Chapter 10: The Queen's Ransom
"ONE MINUTE LEFT!" Lord Shaxx shouted over comms.
Clea dove behind cover as blasts of arc lighting flew overhead. The crucible arena was a run-down, abandoned town about twenty miles from the Last City. Clea was currently sheltering behind a small stone wall in an old park.
"So much for a promising start!" Clea joked as she threw a solar grenade in the vague direction of her attackers. The score was 57 to 58, and the first to sixty would win, but she had yet to get a single kill.
Her first crucible match had only served to reinforce her belief that the crucible was simply not for her. Unfortunately, all guardians were required to complete three crucible matches every six months, otherwise, they were forced to report to Shaxx for a week of training, and with Clea's dislike of Titans, she was determined to avoid that.
Just then Cassie appeared next to her, deactivating her invisibility and saying "you gotta play aggressive, NO TIME LEFT!"
Cassie then ran out of cover and gunned down two other guardians, but then another guardian jumped out of cover behind her.
Clea leveled her pulse rifle to cover her teammate, but then she froze as she saw who was leveling his hand cannon at Cassie.
it was Ash, and Clea couldn't bring herself to shoot him, even if there was no risk of permanent damage.
Ash spotted Clea and delivered three quick shots to her chest, killing her before then putting Cassie down with a shot from his sniper.
"AND THAT'S THE GAME, CEASE FIRE!" Shax announced.
As Polari revived Clea, Ash walked up and waited for her to get back up.
Clea stood up with the bullet holes gone as Ash said "You hesitated.."
The warlock nodded and said "Yeah, I'm just not comfortable attacking other guardians, let alone killing them"
Just then Cassie was revived and ran up to Clea, socking her in the jaw and saying "We lost because of you! I had a 15-win streak!"
Clea rubbed her aching cheek and said "I'm sorry, this is my first match.
Cassie scoffed and left, while Ash shook his head and replied "Sorry about that, Cassie is super competitive"
Clea nodded before heading back to Shaxx's tent where all the guardians were gathering. There were cameras all over the area, and the titan was already putting together a highlight reel for posterity.
"you all fought well...well, almost all. See you next week!" Shaxx said before dismissing them.
With the crucible match over, Clea was free for the rest of the day, and that meant it was time for her to head to the reef. She transmatted back to her ship and Polari set a course for the asteroid belt. Soon enough, they jumped, and within five minutes they were at the edge of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
"Sure, you want to head in there?" Polari warned.
"I am," Clea reaffirmed.
The Castillo Lancer slowly entered the asteroid belt and began to move through it.
"So, any idea on where the reef is?" Clea questioned.
Polari shook her eye back and forward, saying, "You've already arrived. The reef isn't one place. The awoken have cities hidden throughout the entire asteroid belt. Remember, the entire ring of the asteroid belt is 92 million miles across. No one outside of the reef actually knows the exact location of the various cities, as most of the original Awoken that returned to earth say the queen had ways of concealing or even moving the cities."
"Why do so many awoken isolate themselves from the rest of the solar system? You think they'd be willing to cooperate with earthborn awoken, or awoken guardians like me" Clea questioned. All the evidence suggested she was a reefborn Awoken in her past life, since her ship had crashed on Europa, and according to Polari, what little remained of the craft was clearly not of earthen design. From what she had researched, those who had left the reef and earthborn awoken were considered traitors and outcasts by the reef.
That research also led to Clea discovering Awoken were the smallest minority in the last city, despite the existence of exos, which hadn't been produced in over one thousand years and weren't reproducing. Many awoken didn't see the point in having kids when they weren't aging, and while half human children followed the same rules, those who were only one-third awoken would age at a slow, but noticeable rate when compared to their parents. According to the most recent census, humans were 95 percent of the city population, with exos being 3 percent and awoken encompassing the remaining two percent.
"Relations with the reef are…complicated to say the least. The Queen's policy over the years has been one of very strict neutrality. She doesn't want to work with any guardians, but she doesn't want to make enemies of the guardians either. On one occasion where the awoken military's attacks on fallen killed a few guardians with their paracausal airstrikes, the commanding officer was banished and forced to serve as the Queen's liaison to the tower for decades, but her exile must have ended, because she left the city a few months before I found you on Europa. The queen is supposedly the oldest living being in the solar system, so if anyone knows where the black garden is…it's her" Polari finished.
After about an hour of aimlessly wandering around the asteroid belt, Clea spotted something on one of the asteroids, a small purple flag with an all too familiar symbol on it, a circle with eight spikes surrounding it, three long gem shapes, and two triangles.
"Give me the controls," Clea requested.
Polari handed over control, and Clea buried the stick in her gut. Pulling up at a 90-degree angle and flying up for a solid minute before leveling off and heading straight for five more minutes, then taking multiple turns.
"Where are you going? How do you know how to avoid running into any bigger asteroids?" Polari demanded, stunned by Clea's flying skills. It was like she was flying a course she had sped through multiple times.
Clea shook her head as she took another sharp turn and dived straight down, saying "Don't ask me, just a feeling…"
Soon enough, the asteroid belt began to thin, and they arrived in a massive opening, devoid of asteroids and filled with remnants of dozens of different ships.
"It's a graveyard…" Clea muttered.
"Every ship that could fly tried to flee Earth during the collapse, but none of them got past here…," Polari stated soberly.
Clea looked around at some of the debris, and suddenly there was a pit in her stomach. Just like the strange feeling she had when she first learned to fly a ship, there was a nagging sense of familiarity. Only this time, the feeling was that of fear in concern, like something deep down was telling her she was about to be attacked.
She looked directly behind her, and her fear was confirmed. On one of the pieces of debris, a piece of it broke off, but it wasn't debris, it was a ship. A ship dropped off of the debris and ignited its engines, with two wings rising up in a V shape over the central body. Out of nowhere, a second ship appeared, and just like that, there were two ships directly behind her. In less than 10 seconds, she was at her opponent's mercy.
The Castilo lancer had shields, and weapons, but Clea had never been in a dogfight before, as far as her memories were concerned. She had her doubts about taking on two enemy pilots on their home turf.
"Attention, unidentified ship, you have crossed into Awoken territory. State your intentions or be fired upon by order of the Queen" said a female voice over the communication channel.
Clea took a deep breath, considering her response carefully, before replying with, "I am a guardian from earth. I've come to seek the counsel of the queen for an important purpose."
There was a brief pause, Clea clutched the control stick tightly, ready to take evasive action against the ships behind her.
"Conform to my trajectory; any deviation will be taken as an act of aggression," the awoken pilot warned before pulling out ahead of the lancer while the other ship remained on her tail.
After five minutes, she arrived at a hanger hidden within an asteroid belt. While Clea landed, her two escorts hovered outside the hanger, clearly with their weapons trained on her. As soon as she landed, two female awoken in black jumpsuits emerged from a door, armed with sleek black and purple colored auto rifles. Both had the awoken symbol in their breastplate and a helmet that covered their entire face apart from their nose.
Clea put on her helmet, since she had a nagging hunch the guards would be especially untrusting of an awoken guardian, since they would probably assume she was earthborn.
As soon as she stepped down from her cockpit, one of the guards reached into her jacket and confiscated her shotgun, while the other took the pulse rifle off her back.
With her weapons confiscated, Clea was led down a hallway, and, after a short walk, came to a massive door where two more awoken in black jumpsuits were standing guard. It didn't escape Clea that every guard she had seen was female, but it wasn't worth focusing on.
The doors were opened, and she emerged on a long central walkway leading to an empty throne. The throne sat under a canopy of cloth and metal parts, and the room was completely open, with nothing but glass on all sides. It looked as though one could fall off the side into space. The walkway had long, tube-like lights on panels lining the rails of the walkway, and a red carpet leading up to the throne.
The throne was empty, but standing in front of it was a male awoken with his back to the door. He was wearing a tattered cloak, and had a hand cannon on his right hip. He had a metal chest plate and armored shoulder pads.
He turned around, and Clea froze. His skin was a very dark blue, bordering on grey, and he had piercing yellow eyes, along with short black hair that ran down one side of his face.
"So this is the trespasser demanding an audience?" The awoken male asked in an irritated voice.
Clea was lucky she was still wearing her helmet, because she was scowling behind her visor. It wasn't the man's voice or snide tone that bothered her, but rather an unexplainable six sense at the sight of his face. It was like she was supposed to know something about the person in front of her, but she couldn't place the feeling, and focusing on the feeling only served to give her a headache.
"I didn't mean to trespass, I've come to seek the Queen's counsel on an urgent matter. Who are you?" Clea asked, trying her hardest to not sound irritated.
The awoken began walking towards Clea, getting face to face as he said "My name is Uldren Sov, and I am one of her grace's advisers. The queen herself judges who may or may not enter her realm. Personally, I don't see why she should be available for whatever trash washes up on the shore of the reef."
Clea was about to respond when two Fallen dregs appeared from behind the throne armed with spears.
The warlock may have been stripped of her conventional weapons, but she was far from helpless, she instantly locked eyes with the dregs and summoned her dawnblade.
Just as she was about to launch a solar blade, Ulrdren grabbed her arm and held a knife to her throat, while the two guards behind her raised their rifles to her head. The fallen leveled their spears but didn't attack, which was surprising. More surprisingly was that Uldren had managed to match her reaction speed. Clea wasn't the fastest guardian by any means, but even the newest guardians were far faster than the average human or awoken, and the fact that Uldren was able to catch her arm and draw his knife as fast as he did was impressive.
Just then, another awoken arrived from behind the throne. Clea didn't even need to guess that this was the queen. She was wearing a very distinct purple top with a fur collar and a black vest, along with form-fitting black pants and boots with stiletto heels and a flowing piece of purple fabric hanging from her belt that covered her rear. Her face was the lightest shade of blue possible, very nearly white, she had bright blue eyes that were bright even for an awoken, and her hair was snow white.
"It is afraid of the fallen; it does not know that these are mine," the queen said as she took a seat, and the two fallen raised their spears to a guarding stance.
Clea allowed her dawn blade to dissipate, and Uldren sheathed his knife. Clea had very nearly gotten herself killed, but the queen seemed more amused by her reaction than defensive.
"Apologies, your grace.." Ulrden said as he walked towards the throne and stood at the queen's side.
Clea once again paused to consider her words and said, "I am looking for the black garden, and I believe your grace is one of the only ones with the experience and wisdom to help me find it"
The queen simply stared at Clea, and she didn't like it. There was something about the queen that didn't sit well. Her very presence was commanding, and merely looking at her made Clea want to back away rather than give in to an unexplainable urge to bow in respect. The young warlock couldn't tell if this was part of the powers the queen possessed or just her instincts once again fighting with her lack of memories.
"And why do you want to go there?" Uldren questioned.
"I seek to destroy the darkness at its heart" Clea stated firmly.
Udrlen scoffed and said, "You want to turn it into a battleground…how unimaginative."
Cela once again ignored his snide tone and asked, "Do you know where it is?"
"Of course we know where it is! I've even been there! It's getting in that's the hard part," Uldren warned.
"Can you tell us where it is and how to get in?" Clea asked again, pushing aside the idea that Uldren had supposedly been to a place that had only been spoken in legends for thousands of years.
Uldren's eyes narrowed as he said, "And why would we give you such rare information?"
Clea knew she wasn't getting anywhere; she had to try something, anything, to sway their opinion. If she didn't get the queen on her side, she probably was going to be killed on the spot.
"Because the vex are a threat to everyone, and with such a threat, a side should always be taken, even if you can't be sure it's the right one," Clea said, taking a shot in the dark with the stranger's words.
Upon Clea repeating the stranger's words, the queen's face changed. It was only for a fleeting moment, but her eyes widened ever so slightly before returning to her blank expression. Not a single person in the room had noticed it, but the queen had reacted to Clea's particular choice of words.
"The queen requests council with her brother…" she said, causing Uldren to turn around and walk back towards the throne, kneeling down beside his sister.
As Uldren and the Queen exchanged whispers' Clea stared at them in confusion. They looked nothing alike, with different skin tone, hair color, and eye color, maybe Uldren was adopted, but given the limited information Clea had researched about the queen in the city's archive's, she hardly seemed like someone who would care for an adopted brother.
Uldren stood up and turned his gaze to Clea, saying, "Fine, why not? We'll make you a key, but we need the head of a Vex gate lord!"
Clea paused before asking, "why do you need a vex head?"
"Oh, we don't, and I highly doubt you'll get one, but that's the only hope you have of getting into the black garden." Uldren explained condescendingly.
"I will return," Clea said as calmly as she could.
"Or die on Venus…" Uldren mocked.
Clea fought the urge to snap back and left without another word.
Upon returning to the hanger, Clea was handed her weapons back, and climbed into her ship.
As soon as she took off, the two ships that had escorted her in pulled up on her wings, and she was hailed again with the words "Follow us out."
Clea did as instructed; the ships dived straight down towards a massive asteroid that had a metal door installed, large enough for the three ships to fly through. It opened and led out to the asteroid field into empty space. It was clearly an artificial shortcut the awoken had created.
As soon as they were through, the ships vanished back into the asteroid belt, and Clea breathed a sigh of relief.
Polari appeared beside her in the cockpit and said, "That was intense…now what?"
Clea punched in the coordinates for Venus and said, "Now, we get what they asked for…"
Author's notes- sorry it took so long..
1. A few more hints of Clea's past...hehe
2. You'll notice Clea kept her helmet on, unlike the scene in the game. There are two reasons, one, it makes the queen calling the guardian an "It" a bit less odd. The second reason she kept her helmet on is because [REDACTED]
3. Welcome to round one of what I like to call "Re-run Destiny 1" where I incorporate lore from later on in Destiny, such as the queen having contact with the exo stranger throughout the years, which wasn't revealed until Destiny 2.
4. This chapter is a bit on the shorter side, but this was the natural place to end it.
I see all these favorites and follows, but I'd appreciate some reviews; Tell me what you like about the story so far, even if it's nothing specific; I'd like to hear from you guys what you like so far?