienced warlocks can move and react as fast as lightning, is that just a saying?"
"No, not at all, Ikora has hooked her own arc lightning mid-descent when she was trying to master Storm grenades, and that was pretty early in her career. Ikora's ghost trained with another ghost to the point where they can count in picosecond time frames." Polari explained further.
"Wait, picoseconds…that means you can react faster than light? How did you get blasted on Europa, then?" Clea questioned.
"One, I said Ikora's ghost trained with another ghost; I didn't do that training, since I was busy seeking my guardian rather than honing my calculation skills, two, even the fastest ghosts are not immune to being caught off guard. Think of it this way, if you're staring at someone, waiting for them to draw their gun, you'll obviously react a lot faster than when you have to turn around and identify the threat first." Polari countered in an offended tone.
Clea's head sunk, and she apologized to her ghost saying "sorry, I just have a lot to learn…"
"I know, and that's what I'm here for," Polari assured her, with her voice becoming soft almost instantly.
Just then the computer beeped as Polari said "I made the calculations, let's go!"
The space around Clea turned into a multicolored tunnel of light, accelerating to unfathomable speeds.
"Believe it or not, we're not traveling through a portal. In actuality, the warp drive is bending space, allowing us to travel many times faster than light….and we're here!" Polari said, perfectly timing her words as the jump ended.
As Venus came into view, Clea took in the sights of the planet, it was a hazy yellow color, and she couldn't make out any landmasses, unlike being in orbit over Earth.
"Welcome to Venus, the second planet from the sun, and one of the most radically changed planets in the solar system. Before the traveler arrived, it was a wasteland of nothing but lava, rocks, and acid rain," Polari narrated as they descended through the atmosphere, and Clea saw the surface for the first time.
It was a far cry from what her ghost had described, covered in lush green jungles and swampy marshlands.
"So the traveler terraformed the whole planet?" Clea asked.
"Yup, and created new plant life that…" Polari was cut off by a strong male voice saying "Attention, lancer 237, you've entered official vanguard airspace; please state your intention."
Clea sprung into action, saying "Lancer 237 requesting permission to land"
After a brief pause, the voice said, "Lancer 237, cleared to land"
As the Castilo Lancer approached the outpost, Clea randomly frowned and said, "Why do we need to land?"
"Venus's upper atmosphere is pretty unstable, so keeping your ship in orbit is too risky. All that sulfur and acidity had to go somewhere, so all of it dissolved into the atmosphere, giving the planet a very unstable layer of clouds around the entire planet."
The guardian outpost wasn't exactly what Clea expected. It had 20-foot concrete walls, and four towers on the corners of the complex were clearly meant for snipers. In between the towers were titans, two on each wall, each one pacing back and forth, brandishing heavy machine guns. She assumed it was merely a small place for guardians to rest and restock, but this was more akin to a fortress.
As she landed, one of the titans rolled stairs up against her ship, and once Clea got out, the titan spoke.
"Check in with the Deputy Commander before you leave the base, he likes to know when everyone comes in and goes out," the titan ordered before motioning to the building in the center of the complex.
Outpost 21 sat on a plateau overlooking the entirety of the Ishtar Sink, which was actually a large highland area that had been transformed from a barren lava flat to a lush jungle. The outpost had a very simplistic layout, a large hanger and landing pads covering the left side of the complex, a series of barracks on the right, and the command center, as it's named implied, in the direct center of the walls.
Clea entered the command center, and found that the lower floor was filled with communications equipment and a few guardians operating the equipment.
Clea waited for a few minutes before asking, "Where is the deputy commander?"
One of the guardians pointed to the stairs in the back of the room, and Clea headed up the stairs, to see the deputy commander talking to another guardian, who was a full-body hologram standing next to him that was clearly projected from the roof.
"Thank you, Indra; stay safe," the deputy commander said before the other guardian's hologram vanished, and he turned his attention back to the massive holo table that dominated most of the room. Otherwise, the top floor of the command center was nothing more than another watchtower, with windows on all four walls. There was a small desk with two chairs, and a shining titan helmet sitting on it.
As Clea waited for the deputy commander to notice her presence, she sized up the weapon on his back. It was a heavy machine gun that put all of the other titan's weapons to shame. Its ammo box was actually a large cylindrical power cell that funneled energy into the weapon's barrel via a large tube that was clearly coursing with solar light.
"Um…excuse me," Clea asked meekly.
The commander turned around, and Clea instantly froze in place.
Standing across from her was easily the most imposing titan she had ever seen. He was wearing thick, silver-colored armor, with golden hammers emblems of his shoulders, and the mark around his waist was black with a golden lion emblem on it, the symbol of a Titan. However, the more noticeable feature of the armor was a gleaming gold medallion fused into the armor covering his collarbone. The medallion depicted a golden hammer with flames around it. The deputy commander was easily seven feet tall and had red hair along with green eyes, and a noticeable beard covering his face.
Clea was frozen at the sight of him, only for the Titan to hold out his hand and say, "I'm deputy commander Argo; welcome to Venus"
The young warlock reluctantly shook his hand and said, "I'm Clea; I've come to see the Ishtar Academy; I believe there is knowledge there I can learn from"
"Glad to see a young guardian with a thirst for knowledge. Just be careful in that area; I've seen a lot of Vex activity recently around the academy." Argo casually warned.
Clea noticed the titan's friendly tone and said, "you just wanted to say hi…I thought i was in trouble…and what are the Vex?"
The deputy commander laughed for a moment before noticing her concerned look and saying, "oh, sorry, I forgot that you are only nine months old…the Vex are a race of robots who we know very little about. They're hardly worth worrying about when it's just a few of the smaller units, but once the bigger ones start stirring up trouble, best to call for backup"
"I'll be careful, but how did you know I've only been a guardian for nine months?" Clea questioned. Guardians obviously varied in appearance due to their race, but also because their appearance was based on their age when they died. If you were 27 when you died, you looked 27 when you came back as a guardian. Thus guardians only counted their ages based on how long they had lived as a guardian.
"Oh, Rand told me; he and I just chatted a few days ago about how he was hoping to have you added to his regular fireteam for missions…and how much potential you had. If you get in trouble out there, just signal for help," Argo assured her in a friendly tone.
Clea nodded and left command, sighing as she summoned her sparrow and took off. "Actually, a week short of nine months…I really am just a kid compared to some of the other guardians"
"Even Ikora was a brash rookie that no one took seriously; give it time" Polari assured her.
Clea nodded, before thinking for a moment and stopping her sparrow, slamming on the brakes as she said, "No one takes ME SERIOUSLY, even YOU!"
Polari instantly appeared and said, "NO NO No, that's not what I meant at all….Im sorry, I try to cheer you up and only make it worse…"
Clea's rage subsided almost instantly at her ghost's regretful tone as she apologized with, "Your right…..let's just focus on the mission…"
"I found you for a reason….you'll be the best guardian who's ever lived! I know it!" Polari assured her as she dissolved, and Clea blasted off on her sparrow once again.
The warlock laughed at her ghost's enthusiasm and said, "Someday maybe…so what is the ishtar academy?"
"It was a hub of knowledge back in the golden age. The Ishtar Collective was a solar system-spanning conglomerate that developed everything from ships to weapons. The Ishtar Academy was where students came to learn how to be scientists in nearly any field. The coordinates are actually inside the Ishtar Academy's library, where knowledge from all of Earth's past was kept. Unfortunately, due to the Fallen and Vex, not one has ever been able to secure all the knowledge that may very well have survived the collapse" Polari revealed as they arrived at the academy.
Clea levitated for a split second as her sparrow dissolved. Ikora had given her some lessons on levitating, but she still struggled to stay aloft for more than 10 seconds. However, Bella's suggestion of using the power solely to steer in the air and slow her descent was working out quite well.
Entering the academy, Clea was greeted by a massive statue of a woman in a robe with wings on her back, holding half of a disk in her raised hand.
"Guess the Ishtar collective had a taste for statues….directing any activity?" Clea questioned.
"Nope" Polari replied bluntly.
Clea wandered deeper into the academy, and after about five minutes of wandering around, came across a sealed blast door.
"The coordinates are further in, but this blast door hasn't been opened since the collapse" Polari revealed before materializing and firing her beam at the door. After a brief pause, the doorframe shook, and the heavy blast door opened.
There was a loud rumbling sound as the door opened, and within was a set of stairs leading further underground.
"Deeper we go!" Clea joked as she began trekking down the stairs with Polari hovering behind her. After a 360-degree spiral staircase, she arrived at a lab, one that looked hundreds of years more advanced than the academy it sat beneath.
The entire lab was littered with spare gadgets and tools, clearly abandoned in a hurry. Clea spotted a small, rectangle-shaped device and picked up; what caught her eye was the fact that it had what appeared to be silver liquid contained within.
"Any idea what this is?" Clea asked.
Polari scanned it and said, "Oh, a nano dissembler. It contains a type of nanometal paste that can deconstruct objects and store them within. You could store a gun, a helmet or even a ship part, but there's a limit to the size and complexity of the item you can store"
Clean pocketed the device, and then noticed at the back of the bunker was a large computer terminal.
"Can you get anything from that terminal?" Clea questioned.
Polari flew up to the computer and began scanning, before she let out an audible gasp and said, "Oh my….."
"What? Is there something good?" The warlock asked as she rushed up to the terminal.
"Good is a massive understatement; it's well….it's everything. Hundreds of years of records from the golden age, history, literature, blueprints, a lot of it's encrypted, but there's so much here…I have to grab all this, give me some time," Polari requested.
Clea nodded and asked, "I wonder why all this information was stored in a sealed bunker like this…" before walking towards the other end of the lab.
"I'd imagine that during the collapse, a few scientists downloaded it all here, hoping to preserve it…" Polari assumed.
Clea then noticed a smashed open door, and entered, only to gasp as she entered the other room.
Along the walls were six glass tubes, all of which had a crack in them in one place or another. Within the tubes were skeletons, clearly human, and clearly hundreds of years old. They weren't wearing clothes, as they had long since been reduced to dust.
However, upon closer inspection, the tubes were clearly later additions. There was a desk haphazardly lying on its side, and a few of the tubes still had metal wheels on them.
Most eye-catching was the tube in the center of the room. Unlike the other six tubes, it contained what appeared to be a robot. The machine had a single eye, and a head resembling a half-crescent that sloped outward like a dish on the back.
"So….this is a vex…" Clea guessed before turning her attention to another tube with one of the human skeletons.
The tubes were clearly akin to the cryogenic tubes Clea had learned about when studying what info the tower's archives had on the golden age. The tubes were intended to keep a human frozen for an indefinite amount of time, but they had clearly failed due to a lack of maintenance.
"Clea, there's a disturbance back at the top of the tunnel…I think we may have some company… I've got at least 10 minutes of flies left to grab…can you cover me" Polari requested.
Clea ran back to the main lab and then up the spiral stairs, where the air itself was rippling as glowing blue light appeared in disks, before dozens of robots appeared; all of them were exact duplicates of the one vex unit she had saw before, only their red eyes were glowing, and small blasters were bolted onto their arms, along with a glowing white core in their chests.
Clea drew her pulse rifle and began cutting them down, and each went down to about three or four bursts; eventually, she was forced to reload and tossed a solar grenade to cover herself, once again reducing most of her opponents to ashes. Clea dispatched the final vex goblin with a shotgun blast and said, "Argo was right; the little ones aren't too much of a problem."
Just then, the air distorted again, and three new vex arrived; they were twice the size of the goblins, and much more imposing. They had a flat, rounded heads that sat within their torso like an armored helmet, and their limbs were much thicker.
"Me and my big mouth," Clea admitted as she cocked her shotgun. Unlike the goblins who fought from a medium range, the bulky minotaurs rushed forward, using their larger arm cannons to fire large orbs of purple energy that exploded on impact.
Clean hovered back, unleashing a shotgun blast to shatter their shields, and then rushing forward, summoning her light and sticking a more conventional grenade to their leg joints. The single-detonation fusion grenades exploded and sent them flying as their torsos were blown off their legs.
However, the third Minotaur rushed forward and slammed her to the ground with its free hand. The machine's strength was impressive, but Clea was ready to defend herself.
The warlock summoned her dawnblade and coated it in solar light, not nearly enough to be considered a super move, just enough to pierce through the shield and stab the Minotaur straight in its core.
The vex's red eye dimmed as it lost power, falling to the side as Clea stood up, dissolving her dawnblade.
Polari arrived and noticed the remains of the vex around her guardian, saying 'see, your getting better every day"
Clea was about to reply, only for a new voice to cut her off from behind.
"Well fought," said the same voice that had contacted her on the moon.
The figure was wearing the same blue bodysuit with bladed gauntlets, but now that she was close enough, Clea noticed three distinct details of the stranger. First and foremost, she was an exo, with a flat, smooth head and faceplate. Her half-poncho made it clear she had no horns or antennae on her head. The second, she had a strange rifle on her back and lastly, was the fact that her exo body was completely different from any other exo. From what Rand had told Clea, there were only two types of exo bodies, one for males and one for females, to match the human mind uploaded into the frame. The differentiating features exos had were in the heads, some had bulky forehead plates, horns, or communication antennas. The stranger, however, had a flatter face, and was taller and more curvaceous than a standard female exo, almost like someone had tailor-made her body for specific measurements.
"Who are you?" Polari asked, followed up by Clea asking, "Why have you been watching us?"
The stranger walked past her, saying, "I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain"
Clea and Polari blankly stared at the stranger, dumbfounded by her baffling choice of words, only for the stranger to relent and say, "And even if I did explain it, you wouldn't believe me…"
The stranger then noticed one of the minotaurs twitching, desperately trying to move without its legs and began walking towards the damaged vex.
"You're not a guardian…are you?" Polari questioned.
The stranger then began walking toward the twitching Minotaur, saying, "No, I was not forged in light…but I believe that where our paths cross, ground could…" the stranger hinted before putting her foot on the Minotaur's chest core and stomping the last bit of life out of the vex while saying "…break…"
Clea was on edge, still completely unsure of what to make of the stranger.
"Yes…they're here with me right now…" the stranger said while talking into her shoulder, clearly communicating with someone far away.
Polari flew up beside her and questioned, "Who is she talking to" only for the stranger to put her hand on Polari and shove her aside, saying, "I wasn't talking to you, little light"
The stranger then turned her attention back to Clea and said, "You were strong enough to fight off the hive; that's why I know you have a chance of succeeding"
Polari flew back to her guardian's side as Clea asked, "Succeeding in what?"
"Have you ever heard of the black garden?" The stranger inquired.
Clea shook her head, only for Polari to chime in and say "I have…only in legends though…legends that predate even the golden age. The black garden is supposedly a hidden place where "everything grows" and where thoughts and ideas "take root" in the Garden and grow, but no one has ever found concrete proof of its existence."
"It is real, and it is where the greatest threat in the solar system resides, where these machines are born. Find the black garden and rip out its heart, only then will the traveler begin to heal" The stranger revealed while motioning to the vex.
"Can you take us there?" Clea questioned.
The stranger shook her head and said, "No, I'm on my own path; there is a chain of events that have to be set in motion by you and you alone. Assemble a fireteam, with you and Ash, and any experienced guardians you can find"
Clea was about to question how the stranger knew Ash's name, but it wasn't worth the trouble, instead, she asked "If you can't tell me how to find it…then how am I supposed to find it?"
The stranger simply stared at her for a moment, before Polari chimed in again, saying, "if anyone in the solar system would know anything, it would be the Awoken. They arrived in the solar system centuries before the last city was founded"
"Ah yes, the awoken of the reef, the people born from the light and the dark. A side should always be taken little light, even if you can't be sure it's the right one," the stranger warned.
Polari's eye tightened at the stranger's words and said, "My name is Polari!"
The stranger nodded, but then turned around, talking into her shoulder again, saying, "Too late returning…how many? Kill the engines, and don't let them find you!"
The exo drew her rifle and teleported away. However, it wasn't the same type of teleportation that guardians used. Rather white and blue smoke appeared around her before she simply vanished, almost as if reality itself dissolved around her before she vanished.
"So, guess we have to go to the reef…" Clea surmised.
Polari stared at one of the destroyed Vex and said, "It's not that simple….can't we just stay here with the killer robots…"
"No, little light," Clea joked.
Polari stared her guardian deadpan and said, "Don't do that…."
Clea noticed her ghost's unusually harsh tone and said, "im sorry, it was just a joke"
Once again, Polari's tone softened instantly and said, "I know…it's just that…I spent thirteen centuries waiting to find my guardian, then I finally found you, and finally received a name. It means a lot to me!"
The warlock smiled and headed out of the academy, hoping on her sparrow and heading straight towards Outpost 21
Author's notes- IM BACK!
1. Thoughts on Deputy Commander Argo? I decided that each planet the vanguard overseas would have an established commander, considering Sloane seemed to be in charge of all operations on Titan
2. Ah yes, the single worst line of dialogue in video game history, "I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain" I had a very long debate on whether or not to keep it in, but decided to keep it. Still, I decided to add what I think the Stranger should've said, and at least some justification on why she couldn't just tell you exactly what you needed.
Leave a review! I desperately want feedback.