Destiny, Episode VII: Forgotten Shores
Previous Episode: Side Episode II, The Speaker
Next Episode: Episode VIII, The Last Array
The Tower, the Last City, Earth
Day 013
Ikora gave a wry smile as she examined the somewhat sleepy faces of the Fireteam. "Good morning, Guardians." She said, amicably enough.
"Good morning, Madam Ikora." Koga replied politely, fighting off that primal need for sleep as best as he could. He and the others had been awoken rather rudely by a missive by the Vanguard only a few minutes prior, and with the dawn sun only just beginning to crest over the horizon, it looked like it was going to be the beginning of a long day. "I believe you sent for us?" The elder Warlock nodded slowly, before her Ghost projected a hologram in the air between the four of them, something Koga instantly recognized as being a map of the Cosmodrome.
"Beyond the Mothyard, and away from the Skywatch, is an area known as the Forgotten Shore." Ikora started, her eyes reflecting the soft blue light of the image strikingly against her brown pupils. "This area was once a dock used by the Cosmodrome during the Golden Age, but now it's a graveyard of rusted ships. At least, that's what we thought." The image from the Ghost faded away, but Ikora didn't even blink as it vanished. "Reports are coming in that the Fallen are tearing into machines all across the area, scavenging them for some unknown purpose."
"Are they trying to set up some kind of perimeter?" Basilisk asked, crossing his arms as he thought. "The ships could act as bunkers." Ikora shook her head slowly, but had a ghost of a smile on her lips.
"Zavala asked the same thing when he heard, but it doesn't seem to be the case." The smile faded as she returned to business, but Koga had to suppress a grin of his own when he saw Basilisk look away, embarrassed. "We'd like your team to investigate. Find out what the Fallen are doing with what they salvage, and trace it back to its source if you can." Lisset gave a curt nod.
"I think we can do that." She said, confidently.
"I think you can, too." Ikora replied, returning the nod. "Good luck, Guardians. May the Traveler protect you." Koga gave a soft bow, a gesture matched by Lisset, while Basilisk snapped a slightly faster-than-normal salute, and the three of them turned to leave. Koga could swear he could hear Boudica stifling a laugh as they walked to the Hangar. The Titan must have heard it too, because his pace kept getting faster and faster as he walked.
= = = = = = =
The frost-bitten ground crunched under Basilisk's boots as he transmatted onto the edge of the Steppes. Lisset sat on a rock nearby, her scout rifle shouldered as she looked out for trouble. "Anything interesting?" Basilisk asked, his pulse rifle hanging by one hand as he walked over to the Hunter. Lisset didn't even move her head as she spoke.
"I saw a small foot patrol, but they transmatted away just before you got here." She answered. Lisset lowered her rifle and hopped onto her feet before turning to face the Exo. "I guess they're not too concerned about the Steppes with the Hive bearing down on them."
"I don't blame them." Basilisk replied, frowning as best as an Exo could under his helmet. "There's a real possibility they could overrun the whole area." Guardian deployments to the Cosmodrome had increased since the Hive had begun their campaign for Old Russia, but they were still greatly outnumbered by the hundreds of Fallen, and thousands of Hive, that prowled the dead facility. The prognosis wasn't good, the Titan had to admit, but that was why they were there.
A thought crossed the Titan's mind, and he cleared his throat. The sound came out a bit more garbled than the Exo had expected, but Lisset's head popped up the instant he made it. "How are you holding up, Lisset?"
"I'm green to go." She replied a touch too quickly. Basilisk shook his head.
"I'm not talking about that. I know that the City isn't your home, and I don't blame you for being a bit resentful about being a Guardian." He paused a moment before continuing. "Are you doing okay with all of this?"
Lisset didn't speak for a time, mulling over what words to say, if any at all. When she finally did reply, her voice wasn't much louder than the chilly wind that whistled between the rocks and crags. "I try not to think too much about it, but I've had my life stripped away from me twice over." The Hunter gripped her rifle just a bit tighter. "I try to make myself useful, but it's going to be a long time before I think of the Tower as being my home." The Titan slowly nodded before patting her on the shoulder.
"If you ever want to talk, find me." He said. "I know what it's like to lose. As far as I know, I've lost everyone."
There was a roar as Koga's Arcadia flew low over the Cosmodrome, and with a flash of light the Warlock transmatted onto the cold earth, hand cannon at the ready. He gave a nod to the Titan, who nodded back. "Everything okay?" Koga asked, walking to the others.
"Yeah, we're good." The Exo replied brusquely, before holding out his hand. Boudica apparated into existence, and stared at her keep for a second, analyzing silent as was her fashion. "Boudica, what do you recommend?" The Ghost blinked as it switched gears before floating to the center of the circle the Guardians had formed.
"The Forgotten Shore is several miles away from where we are now." She stated, though her voice seemed to be a touch less stoic than it usually was. "There's a Guardian outpost not far from here. If we can reach it, we can enable our Sparrow-link."
"Sparrow-link?" Koga repeated, confused. "What is that?"
"A Sparrow is a light personal vehicle capable of rapid speeds over any terrain." Boudica explained. There was a hum, and an image of one appeared in mid-air. It was a lithe looking thing, with a two-pronged front before the angular body, upon which was a seat, a handle bar, and the engine. It was simple looking, but there it was clear to Basilisk that this was meant for maximum speed. "We can transmat it from your ships once we get the link established. They're stored standard-issue with any Guardian craft."
"It's too bad we didn't know about this earlier." Lisset remarked, dryly. "Would have made getting to the Skywatch a lot easier." Basilisk just shrugged.
"Well, we know about it now." He replied. "So, get the Sparrows, get to the Forgotten Shore, and find the source. Seems simple enough."
"It tends to." Koga noted. "I doubt it is as simple as it appears to be." As Boudica vanished back into the Titan's palm, Basilisk hefted his pulse rifle to his shoulder.
"Only one way to find out." The Exo said, before pacing off into the wild, his fireteam following close behind.
+ + + + + + +
Lisset tried not to think about what had been said between her and Basilisk as she paced through the ever-cold Steppes. They were covering the same ground as they had the last time the three of them had come to the Cosmodrome, which made the whole situation seem eerily familiar. The monolithic colony ships still stared down at her, like she was something that didn't belong here. She couldn't blame them. "Are you okay?" Dal asked, quietly. It was a private comm, the Ghost intentionally walling off their conversation from the rest.
"I'm fine, Dal." Lisset replied, but even to her it was a hollow-sounding answer. What she had said to Basilisk had been the truth. Even nearly two weeks after she had come to the Tower in a barely-functional Galliot, it was hard for her to see her fellow Guardians as actual comrades in arms. She felt like a conscript, which was somewhat apt given that she had been given little consent when she was Risen. "I'm just handling everything as it comes." Every so often, she dreamed of the Reef, but it was like seeing through a cloud. Faces once so familiar were shrouded in darkness, and more than a few were simply alien to the eye. The Ghost didn't reply, but she could tell that he wasn't buying her response. Lisset wouldn't have bought it herself had she been on the receiving end.
The Hunter looked over at Koga, who walked steadily beside her. Like her, the man was adjusting slowly to his new world, unlike the Titan that walked before them both. Basilisk was driven by something, though she had only the faintest idea what, and had thrown himself completely into the tasks before him. Koga, meanwhile, seemed to be curious over everything, constantly busying himself when off-duty by reading and rereading anything he could get his hands on. The Corsair felt a twinge of jealousy; Koga was the only one of them that didn't seem to have anything tying him back to before he was a Guardian. She could only imagine what it would be like to see the world unhindered.
"I wonder where they were going." Koga suddenly asked to no one in particular.
"What?" Lisset said. The road before them sloped down into the runoff canal that they had crossed before. Gravel and debris skidded down the face of the rise as her boots struggled to keep her secure to the ground. The Warlock gestured to the colony ships, sitting silently where they had been abandoned.
"The ships." He replied. "I wonder where they were going." He paused for a moment, thinking. "I think I was supposed to be on one of those." Lisset frowned under her helmet.
"What makes you think that?" She probed. It was a curious conversation for the Warlock to strike up, and Lisset couldn't help but feel cautious about it. Perhaps Dal's comms channel hadn't been quite as secure as he had thought.
"I was Risen beyond the wall, surrounded by rusted cars and skeletons." Koga answered. "I remember being a researcher, and I remember coming here to flee from something. I think I was supposed to leave on one." Another pregnant pause. "I wonder why I did not. I wonder why any of this did not. I wonder why we were going."
"You wonder a lot." The Hunter prodded, climbing up the other side of the ravine. The rusted hulks of the Mothyards lay before them, and watching over everything sat the Skywatch, its domes blotting out the horizon.
"Someone has to." The Warlock replied, smiling. Lisset laughed despite herself, and suddenly it didn't feel quite so cold anymore. The breeze licked at her armor, and she was standing on a world as alien to her as it must have been to those she had once fought beside, but for a brief moment it felt like she was back with the Corsairs, joking and talking and asking questions about this dead universe while they went to their target. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad after all, she thought to herself as she followed Basilisk to a rusted structure.
"This is the place." The Titan announced, Boudica floating away from his armor in a flash of blue light. Despite the worn-down appearance, Lisset could spy something rather out of place inside the Golden Age shack. It was a computer of some sort, or perhaps a relay, and it looked quite new-the handiwork of the City, and the Guardians who had put it there. Basilisk's Ghost fired its beam at the relay for a time, before vanishing.
"You can access your Sparrows now." She said, her voice echoing in all three of the Guardians' headsets.
"Bringing ours down now." Dal noted, and a second later a grey-colored vehicle appeared before her, transmatting into existence with a hiss. It was exactly the same design as the one that Boudica had displayed, standard to a T, but Lisset couldn't help but grin as she approached it. As soon as she stepped next to it, the machine roared to life with a high-pitched scream, and jumped up from the ground where it lay to about the height of her hip, hovering in mid-air as powerful thrusters hummed underneath the chassis.
"I think I'm going to like this thing." The Hunter said, clambering aboard. As it had with her arsenal of weapons, her armor had already begun to interact with Lisset's subconscious. It felt like she had always been driving them the instant she grabbed the handlebars. To her left, Lisset could see Koga and Basilisk on their Sparrows, though she had to admit that the ungainly heavy armor on the latter looked somewhat off on the relatively nimble and lithe Sparrow beneath.
"Just be careful." Dal chided in her helmet. "There's two of us in here, remember?" Lisset grinned as she revved the throttle, the engine behind her spewing plasma like a spigot with every twist of the handle.
"What's the matter?" She said, smiling like it was her birthday. "Afraid of going fast?"
"I think I'm more afraid of you right now." The Ghost dryly quipped, before wisely shutting his mouth.
"Alright, team." Basilisk said over comms, his voice otherwise drowned out by the roar of engines. "Let's ride." The Hunter didn't need any encouragement, and kicked the engine to full. She shot off like a bullet, her Sparrow humming beneath her, as the others followed close behind. It was good to be alive.
- - - - - - -
Trying to keep up with Lisset was harder than Koga expected. The Hunter drove the Sparrow like she was possessed, and given the occasional snippet of giddy laughter that floated over comms as she jumped her ride over every ramp imaginable wasn't helping that impression. The Fallen defending the Mothyards seemed to be stunned as the Guardians rode past, firing at them well after their window had closed. Where they had once fought a running battle to the Skywatch was now just a minor obstacle to avoid as the Warlock weaved between stone and rusted debris to keep up with the others.
"We need to take a right ahead!" Basilisk shouted as he rode. "The pass will take us to the Shore!"
"Got it!" Lisset yelled in reply, and suddenly her Sparrow peeled right in a sharp turn towards a small riverbed that Koga hadn't noticed before. The morning sun reflected beautifully over the water as the Titan and Warlock turned to follow, glistening as the three of them rode past. Water streamed down from the edges of cliffs, hiding dark caverns behind them. It was something out of a postcard, though its picturesque nature was marred by the colony ships ever against the horizon. Following the riverbed took some time, as it winded its way past rivers and small drops, but eventually it opened up to reveal the Shores proper.
It was as if someone had taken a port and drained almost all of the water out of it. Massive rusted ships sat where they had been abandoned, sticking out of the sand as if they had always been there. Beyond them all sat the waterline, well lower than what it must have been centuries ago. Why the water had receded, Koga couldn't say, but it wasn't hard to imagine the Collapse had caused equal catastrophe upon the environment as it had upon civilization. To the left were rusted buildings up on a craggy mountain where the waterline must have stopped ages ago, and to the right was a curious looking island in the distance, a structure sitting on it.
Lisset slowed her Sparrow to a stop, her left leg dropping to the ground as she waited for the others to catch up. Koga parked to one side, while Basilisk took the other, the three of them perfectly in line as they examined the area. "So, any ideas what we're looking for?" Lisset asked.
"Funny you mention it." Kita suddenly interrupted over comms. The Ghost was wisely staying inside Koga's armor; the Warlock could already seen Fallen moving on the hulks, sniper rifles in hand. Why they hadn't started shooting yet, however, was a mystery. "I'm detecting a rogue signal, not Fallen, but it's coming in patches. The Fallen have set up relays of some kind around here. Get me close, and I can try to trace what's going on."
"You heard the Ghost." Basilisk said, getting off his Sparrow. It transmatted away in a hiss, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. The others followed suit, readying their weapons as they got their footing.
"The first one is in that wreck right ahead of us." Kita continued. "I'm pushing a marker to the team now." A grey diamond appeared on the Warlock's HUD a second later, and Koga began to steadily move towards it, his hand cannon at the ready.
"Those snipers are going to engage us any second now." Lisset muttered, her scout rifle aimed at them.
"It is odd they haven't." Koga replied, his eyes glancing between his destination and the Vandals scoping them out. Suddenly, the Fallen turned and walked away, leaving the battlement empty. As they moved, Koga could swear he saw a flash of gold on their capes. "What-" There were a series of deep booms, and suddenly flashes of obsidian fire lanced out at the team.
"Captain!" Basilisk shouted, throwing his flashbang without hesitation. The Devil Captain moved towards them from around the side of the ship from where he had been hiding, but the explosion consumed him in blue light. When the flash cleared, the Fallen stood there, dazed. A shot from Lisset's rifle made sure he never recovered. His entourage appeared a moment later, firing blindly in a rage. Koga let his hand cannon do the talking, the weapon pounding against his hand every time the he squeezed the trigger. It wasn't much of a firefight, the echo of gunfire dwindling away only a few seconds later, but it had been long enough to get everyone back in the fighting mood.
"What was that?" Koga asked, his mind racing. "Who were those Fallen? Why did they walk away?" The idea of the team being hunted by a group of snipers wasn't exactly a pleasant one. The fact that they were being watched was just as bad.
"I don't know." Basilisk replied. "Keep an eye out for them. I doubt they're gonna watch us forever." The Titan swapped to his shotgun, the pulse rifle fizzling away. "Let's keep moving." Koga shot Lisset a sideways glance, who returned it; something was very, very wrong, but no one was quite sure why. It wasn't the behavior that either of them were used to. The Fallen had a tendency to shoot before thinking, so watching and retreating was an unwelcome surprise.
"Any ideas, Kita?" Koga quietly asked.
"I have one, but I don't think you're going to like it." The Ghost answered, hesitantly. Whatever it was, it was going to have to wait, as Basilisk suddenly jumped up, his Light bending the universe so he could slowly arc up to some platform out of sight. He landed with a heavy clunk, and as both the Warlock and Hunter rounded the corner that the Titan had a moment before, they could see where he was standing, a good story above them. Koga grit his teeth, and let the Light flow through him as he made his own jump, gliding considerably less powerfully up to where Basilisk was standing. Lisset simply bounded her way up to them, her movements almost effortless.
With the three of them now on the same level, Basilisk simply turned and pointed at a strange looking machine. It was definitely Fallen, with a bulbous shell almost like some kind of chitin, similar to the plating on the Skiffs that occasionally buzzed through the area. There were odd parts to it, though, things that didn't look like they belonged. Namely, tall antennae poles that stretched skyward, humming with energy. From the machines came a faint sound, almost like music. "That must be what we're looking for." The Exo said, pacing towards it. He tilted his head to the side as he listened to the garbled song coming from the device. It was like the Titan recognized it from somewhere, but even he wasn't sure from where. It must have spooked him, because he took an instinctual step back, and anchored his rifle to his shoulder, but he didn't quite fall into his typical combat stance. "Let Kita have at it." Basilisk said, his voice just a tinge lower than normal. When Kita fizzled into existence, he glanced at the Exo curiously before continuing on to the machine.
"This is very odd indeed." Kita muttered to himself as he began to prod it with his beam. "It's some strange combination of Fallen and Golden Age equipment; fairly well crafted, too. There's a signal being tapped here, but this isn't the source of it." The Ghost turned around and floated back to his keep. "There's another tap on that island-thing over there. If you put me there, I ought to be able to find where this signal is coming from." Koga looked at the structure in the distance that loomed over the rest of the Forgotten Shore. Somehow, he doubted that was a coincidence.
"Will do." Koga replied as his Ghost disappeared back into the armor. "We should hurry, before more Fallen come."
"Our our tails decide to show again." Lisset added, walking to the side of rusted deck. Basilisk slowly, hesitantly, nodded.
"Lead the way." He said, glancing over at the Fallen tap as he walked to the Hunter. Koga watched him as he moved, concerned. What could get under an Exo's skin?
= = = = = = =
It was like seeing your own ghost, Basilisk realized as his mind swam. The sound was distorted, distended, and almost completely unrecognizable, but it was something that he couldn't forget now that he heard it. He had heard it before, and while his memories struggled to produce a name to the sound, or even a face, he knew he had heard it before. Before the deployment to Venus. Before the last stand at the Ishtar Campus. Before his squad fell. Before he fell. Before he rose again.
"What's wrong?" Boudica pressed, concerned. He had been dodging her questions for a while now, and it hadn't really been fair. It wasn't just him under the weather, either. Koga seemed darkly fascinated with the ruins around him. Lisset had told him to his face that she was torn between her old life and this new one. And here he was, his mind running hot because of a few strains of Tchaikovsky. At this point, he didn't even care why he knew that name.
"We can worry about this later." He replied, gruffly. It was brusque and insensitive, but he didn't have the luxury of stopping to discuss this. "I'm sorry." He added, hoping it would at least soften his words. She didn't say a word in response.
Basilisk didn't think much as he dropped down from the top of the ship, landing in the sand with a crunch, nor did he think much as he Sparrowed up to the location of the second tap. When the team arrived at the base of the island, they were greeted by the usual Devils welcoming party, but Basilisk barely remembered fighting them. Every impact of plasma against his shields, and every burst of his rifle, felt only like a light tap against him, almost indistinguishable from the breeze. When the Exo began to think again, he was at the top of the hill, his team next to him. Basilisk couldn't see through their helmets, but he knew that their faces were marked with concern.
"Are you okay?" Koga asked, his hand cannon at his side. Basilisk nodded.
"I'm fine, don't worry about me." The Exo replied quickly. Before anyone could say anything else, Basilisk shrugged his head in the direction the second Fallen device, sitting in the shade of the collapsed structure. "Get your Ghost working on that." Koga and Lisset glanced at each other again, before looking back at the Titan.
"We, uh, already did." Lisset spoke, hesitation in her voice. Basilisk blinked, surprised. He had zoned out, but for that long? "Something's wrong, Basilisk. Tell us what's wrong." The Hunter had stepped forward, her weapon dangling from her free hand while her other was half-outstretched in a pleading, open gesture. "Please."
"It's nothing." Basilisk dismissed, sighing. His weapon felt so heavy in his arms, pulling him down relentlessly to the Earth. "I've been missing a few recharge cycles-"
"What?" Boudica suddenly interjected. She apparated between the three of them, staring at the Titan with her one eye. "Why would you do that? What were you thinking?" She sounded like a mother, concern channeled into a kind of righteous anger. It hadn't been a lie, what the Exo had said, but it hadn't been quite the truth either. He had been missing recharge cycles, but it hadn't been because he had forgotten about them. The Deep Stone Crypt loomed over all of his dreams like a scar across his mind, and every time he saw it, the Army ripped him apart, piece by piece. None of that had anything to do with the music floating daintily from the Fallen tap in the corner of the room, at least as far as Basilisk could tell.
"I had work to get done." The Exo answered, turning his head away. It was a lame excuse, but if it'd shut them up, it'd do. Boudica beeped like she was about to say something, but Kita suddenly interrupted the lot of them.
"As much as I'd like to figure out what's going on with our Titan friend here," the Ghost started. His voice was pointed, unconvinced at Basilisk's story. If he wasn't, then there was a good chance that Boudica would come to doubt it herself. It wouldn't be long before there was a confrontation, but he couldn't very well afford something like that now. "I have managed to triangulate the Fallen taps to a source. It seems they've set up some kind of connection hub inside the Skywatch. Pushing a marker now." As soon as he said it, the objective diamond appeared, overlaid across reality.
"I am afraid that my Ghost is correct." Koga noted, softly. "Let us finish our task, then we can speak more about what troubles you, Basilisk." The Titan slowly nodded, defeated. They were going to drag it out of him, one way or another. He let his rifle vanish as his Sparrow transmatted itself to the surface at the speed of a thought.
"Lead the way then, Warlock." The Titan muttered as he clambered aboard his Sparrow. "Let's get this done."
- - - - - - -
The objective was on the other side of the Forgotten Shore, up the cliffside that the Warlock had spotted earlier, and on an ancient road that looped around. The entire ride up, Koga's mind was racing, trying to understand what bothering Basilisk. When they had accessed the first tap, the Titan had responded to the faint music coming from it like a threat, but ever since then he seemed to have been entranced by it. Koga doubted it was just some ancient PA system looping the same music over and over for centuries, and even if it had been, why would it have caused Basilisk to act so? The Titan had been Risen on Venus, millions of miles away from the Earth and the Cosmodrome.
"What do you think is wrong with Basilisk?" Koga whispered to his Ghost as they rode up to the small garage access linking the Shore to the Skywatch on their Sparrow.
"I don't know." Kita admitted. "It's something about the music. It's Old Russian, by a man named Tchaikovsky, but I have no idea why it'd cause a reaction like this."
"He has heard it before." Koga noted. "Whatever were the circumstances behind that, they could not have been pleasant." Kita just beeped in agreement, and fell silent. Koga let his Sparrow slow to a stop at the entrance to a large underpass-the garage that they had been looking for. "This is it." He said, getting off his ride. The others pulled to a stop next to him, and dismounted in turn.
"This place will be heavily defended." Basilisk said, his shotgun in hand. Lisset had hers slung in her arms as well; it was going to be a close-quarters battle, more like than not. "Keep an eye out for ambushes, check your corners, and we ought to be fine." The Titan started to pace forward, taking the lead, and the Warlock and Hunter followed close behind. Koga took a moment to close his eyes and let out a long, terse breath, emptying his mind of his concerns over his team leader and over the situation. He needed to focus now. When he opened his eyes again, the world seemed a little sharper, the sounds a little clearer.
Walking into the dilapidated garage was about as dreary as one could expect. Like anything else in the Cosmodrome, it hadn't seen maintenance since the Collapse, and while the lights were still curiously on, a good section of the tunnel had long-since crumbled, a cave-in of some form cutting the path short. Thankfully, a service entrance had been spared from the destruction-their way in. Basilisk took point, his shotgun leveled, but no one was particularly surprised when their motion tracker went red and Fallen started dropping from the ceiling. His shotgun did the lion's share of the work, roaring as the Vandal that landed closest to him was obliterated at point-blank range. Koga let his revolver go to work, firing round after round into a pack of Dregs that were trying to rush the Titan with their arc blades. Lisset pushed into the room to support the Titan, but by the time she got through, Basilisk had dealt with them all.
There wasn't much time for breathing, as a large shudder suddenly climbed up the ceiling on its own. The three of the Guardians turned to see another group of Fallen rushing forward, a Captain blasting his shard launcher. Koga let his hand cannon slip out of his grasp as he switched to his fusion rifle, and jumped out of the way of the Fallen ordinance as he charged a shot at the group of Dregs pushing forward. Two Vandals, hiding behind cover, were firing their rifles rapidly towards the Guardians, hoping to pin them in place for the Dregs to deal with. Lisset flung an arc grenade their way, which exploded in a violent flash of blue light that pulsated and sparked like a live wire. One of the Vandals was hit dead on, and his body was sent flying into the corner of the room he was in, but the other managed to get mostly out of the way, and continued firing, although his shots were not nearly as rapid or accurate as before.
Basilisk kept letting loose with his shotgun until the weapon ran dry. Rather than reload, the Titan let it clatter to the ground-transmatted rapidly away by his Ghost before some opportunistic Dreg could snatch it-and swung his fist at the first Dreg that approached. The instant the Titan's gauntlet connected, there was a surge of arc Light, and the alien disintegrated a moment later. The next one to run forward, the last of his group, suffered a similar fate, his body bludgeoned and spent sprawling to the ground, but not disintegrated. The Captain continued firing, but it knew that the situation was looking bad. In a flash of light, it blinked up, up a small metal staircase it had been guarding leading up. The last Vandal, abandoned, rushed forward in some kamikaze attack, but Koga put it down with a shot from his fusion rifle, the thing burning away like an afterimage.
With the Captain cowering upstairs, the team took the time to reload and ready for the next fight. "That was intense." Lisset huffed as she slid shells into her shotgun. "I've never seen the Devils fight like this."
"That's because they weren't Devils." Kita suddenly interjected, floating out. He hovered over the corpse of the Vandal that had been killed by the grenade, his broken body slumped over itself. A short gold cape hung from its shoulders.
"The same color as the snipers!" Koga blurted. His Ghost looked up at him.
"I thought I recognized these colors." Kita started, floating back to his keep. "The Devils aren't the only Fallen house in the Cosmodrome. These, ladies and gentle-Guardians, are members of the House of Kings."
"Kings?" Lisset repeated, aghast. "I've fought them before, when I was a Corsair. They're clever, and they don't deploy very often. Whatever this tap is connected to, it must be extremely important to them." Koga grimaced under his helmet; he hadn't expected to run into the Fallen elite.
"They're Fallen, just like the Devils are." Basilisk interrupted, his voice echoing dramatically in the closed space. "We can clear them out just like we did a few seconds ago." He waved his hand at that staircase. "We're going to head upstairs and see what they are hiding. I'll stay on point; my armor can handle a hit better than you guys' can." He pumped the shotgun, and without another word started up the stairs.
+ + + + + + +
Lisset followed closely behind Basilisk, her Preacher in hand. She could hear the Captain speaking rapidly, its deep alien voice echoing in the dead halls of the Skywatch. This was a different structure in the complex, one that none of them had ever seen before, but it shared all of the architectural tropes of Old Russia that they had seen before. Rusted walls, barely functional lights, debris littering every surface of the floor. The fact that the House of Kings was running operations in this corner of the Cosmodrome was unnerving, but Basilisk had the right of it. As a Guardian, Lisset was far more capable of handling something like this than she ever could have when wearing the attire of a Corsair. She was almost thankful that she had a shield of Light surrounding her at all times.
As soon as Basilisk reached the top of the stairs, the Captain made his appearance, twin arc blades in hand. Both collided against the Titan's shields, and Basilisk was sent flying back at the impact, colliding against an ancient computer. The Captain rushed forward to try to finish the Exo off, but as it raised its twin sabers, Basilisk kicked it hard in the chest. "Now!" He shouted, scrambling to get back to his feet. Lisset fired her Preacher once into the side of the Fallen's shields, which sparked and faded as the buckshot rippled against the barrier. The Captain turned, not overly surprised, but before it could do a thing, Lisset fired again. There was a flash, and suddenly the Captain was gone, the pellets smacking into ancient walls and machinery behind where it had been standing. There was a sound like a static ripple, and suddenly it was to her side, raising its blades to decapitate the Huntress. Before it could, there was an electronic whine followed by a high-pitched choom, and bolts of arc energy slammed into the Captain, disintegrating it in a flash. Lisset turned to face Koga, who held his fusion rifle tightly.
"Thank you." Lisset said, breathlessly. The Warlock nodded, but before he could say anything in reply the sound of an alarm echoed in the room. Lisset looked up at her motion tracker only to see it fill with red; the Kings were out in force now. Through a small gap in the wall where an observation window must have once been, the Corsair could see more Vandals and Dregs rushing out from where they had been hiding.
"I have the location of the hub!" Kita announced over comms as the Guardians started to fire at the incoming threat. "It's in this room, up on a platform to our left!" Basilisk pushed forward, heading out from the small sub-room they were in into the larger chamber, his shotgun firing with the rhythm of a beat only he could hear.
"Let's go!" The Titan roared, before jumping. A group of Dregs rushed forward to exploit what they must have thought as a curious maneuver, but the Titan came hurtling down with his fists clenched and arc Light coursing about him. There was a blinding flash, and the world shook as the Fist of Havoc connected. When he got back up, the Titan kept pushing forward, Lisset following close behind.
The Fallen had retreated to a large device, bigger than the taps in the Shore, and were trying desperately to defend it, but they were no match for the amount of fire being thrown at them. When the echo of gunfire cleared, the Guardians were the only ones left in the room. Kita fizzled into existence outside of Koga's armor, and floated towards the device, curious. "This must be the source of the tap." He said, poking at a strange alien panel with his energy beam. "Huh." The Ghost suddenly muttered. "The Fallen were trying to access these machines, but something is... fighting back?"
"Fighting back?" Koga repeated, surprised. "What could do that?"
"I don't know," Kita replied, "I'll try to sort this out. Cover me." Almost as soon as he said it, another alarm resounded through the dead halls of the Skywatch.
"We've got company!" Lisset shouted, taking a knee and pulling out her scout rifle. The room was large, and though debris and blocky ancient computers made it a bit of a maze, there were long enough sightlines to make the weapon useful. Basilisk followed suit, whipping out his pulse rifle and bringing it to his eyes. Koga merely closed his eyes and channeled his Light, waiting for a pack of Dregs to round a corner.
He didn't need to wait long. A group of four Fallen came from a small doorway off to the left connecting deeper into the complex, and shouted a battlecry in their tongue before jumping forward to attack. "I have this." Koga announced, his voice tranquil as he let the Light flow through him and concentrate in a single point in his hand as he jumped up. He could almost feel the world tremble as the Nova Bomb shot forward like a lance of null energy, and it exploded with a terrific bang as it connected with the Vandal and his lackeys. They vanished, disintegrated in a single instant, as Koga glided slowly down to the ground.
"Good shot!" Basilisk yelled, before firing a burst towards a Captain that had entered the room from the other side. "We've got more, though!"
"Grenade out!" Lisset barked, before lobbing one of her arc grenades over towards the hiding alien. There was a spark, followed by the acrid smell of burning ozone as the ordinance discharged. The ball of lightning had landed in a pool of water, and the sudden discharge electrified most of the floor below, which was followed by the painful yelping of a few electrocuted Dregs a bit too close to where the grenade had hit its mark. The Captain rounded the corner, flushed out and far from dead, but Basilisk's rifle barked six more times in rapid succession. The Captain's head practically disintegrated under the withering fire, ether streaming out like a flood as it fell to the ground.
"Any more?" Koga asked, looking about with his hand cannon at the ready. His motion tracker was red, but there weren't any more of the aliens in the room. He was tempted to think that the Fallen were falling back. Before anyone could say anything else, another group appeared, bashing through a door right next to them with a crash. Out came two Dregs, a Vandal, and a large purple sphere floating in mid-air. It hovered, making deep mechanical chirps as it scanned the Guardians. It had some kind of sensor plate in the center of an "eye", and from that a charge began to form.
"Servitor, look out!" Boudica interjected into the comms. The three jumped out of the way seconds before blasts of void energy slammed into the ground in balls of violet light, exploding violently upon impact with the floor. Kita, a touch too close to the Servitor for his comfort, transmatted away and back into Koga's armor.
"I can't finish until that thing is dead!" The Ghost shouted in the Warlock's ear. Koga winced, but quickly recovered and began to take pot shots against the thing's shining armor. The rounds impacted, but they didn't seem to do all that much, glancing off the polished round exterior and leaving not much more than scratches.
"Kill its friends first!" Lisset yelled, taking command. Basilisk didn't say a word as he lobbed another flashbang into the pack, the roar of the blast exponentially louder in the crowded room. The Vandal was killed instantly by the explosion, far too close to the grenade to survive, but the two Dregs that hadn't been quite in killing distance shielded their eyes as they attempted to recover. The Servitor, naturally, ignored the explosion, and began to fire bolts of energy at the Titan. His Light took the first hit, but the second blew the Exo back into a broken computer. Basilisk moved lazily, stunned, but managed to roll out of the way of a third blow intended to finish the Guardian.
"Basilisk!" Koga yelled, firing his hand cannon at the stunned Dregs. They fell to the revolver's heavy rounds, slumping to the ground at the foot of their care. The Servitor turned its attention to the Warlock, but Koga was ready for it this time. He easily sidestepped the blasts, firing the remaining bullets he had loaded directly into the sensor plate. The bullets passed right through, and the machine skittered and shook as it tried to process what had happened. The damage had to have been critical, because it began to float lower to the ground and its shots were considerably less accurate than they had been. It was Lisset who finished it with a single shot from her scout rifle, putting a round cleanly through the center. The Servitor exploded into fragments, pieces of alien machinery joining the human debris in the corners of the room.
"Everyone okay?" Basilisk said, slowly getting to his feet.
"We are fine." Koga replied, panting. "Are you?" The Titan would have smiled if he could under that heavy helmet of his, brushing dirt off of his armor lazily with one hand.
"It'll take a lot more than that to put me down." He said, walking over to the others. "Did Kita finish the job?" At the mention of his name, the Ghost apparated out of the Warlock's armor, floating over to the Fallen device.
"I am now." He said, cheerfully enough. "The Kings were quite determined to retake this. We must have really put a dent in their-oh." Koga frowned.
"Oh?" He repeated. The Ghost floated back over to his keep, looking a bit stunned.
"I managed to recover all of the data the Fallen managed to secure. You should destroy the tap before they can restart their work." The Ghost glanced over to Basilisk, who readied a grenade. The ordinance landed at the foot of the device, and exploded violently, sending the machine to pieces with an echoing boom.
"What did you find?" Lisset asked, glancing over at the Titan as he examined his handiwork with a measure of pride. The Ghost looked over at her, spinning about his axis before speaking.
"Not altogether much, actually." He admitted. "The Fallen kept hitting an active firewall. Old Earth. Russian."
"That should not be possible." Koga interrupted, confused. "The Collapse was centuries ago. What could be producing a firewall?"
"That's the thing." Kita said, his voice low with excitement. "I heard so many stories, but I didn't think any of them were true until now-a Warmind did survive the Collapse!"
"A Warmind?" Basilisk repeated, turning around and walking back to the others. His voice was hurried, frantic. "Which? Do you know its name?" The Ghost simply blinked as it looked up at the Exo.
"I feel like you already know, Basilisk." Kita replied. "Rasputin."
Next Episode: Episode VIII, The Last Array
The Tower, the Last City, Earth
Day 013
Ikora gave a wry smile as she examined the somewhat sleepy faces of the Fireteam. "Good morning, Guardians." She said, amicably enough.
"Good morning, Madam Ikora." Koga replied politely, fighting off that primal need for sleep as best as he could. He and the others had been awoken rather rudely by a missive by the Vanguard only a few minutes prior, and with the dawn sun only just beginning to crest over the horizon, it looked like it was going to be the beginning of a long day. "I believe you sent for us?" The elder Warlock nodded slowly, before her Ghost projected a hologram in the air between the four of them, something Koga instantly recognized as being a map of the Cosmodrome.
"Beyond the Mothyard, and away from the Skywatch, is an area known as the Forgotten Shore." Ikora started, her eyes reflecting the soft blue light of the image strikingly against her brown pupils. "This area was once a dock used by the Cosmodrome during the Golden Age, but now it's a graveyard of rusted ships. At least, that's what we thought." The image from the Ghost faded away, but Ikora didn't even blink as it vanished. "Reports are coming in that the Fallen are tearing into machines all across the area, scavenging them for some unknown purpose."
"Are they trying to set up some kind of perimeter?" Basilisk asked, crossing his arms as he thought. "The ships could act as bunkers." Ikora shook her head slowly, but had a ghost of a smile on her lips.
"Zavala asked the same thing when he heard, but it doesn't seem to be the case." The smile faded as she returned to business, but Koga had to suppress a grin of his own when he saw Basilisk look away, embarrassed. "We'd like your team to investigate. Find out what the Fallen are doing with what they salvage, and trace it back to its source if you can." Lisset gave a curt nod.
"I think we can do that." She said, confidently.
"I think you can, too." Ikora replied, returning the nod. "Good luck, Guardians. May the Traveler protect you." Koga gave a soft bow, a gesture matched by Lisset, while Basilisk snapped a slightly faster-than-normal salute, and the three of them turned to leave. Koga could swear he could hear Boudica stifling a laugh as they walked to the Hangar. The Titan must have heard it too, because his pace kept getting faster and faster as he walked.
= = = = = = =
The frost-bitten ground crunched under Basilisk's boots as he transmatted onto the edge of the Steppes. Lisset sat on a rock nearby, her scout rifle shouldered as she looked out for trouble. "Anything interesting?" Basilisk asked, his pulse rifle hanging by one hand as he walked over to the Hunter. Lisset didn't even move her head as she spoke.
"I saw a small foot patrol, but they transmatted away just before you got here." She answered. Lisset lowered her rifle and hopped onto her feet before turning to face the Exo. "I guess they're not too concerned about the Steppes with the Hive bearing down on them."
"I don't blame them." Basilisk replied, frowning as best as an Exo could under his helmet. "There's a real possibility they could overrun the whole area." Guardian deployments to the Cosmodrome had increased since the Hive had begun their campaign for Old Russia, but they were still greatly outnumbered by the hundreds of Fallen, and thousands of Hive, that prowled the dead facility. The prognosis wasn't good, the Titan had to admit, but that was why they were there.
A thought crossed the Titan's mind, and he cleared his throat. The sound came out a bit more garbled than the Exo had expected, but Lisset's head popped up the instant he made it. "How are you holding up, Lisset?"
"I'm green to go." She replied a touch too quickly. Basilisk shook his head.
"I'm not talking about that. I know that the City isn't your home, and I don't blame you for being a bit resentful about being a Guardian." He paused a moment before continuing. "Are you doing okay with all of this?"
Lisset didn't speak for a time, mulling over what words to say, if any at all. When she finally did reply, her voice wasn't much louder than the chilly wind that whistled between the rocks and crags. "I try not to think too much about it, but I've had my life stripped away from me twice over." The Hunter gripped her rifle just a bit tighter. "I try to make myself useful, but it's going to be a long time before I think of the Tower as being my home." The Titan slowly nodded before patting her on the shoulder.
"If you ever want to talk, find me." He said. "I know what it's like to lose. As far as I know, I've lost everyone."
There was a roar as Koga's Arcadia flew low over the Cosmodrome, and with a flash of light the Warlock transmatted onto the cold earth, hand cannon at the ready. He gave a nod to the Titan, who nodded back. "Everything okay?" Koga asked, walking to the others.
"Yeah, we're good." The Exo replied brusquely, before holding out his hand. Boudica apparated into existence, and stared at her keep for a second, analyzing silent as was her fashion. "Boudica, what do you recommend?" The Ghost blinked as it switched gears before floating to the center of the circle the Guardians had formed.
"The Forgotten Shore is several miles away from where we are now." She stated, though her voice seemed to be a touch less stoic than it usually was. "There's a Guardian outpost not far from here. If we can reach it, we can enable our Sparrow-link."
"Sparrow-link?" Koga repeated, confused. "What is that?"
"A Sparrow is a light personal vehicle capable of rapid speeds over any terrain." Boudica explained. There was a hum, and an image of one appeared in mid-air. It was a lithe looking thing, with a two-pronged front before the angular body, upon which was a seat, a handle bar, and the engine. It was simple looking, but there it was clear to Basilisk that this was meant for maximum speed. "We can transmat it from your ships once we get the link established. They're stored standard-issue with any Guardian craft."
"It's too bad we didn't know about this earlier." Lisset remarked, dryly. "Would have made getting to the Skywatch a lot easier." Basilisk just shrugged.
"Well, we know about it now." He replied. "So, get the Sparrows, get to the Forgotten Shore, and find the source. Seems simple enough."
"It tends to." Koga noted. "I doubt it is as simple as it appears to be." As Boudica vanished back into the Titan's palm, Basilisk hefted his pulse rifle to his shoulder.
"Only one way to find out." The Exo said, before pacing off into the wild, his fireteam following close behind.
+ + + + + + +
Lisset tried not to think about what had been said between her and Basilisk as she paced through the ever-cold Steppes. They were covering the same ground as they had the last time the three of them had come to the Cosmodrome, which made the whole situation seem eerily familiar. The monolithic colony ships still stared down at her, like she was something that didn't belong here. She couldn't blame them. "Are you okay?" Dal asked, quietly. It was a private comm, the Ghost intentionally walling off their conversation from the rest.
"I'm fine, Dal." Lisset replied, but even to her it was a hollow-sounding answer. What she had said to Basilisk had been the truth. Even nearly two weeks after she had come to the Tower in a barely-functional Galliot, it was hard for her to see her fellow Guardians as actual comrades in arms. She felt like a conscript, which was somewhat apt given that she had been given little consent when she was Risen. "I'm just handling everything as it comes." Every so often, she dreamed of the Reef, but it was like seeing through a cloud. Faces once so familiar were shrouded in darkness, and more than a few were simply alien to the eye. The Ghost didn't reply, but she could tell that he wasn't buying her response. Lisset wouldn't have bought it herself had she been on the receiving end.
The Hunter looked over at Koga, who walked steadily beside her. Like her, the man was adjusting slowly to his new world, unlike the Titan that walked before them both. Basilisk was driven by something, though she had only the faintest idea what, and had thrown himself completely into the tasks before him. Koga, meanwhile, seemed to be curious over everything, constantly busying himself when off-duty by reading and rereading anything he could get his hands on. The Corsair felt a twinge of jealousy; Koga was the only one of them that didn't seem to have anything tying him back to before he was a Guardian. She could only imagine what it would be like to see the world unhindered.
"I wonder where they were going." Koga suddenly asked to no one in particular.
"What?" Lisset said. The road before them sloped down into the runoff canal that they had crossed before. Gravel and debris skidded down the face of the rise as her boots struggled to keep her secure to the ground. The Warlock gestured to the colony ships, sitting silently where they had been abandoned.
"The ships." He replied. "I wonder where they were going." He paused for a moment, thinking. "I think I was supposed to be on one of those." Lisset frowned under her helmet.
"What makes you think that?" She probed. It was a curious conversation for the Warlock to strike up, and Lisset couldn't help but feel cautious about it. Perhaps Dal's comms channel hadn't been quite as secure as he had thought.
"I was Risen beyond the wall, surrounded by rusted cars and skeletons." Koga answered. "I remember being a researcher, and I remember coming here to flee from something. I think I was supposed to leave on one." Another pregnant pause. "I wonder why I did not. I wonder why any of this did not. I wonder why we were going."
"You wonder a lot." The Hunter prodded, climbing up the other side of the ravine. The rusted hulks of the Mothyards lay before them, and watching over everything sat the Skywatch, its domes blotting out the horizon.
"Someone has to." The Warlock replied, smiling. Lisset laughed despite herself, and suddenly it didn't feel quite so cold anymore. The breeze licked at her armor, and she was standing on a world as alien to her as it must have been to those she had once fought beside, but for a brief moment it felt like she was back with the Corsairs, joking and talking and asking questions about this dead universe while they went to their target. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad after all, she thought to herself as she followed Basilisk to a rusted structure.
"This is the place." The Titan announced, Boudica floating away from his armor in a flash of blue light. Despite the worn-down appearance, Lisset could spy something rather out of place inside the Golden Age shack. It was a computer of some sort, or perhaps a relay, and it looked quite new-the handiwork of the City, and the Guardians who had put it there. Basilisk's Ghost fired its beam at the relay for a time, before vanishing.
"You can access your Sparrows now." She said, her voice echoing in all three of the Guardians' headsets.
"Bringing ours down now." Dal noted, and a second later a grey-colored vehicle appeared before her, transmatting into existence with a hiss. It was exactly the same design as the one that Boudica had displayed, standard to a T, but Lisset couldn't help but grin as she approached it. As soon as she stepped next to it, the machine roared to life with a high-pitched scream, and jumped up from the ground where it lay to about the height of her hip, hovering in mid-air as powerful thrusters hummed underneath the chassis.
"I think I'm going to like this thing." The Hunter said, clambering aboard. As it had with her arsenal of weapons, her armor had already begun to interact with Lisset's subconscious. It felt like she had always been driving them the instant she grabbed the handlebars. To her left, Lisset could see Koga and Basilisk on their Sparrows, though she had to admit that the ungainly heavy armor on the latter looked somewhat off on the relatively nimble and lithe Sparrow beneath.
"Just be careful." Dal chided in her helmet. "There's two of us in here, remember?" Lisset grinned as she revved the throttle, the engine behind her spewing plasma like a spigot with every twist of the handle.
"What's the matter?" She said, smiling like it was her birthday. "Afraid of going fast?"
"I think I'm more afraid of you right now." The Ghost dryly quipped, before wisely shutting his mouth.
"Alright, team." Basilisk said over comms, his voice otherwise drowned out by the roar of engines. "Let's ride." The Hunter didn't need any encouragement, and kicked the engine to full. She shot off like a bullet, her Sparrow humming beneath her, as the others followed close behind. It was good to be alive.
- - - - - - -
Trying to keep up with Lisset was harder than Koga expected. The Hunter drove the Sparrow like she was possessed, and given the occasional snippet of giddy laughter that floated over comms as she jumped her ride over every ramp imaginable wasn't helping that impression. The Fallen defending the Mothyards seemed to be stunned as the Guardians rode past, firing at them well after their window had closed. Where they had once fought a running battle to the Skywatch was now just a minor obstacle to avoid as the Warlock weaved between stone and rusted debris to keep up with the others.
"We need to take a right ahead!" Basilisk shouted as he rode. "The pass will take us to the Shore!"
"Got it!" Lisset yelled in reply, and suddenly her Sparrow peeled right in a sharp turn towards a small riverbed that Koga hadn't noticed before. The morning sun reflected beautifully over the water as the Titan and Warlock turned to follow, glistening as the three of them rode past. Water streamed down from the edges of cliffs, hiding dark caverns behind them. It was something out of a postcard, though its picturesque nature was marred by the colony ships ever against the horizon. Following the riverbed took some time, as it winded its way past rivers and small drops, but eventually it opened up to reveal the Shores proper.
It was as if someone had taken a port and drained almost all of the water out of it. Massive rusted ships sat where they had been abandoned, sticking out of the sand as if they had always been there. Beyond them all sat the waterline, well lower than what it must have been centuries ago. Why the water had receded, Koga couldn't say, but it wasn't hard to imagine the Collapse had caused equal catastrophe upon the environment as it had upon civilization. To the left were rusted buildings up on a craggy mountain where the waterline must have stopped ages ago, and to the right was a curious looking island in the distance, a structure sitting on it.
Lisset slowed her Sparrow to a stop, her left leg dropping to the ground as she waited for the others to catch up. Koga parked to one side, while Basilisk took the other, the three of them perfectly in line as they examined the area. "So, any ideas what we're looking for?" Lisset asked.
"Funny you mention it." Kita suddenly interrupted over comms. The Ghost was wisely staying inside Koga's armor; the Warlock could already seen Fallen moving on the hulks, sniper rifles in hand. Why they hadn't started shooting yet, however, was a mystery. "I'm detecting a rogue signal, not Fallen, but it's coming in patches. The Fallen have set up relays of some kind around here. Get me close, and I can try to trace what's going on."
"You heard the Ghost." Basilisk said, getting off his Sparrow. It transmatted away in a hiss, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. The others followed suit, readying their weapons as they got their footing.
"The first one is in that wreck right ahead of us." Kita continued. "I'm pushing a marker to the team now." A grey diamond appeared on the Warlock's HUD a second later, and Koga began to steadily move towards it, his hand cannon at the ready.
"Those snipers are going to engage us any second now." Lisset muttered, her scout rifle aimed at them.
"It is odd they haven't." Koga replied, his eyes glancing between his destination and the Vandals scoping them out. Suddenly, the Fallen turned and walked away, leaving the battlement empty. As they moved, Koga could swear he saw a flash of gold on their capes. "What-" There were a series of deep booms, and suddenly flashes of obsidian fire lanced out at the team.
"Captain!" Basilisk shouted, throwing his flashbang without hesitation. The Devil Captain moved towards them from around the side of the ship from where he had been hiding, but the explosion consumed him in blue light. When the flash cleared, the Fallen stood there, dazed. A shot from Lisset's rifle made sure he never recovered. His entourage appeared a moment later, firing blindly in a rage. Koga let his hand cannon do the talking, the weapon pounding against his hand every time the he squeezed the trigger. It wasn't much of a firefight, the echo of gunfire dwindling away only a few seconds later, but it had been long enough to get everyone back in the fighting mood.
"What was that?" Koga asked, his mind racing. "Who were those Fallen? Why did they walk away?" The idea of the team being hunted by a group of snipers wasn't exactly a pleasant one. The fact that they were being watched was just as bad.
"I don't know." Basilisk replied. "Keep an eye out for them. I doubt they're gonna watch us forever." The Titan swapped to his shotgun, the pulse rifle fizzling away. "Let's keep moving." Koga shot Lisset a sideways glance, who returned it; something was very, very wrong, but no one was quite sure why. It wasn't the behavior that either of them were used to. The Fallen had a tendency to shoot before thinking, so watching and retreating was an unwelcome surprise.
"Any ideas, Kita?" Koga quietly asked.
"I have one, but I don't think you're going to like it." The Ghost answered, hesitantly. Whatever it was, it was going to have to wait, as Basilisk suddenly jumped up, his Light bending the universe so he could slowly arc up to some platform out of sight. He landed with a heavy clunk, and as both the Warlock and Hunter rounded the corner that the Titan had a moment before, they could see where he was standing, a good story above them. Koga grit his teeth, and let the Light flow through him as he made his own jump, gliding considerably less powerfully up to where Basilisk was standing. Lisset simply bounded her way up to them, her movements almost effortless.
With the three of them now on the same level, Basilisk simply turned and pointed at a strange looking machine. It was definitely Fallen, with a bulbous shell almost like some kind of chitin, similar to the plating on the Skiffs that occasionally buzzed through the area. There were odd parts to it, though, things that didn't look like they belonged. Namely, tall antennae poles that stretched skyward, humming with energy. From the machines came a faint sound, almost like music. "That must be what we're looking for." The Exo said, pacing towards it. He tilted his head to the side as he listened to the garbled song coming from the device. It was like the Titan recognized it from somewhere, but even he wasn't sure from where. It must have spooked him, because he took an instinctual step back, and anchored his rifle to his shoulder, but he didn't quite fall into his typical combat stance. "Let Kita have at it." Basilisk said, his voice just a tinge lower than normal. When Kita fizzled into existence, he glanced at the Exo curiously before continuing on to the machine.
"This is very odd indeed." Kita muttered to himself as he began to prod it with his beam. "It's some strange combination of Fallen and Golden Age equipment; fairly well crafted, too. There's a signal being tapped here, but this isn't the source of it." The Ghost turned around and floated back to his keep. "There's another tap on that island-thing over there. If you put me there, I ought to be able to find where this signal is coming from." Koga looked at the structure in the distance that loomed over the rest of the Forgotten Shore. Somehow, he doubted that was a coincidence.
"Will do." Koga replied as his Ghost disappeared back into the armor. "We should hurry, before more Fallen come."
"Our our tails decide to show again." Lisset added, walking to the side of rusted deck. Basilisk slowly, hesitantly, nodded.
"Lead the way." He said, glancing over at the Fallen tap as he walked to the Hunter. Koga watched him as he moved, concerned. What could get under an Exo's skin?
= = = = = = =
It was like seeing your own ghost, Basilisk realized as his mind swam. The sound was distorted, distended, and almost completely unrecognizable, but it was something that he couldn't forget now that he heard it. He had heard it before, and while his memories struggled to produce a name to the sound, or even a face, he knew he had heard it before. Before the deployment to Venus. Before the last stand at the Ishtar Campus. Before his squad fell. Before he fell. Before he rose again.
"What's wrong?" Boudica pressed, concerned. He had been dodging her questions for a while now, and it hadn't really been fair. It wasn't just him under the weather, either. Koga seemed darkly fascinated with the ruins around him. Lisset had told him to his face that she was torn between her old life and this new one. And here he was, his mind running hot because of a few strains of Tchaikovsky. At this point, he didn't even care why he knew that name.
"We can worry about this later." He replied, gruffly. It was brusque and insensitive, but he didn't have the luxury of stopping to discuss this. "I'm sorry." He added, hoping it would at least soften his words. She didn't say a word in response.
Basilisk didn't think much as he dropped down from the top of the ship, landing in the sand with a crunch, nor did he think much as he Sparrowed up to the location of the second tap. When the team arrived at the base of the island, they were greeted by the usual Devils welcoming party, but Basilisk barely remembered fighting them. Every impact of plasma against his shields, and every burst of his rifle, felt only like a light tap against him, almost indistinguishable from the breeze. When the Exo began to think again, he was at the top of the hill, his team next to him. Basilisk couldn't see through their helmets, but he knew that their faces were marked with concern.
"Are you okay?" Koga asked, his hand cannon at his side. Basilisk nodded.
"I'm fine, don't worry about me." The Exo replied quickly. Before anyone could say anything else, Basilisk shrugged his head in the direction the second Fallen device, sitting in the shade of the collapsed structure. "Get your Ghost working on that." Koga and Lisset glanced at each other again, before looking back at the Titan.
"We, uh, already did." Lisset spoke, hesitation in her voice. Basilisk blinked, surprised. He had zoned out, but for that long? "Something's wrong, Basilisk. Tell us what's wrong." The Hunter had stepped forward, her weapon dangling from her free hand while her other was half-outstretched in a pleading, open gesture. "Please."
"It's nothing." Basilisk dismissed, sighing. His weapon felt so heavy in his arms, pulling him down relentlessly to the Earth. "I've been missing a few recharge cycles-"
"What?" Boudica suddenly interjected. She apparated between the three of them, staring at the Titan with her one eye. "Why would you do that? What were you thinking?" She sounded like a mother, concern channeled into a kind of righteous anger. It hadn't been a lie, what the Exo had said, but it hadn't been quite the truth either. He had been missing recharge cycles, but it hadn't been because he had forgotten about them. The Deep Stone Crypt loomed over all of his dreams like a scar across his mind, and every time he saw it, the Army ripped him apart, piece by piece. None of that had anything to do with the music floating daintily from the Fallen tap in the corner of the room, at least as far as Basilisk could tell.
"I had work to get done." The Exo answered, turning his head away. It was a lame excuse, but if it'd shut them up, it'd do. Boudica beeped like she was about to say something, but Kita suddenly interrupted the lot of them.
"As much as I'd like to figure out what's going on with our Titan friend here," the Ghost started. His voice was pointed, unconvinced at Basilisk's story. If he wasn't, then there was a good chance that Boudica would come to doubt it herself. It wouldn't be long before there was a confrontation, but he couldn't very well afford something like that now. "I have managed to triangulate the Fallen taps to a source. It seems they've set up some kind of connection hub inside the Skywatch. Pushing a marker now." As soon as he said it, the objective diamond appeared, overlaid across reality.
"I am afraid that my Ghost is correct." Koga noted, softly. "Let us finish our task, then we can speak more about what troubles you, Basilisk." The Titan slowly nodded, defeated. They were going to drag it out of him, one way or another. He let his rifle vanish as his Sparrow transmatted itself to the surface at the speed of a thought.
"Lead the way then, Warlock." The Titan muttered as he clambered aboard his Sparrow. "Let's get this done."
- - - - - - -
The objective was on the other side of the Forgotten Shore, up the cliffside that the Warlock had spotted earlier, and on an ancient road that looped around. The entire ride up, Koga's mind was racing, trying to understand what bothering Basilisk. When they had accessed the first tap, the Titan had responded to the faint music coming from it like a threat, but ever since then he seemed to have been entranced by it. Koga doubted it was just some ancient PA system looping the same music over and over for centuries, and even if it had been, why would it have caused Basilisk to act so? The Titan had been Risen on Venus, millions of miles away from the Earth and the Cosmodrome.
"What do you think is wrong with Basilisk?" Koga whispered to his Ghost as they rode up to the small garage access linking the Shore to the Skywatch on their Sparrow.
"I don't know." Kita admitted. "It's something about the music. It's Old Russian, by a man named Tchaikovsky, but I have no idea why it'd cause a reaction like this."
"He has heard it before." Koga noted. "Whatever were the circumstances behind that, they could not have been pleasant." Kita just beeped in agreement, and fell silent. Koga let his Sparrow slow to a stop at the entrance to a large underpass-the garage that they had been looking for. "This is it." He said, getting off his ride. The others pulled to a stop next to him, and dismounted in turn.
"This place will be heavily defended." Basilisk said, his shotgun in hand. Lisset had hers slung in her arms as well; it was going to be a close-quarters battle, more like than not. "Keep an eye out for ambushes, check your corners, and we ought to be fine." The Titan started to pace forward, taking the lead, and the Warlock and Hunter followed close behind. Koga took a moment to close his eyes and let out a long, terse breath, emptying his mind of his concerns over his team leader and over the situation. He needed to focus now. When he opened his eyes again, the world seemed a little sharper, the sounds a little clearer.
Walking into the dilapidated garage was about as dreary as one could expect. Like anything else in the Cosmodrome, it hadn't seen maintenance since the Collapse, and while the lights were still curiously on, a good section of the tunnel had long-since crumbled, a cave-in of some form cutting the path short. Thankfully, a service entrance had been spared from the destruction-their way in. Basilisk took point, his shotgun leveled, but no one was particularly surprised when their motion tracker went red and Fallen started dropping from the ceiling. His shotgun did the lion's share of the work, roaring as the Vandal that landed closest to him was obliterated at point-blank range. Koga let his revolver go to work, firing round after round into a pack of Dregs that were trying to rush the Titan with their arc blades. Lisset pushed into the room to support the Titan, but by the time she got through, Basilisk had dealt with them all.
There wasn't much time for breathing, as a large shudder suddenly climbed up the ceiling on its own. The three of the Guardians turned to see another group of Fallen rushing forward, a Captain blasting his shard launcher. Koga let his hand cannon slip out of his grasp as he switched to his fusion rifle, and jumped out of the way of the Fallen ordinance as he charged a shot at the group of Dregs pushing forward. Two Vandals, hiding behind cover, were firing their rifles rapidly towards the Guardians, hoping to pin them in place for the Dregs to deal with. Lisset flung an arc grenade their way, which exploded in a violent flash of blue light that pulsated and sparked like a live wire. One of the Vandals was hit dead on, and his body was sent flying into the corner of the room he was in, but the other managed to get mostly out of the way, and continued firing, although his shots were not nearly as rapid or accurate as before.
Basilisk kept letting loose with his shotgun until the weapon ran dry. Rather than reload, the Titan let it clatter to the ground-transmatted rapidly away by his Ghost before some opportunistic Dreg could snatch it-and swung his fist at the first Dreg that approached. The instant the Titan's gauntlet connected, there was a surge of arc Light, and the alien disintegrated a moment later. The next one to run forward, the last of his group, suffered a similar fate, his body bludgeoned and spent sprawling to the ground, but not disintegrated. The Captain continued firing, but it knew that the situation was looking bad. In a flash of light, it blinked up, up a small metal staircase it had been guarding leading up. The last Vandal, abandoned, rushed forward in some kamikaze attack, but Koga put it down with a shot from his fusion rifle, the thing burning away like an afterimage.
With the Captain cowering upstairs, the team took the time to reload and ready for the next fight. "That was intense." Lisset huffed as she slid shells into her shotgun. "I've never seen the Devils fight like this."
"That's because they weren't Devils." Kita suddenly interjected, floating out. He hovered over the corpse of the Vandal that had been killed by the grenade, his broken body slumped over itself. A short gold cape hung from its shoulders.
"The same color as the snipers!" Koga blurted. His Ghost looked up at him.
"I thought I recognized these colors." Kita started, floating back to his keep. "The Devils aren't the only Fallen house in the Cosmodrome. These, ladies and gentle-Guardians, are members of the House of Kings."
"Kings?" Lisset repeated, aghast. "I've fought them before, when I was a Corsair. They're clever, and they don't deploy very often. Whatever this tap is connected to, it must be extremely important to them." Koga grimaced under his helmet; he hadn't expected to run into the Fallen elite.
"They're Fallen, just like the Devils are." Basilisk interrupted, his voice echoing dramatically in the closed space. "We can clear them out just like we did a few seconds ago." He waved his hand at that staircase. "We're going to head upstairs and see what they are hiding. I'll stay on point; my armor can handle a hit better than you guys' can." He pumped the shotgun, and without another word started up the stairs.
+ + + + + + +
Lisset followed closely behind Basilisk, her Preacher in hand. She could hear the Captain speaking rapidly, its deep alien voice echoing in the dead halls of the Skywatch. This was a different structure in the complex, one that none of them had ever seen before, but it shared all of the architectural tropes of Old Russia that they had seen before. Rusted walls, barely functional lights, debris littering every surface of the floor. The fact that the House of Kings was running operations in this corner of the Cosmodrome was unnerving, but Basilisk had the right of it. As a Guardian, Lisset was far more capable of handling something like this than she ever could have when wearing the attire of a Corsair. She was almost thankful that she had a shield of Light surrounding her at all times.
As soon as Basilisk reached the top of the stairs, the Captain made his appearance, twin arc blades in hand. Both collided against the Titan's shields, and Basilisk was sent flying back at the impact, colliding against an ancient computer. The Captain rushed forward to try to finish the Exo off, but as it raised its twin sabers, Basilisk kicked it hard in the chest. "Now!" He shouted, scrambling to get back to his feet. Lisset fired her Preacher once into the side of the Fallen's shields, which sparked and faded as the buckshot rippled against the barrier. The Captain turned, not overly surprised, but before it could do a thing, Lisset fired again. There was a flash, and suddenly the Captain was gone, the pellets smacking into ancient walls and machinery behind where it had been standing. There was a sound like a static ripple, and suddenly it was to her side, raising its blades to decapitate the Huntress. Before it could, there was an electronic whine followed by a high-pitched choom, and bolts of arc energy slammed into the Captain, disintegrating it in a flash. Lisset turned to face Koga, who held his fusion rifle tightly.
"Thank you." Lisset said, breathlessly. The Warlock nodded, but before he could say anything in reply the sound of an alarm echoed in the room. Lisset looked up at her motion tracker only to see it fill with red; the Kings were out in force now. Through a small gap in the wall where an observation window must have once been, the Corsair could see more Vandals and Dregs rushing out from where they had been hiding.
"I have the location of the hub!" Kita announced over comms as the Guardians started to fire at the incoming threat. "It's in this room, up on a platform to our left!" Basilisk pushed forward, heading out from the small sub-room they were in into the larger chamber, his shotgun firing with the rhythm of a beat only he could hear.
"Let's go!" The Titan roared, before jumping. A group of Dregs rushed forward to exploit what they must have thought as a curious maneuver, but the Titan came hurtling down with his fists clenched and arc Light coursing about him. There was a blinding flash, and the world shook as the Fist of Havoc connected. When he got back up, the Titan kept pushing forward, Lisset following close behind.
The Fallen had retreated to a large device, bigger than the taps in the Shore, and were trying desperately to defend it, but they were no match for the amount of fire being thrown at them. When the echo of gunfire cleared, the Guardians were the only ones left in the room. Kita fizzled into existence outside of Koga's armor, and floated towards the device, curious. "This must be the source of the tap." He said, poking at a strange alien panel with his energy beam. "Huh." The Ghost suddenly muttered. "The Fallen were trying to access these machines, but something is... fighting back?"
"Fighting back?" Koga repeated, surprised. "What could do that?"
"I don't know," Kita replied, "I'll try to sort this out. Cover me." Almost as soon as he said it, another alarm resounded through the dead halls of the Skywatch.
"We've got company!" Lisset shouted, taking a knee and pulling out her scout rifle. The room was large, and though debris and blocky ancient computers made it a bit of a maze, there were long enough sightlines to make the weapon useful. Basilisk followed suit, whipping out his pulse rifle and bringing it to his eyes. Koga merely closed his eyes and channeled his Light, waiting for a pack of Dregs to round a corner.
He didn't need to wait long. A group of four Fallen came from a small doorway off to the left connecting deeper into the complex, and shouted a battlecry in their tongue before jumping forward to attack. "I have this." Koga announced, his voice tranquil as he let the Light flow through him and concentrate in a single point in his hand as he jumped up. He could almost feel the world tremble as the Nova Bomb shot forward like a lance of null energy, and it exploded with a terrific bang as it connected with the Vandal and his lackeys. They vanished, disintegrated in a single instant, as Koga glided slowly down to the ground.
"Good shot!" Basilisk yelled, before firing a burst towards a Captain that had entered the room from the other side. "We've got more, though!"
"Grenade out!" Lisset barked, before lobbing one of her arc grenades over towards the hiding alien. There was a spark, followed by the acrid smell of burning ozone as the ordinance discharged. The ball of lightning had landed in a pool of water, and the sudden discharge electrified most of the floor below, which was followed by the painful yelping of a few electrocuted Dregs a bit too close to where the grenade had hit its mark. The Captain rounded the corner, flushed out and far from dead, but Basilisk's rifle barked six more times in rapid succession. The Captain's head practically disintegrated under the withering fire, ether streaming out like a flood as it fell to the ground.
"Any more?" Koga asked, looking about with his hand cannon at the ready. His motion tracker was red, but there weren't any more of the aliens in the room. He was tempted to think that the Fallen were falling back. Before anyone could say anything else, another group appeared, bashing through a door right next to them with a crash. Out came two Dregs, a Vandal, and a large purple sphere floating in mid-air. It hovered, making deep mechanical chirps as it scanned the Guardians. It had some kind of sensor plate in the center of an "eye", and from that a charge began to form.
"Servitor, look out!" Boudica interjected into the comms. The three jumped out of the way seconds before blasts of void energy slammed into the ground in balls of violet light, exploding violently upon impact with the floor. Kita, a touch too close to the Servitor for his comfort, transmatted away and back into Koga's armor.
"I can't finish until that thing is dead!" The Ghost shouted in the Warlock's ear. Koga winced, but quickly recovered and began to take pot shots against the thing's shining armor. The rounds impacted, but they didn't seem to do all that much, glancing off the polished round exterior and leaving not much more than scratches.
"Kill its friends first!" Lisset yelled, taking command. Basilisk didn't say a word as he lobbed another flashbang into the pack, the roar of the blast exponentially louder in the crowded room. The Vandal was killed instantly by the explosion, far too close to the grenade to survive, but the two Dregs that hadn't been quite in killing distance shielded their eyes as they attempted to recover. The Servitor, naturally, ignored the explosion, and began to fire bolts of energy at the Titan. His Light took the first hit, but the second blew the Exo back into a broken computer. Basilisk moved lazily, stunned, but managed to roll out of the way of a third blow intended to finish the Guardian.
"Basilisk!" Koga yelled, firing his hand cannon at the stunned Dregs. They fell to the revolver's heavy rounds, slumping to the ground at the foot of their care. The Servitor turned its attention to the Warlock, but Koga was ready for it this time. He easily sidestepped the blasts, firing the remaining bullets he had loaded directly into the sensor plate. The bullets passed right through, and the machine skittered and shook as it tried to process what had happened. The damage had to have been critical, because it began to float lower to the ground and its shots were considerably less accurate than they had been. It was Lisset who finished it with a single shot from her scout rifle, putting a round cleanly through the center. The Servitor exploded into fragments, pieces of alien machinery joining the human debris in the corners of the room.
"Everyone okay?" Basilisk said, slowly getting to his feet.
"We are fine." Koga replied, panting. "Are you?" The Titan would have smiled if he could under that heavy helmet of his, brushing dirt off of his armor lazily with one hand.
"It'll take a lot more than that to put me down." He said, walking over to the others. "Did Kita finish the job?" At the mention of his name, the Ghost apparated out of the Warlock's armor, floating over to the Fallen device.
"I am now." He said, cheerfully enough. "The Kings were quite determined to retake this. We must have really put a dent in their-oh." Koga frowned.
"Oh?" He repeated. The Ghost floated back over to his keep, looking a bit stunned.
"I managed to recover all of the data the Fallen managed to secure. You should destroy the tap before they can restart their work." The Ghost glanced over to Basilisk, who readied a grenade. The ordinance landed at the foot of the device, and exploded violently, sending the machine to pieces with an echoing boom.
"What did you find?" Lisset asked, glancing over at the Titan as he examined his handiwork with a measure of pride. The Ghost looked over at her, spinning about his axis before speaking.
"Not altogether much, actually." He admitted. "The Fallen kept hitting an active firewall. Old Earth. Russian."
"That should not be possible." Koga interrupted, confused. "The Collapse was centuries ago. What could be producing a firewall?"
"That's the thing." Kita said, his voice low with excitement. "I heard so many stories, but I didn't think any of them were true until now-a Warmind did survive the Collapse!"
"A Warmind?" Basilisk repeated, turning around and walking back to the others. His voice was hurried, frantic. "Which? Do you know its name?" The Ghost simply blinked as it looked up at the Exo.
"I feel like you already know, Basilisk." Kita replied. "Rasputin."
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