Episode I: Origin Story — Part One
All Rook-9 could see was ash and snow. All he could feel was the dead weight of the body on his back. All he could do was climb.
Grey slush caved at every footfall. Rook heaved to bring forward his other leg without slipping from fatigue, from toppling down while wearily bearing the trembling frame of his friend. A Ghost buzzed overhead, passing a weak light over her unconcious Guardian. At every shiver, she lit up to check the Warlock’s vitals, and every laborious wheeze sent her spiraling around them both, chirping like a lone robin surveying a barren nest.
“Give it a rest, Zi. You gotta… conserve your strength,” Rook groaned at each step up the snowy foothill. “If he shivers, it means he’s alive. It’s if he stops that you should start to worry — ”
Rook’s boot lost its purchase and his face slammed into the snow, sharp from the coarse gravel beneath. Had he use of both hands, he could have caught himself and saved them the tumble, but both were occupied with keeping the limp body on his broad mantle.
“Hey! Worry about your own strength, Titan!” Ezri bit back. “If Atlas stops shivering, it might be too late! With what the Cabal did to the Traveler, I’m… I’m not sure I could bring him back.”
Rook grunted in compliance. He found solid earth beneath the slurry and kicked off, propelling himself back up to his feet. The frigid gusts registered in his mind, but they didn’t shake him. The blessing of being an Exo. He knew it was cold — could sense it biting through the joints in his armor — but his digital synapses processed this information differently than any fleshy nerve ending. He could feel, yes, but he could forego the need to react to it. And for the moment, it was enough to know it was freezing.
Every weathered step brought them closer to the treeline. It was only a hundred or so meters ahead. And with it came relative safety from the crimson ships circling the immolated City miles behind him. He didn’t know if they were in pursuit. He didn’t dare turn around. All Rook knew was that he had to keep moving forward.
Ezri again loosed her light upon the would-be corpse. Her gaze had lost most of its brilliance since the Cabal fastened their claw around the Traveler. The Light was dim in them all. Or was it gone? Rook could feel panic welling up inside of him, filling his chest with anxiety where the Light once lived. Was it really gone?
His next step brought his focus back outward. He had almost toppled over again, and this time the fall would have taken them down a steep ravine. Atlas wouldn’t have survived that fall. Not in his state.
“Be careful!” chided Ezri. “I swear, if it wasn’t for Tom, we’d all be…” She paused mid-scan. “Wait, where’s Tom? Where’s your Ghost?!”
Tom! The name yanked at Rook, shaking him from a daze he hadn’t realized he had been in.
“TOM!” Rook barked. He held his breath for a response, any response. A radio blip or even the shimmer of his Ghost appearing in the thinning mountain air. Tom wasn’t one for the silent treatment. Hell, half the time Rook couldn’t get him to shut up. But now, in the burning twilight of the City, Tom gave no answer. Not even a bleat.
Dread squeezed his heart. They had reached a rocky outcrop mere meters from the treeline when Rook took a knee, swiftly but carefully dismounting Atlas from his shoulders. He brushed the muddy brown hair out of the warlock’s pale face and made sure he was still breathing. Once satisfied, Rook reran the last couple of hours.
They had been in the City at their favorite cantina. It was raining off and on. Rook had just finished a turn on the Wall and Atlas had been waiting for him. He knew Tom was there because he was bickering with Ezri.
Then, explosions from above. Shrapnel from the tower pelted the city streets. A Cabal fleet creeping over the City walls. Concrete buildings crushed as heavy drop pods pummeled them from above. Deafening gunfire. Atlas’ crackling incantations. Rook’s hammer exploding upon the enemy’s advance, decimating their ranks. Civilians huddled behind them. Atlas made for the hangar while Rook held his ground. The charred remains of the Cabal surrounded him. Comms were dead. Tom had gone to reach the Vanguard on Rook’s command. He turned to the huddled mass to tell them —
Then the Severance. His hammer’s bright flame died immediately, and the weight of the lightborn steel was all at once too much. He collapsed under it. Something was wrong. He felt wrong. Like the wind had been knocked out of him. Why was it so hard to breathe? Some civilians rushed out to retrieve him. Rook didn’t know how many hands bore his chassis to the remains of their cantina, now a repurposed bunker.
Dread-filled minutes gave him enough time to orient himself. It was like he had lost all sense of direction, like he was adrift in the sea with no stars to show him north. All he knew was the rumble of heavy footsteps, the thunder of an advancing platoon. And the growl of a tank. They were the last things he wanted to hear. His hammer lay in the middle of the road where he had fallen. He knew he would need it to face the next onslaught.
Rook rose shakily, helped by those he had guarded. Despite their whispered admonitions, their fearful questions, the anxious Are-You-Alrights, he knew he had to stand. He couldn’t form the words to reassure them. All his strength and what remained of his balance focused on staying upright and reviving his hammer. He reached forward into the air, sure to find it in the Light where it had always been. But unlike countless times before, his palm did not erupt into a fresh flame. Not even an ember. This time, his hammer laid dead in the road.
Confusion choked him. With the panic of a man gasping for air while still far beneath the waves, he began grasping for any Light he could find. He clenched his fist tight, searching for the Arc surge that he had so instinctually summoned on the day of his rebirth. He could hear a platoon drawing closer, yet his fury found no charge. Once more, he whispered in his soul for the Void but no answer came from the other side.
His nausea came to a point so sharp, he felt it puncture his soul. The Light…was gone!
The guttural mufflings of Cabal-speech were louder now. They were close. Far too close. There was no more time to call for a Light that wouldn’t answer. He stumbled through the rubble, searching for something to throw. He wished for his hammer, but to retrieve it would expose them to the enemy. Something else then, he thought. Something sufficiently like it. His numb hands fumbled until they found the smooth black handle of a skillet.
Rook hobbled out from the building, making sure to keep out of sight of the advancing platoon, and mustering what strength remained in him, he cast the iron into the smoky air, away down an adjacent road. As he saw the thing pitch and wobble like a dying bird, he prayed to the Traveler that it would hit something, anything loud.
Over the Cabal stomp, there came the shatter of glass and the shriek of an alarm. The Cabal emerged into Rook’s view. Once again, he clutched his breath like a life-preserver. The platoon scrambled past them, trudging toward the noise and away from Rook and his weeping nest. As the last of the Cabal turned down the dark street, Rook ushered his flock in the opposite direction.
Silent but for the scuffle of shaking feet and labored breathing, they passed between the concrete rubble and the plasteel rebar. Smoke and settling dust confused the streets and avenues, making their home all but a labyrinth.
Finally they stumbled into another group of survivors. At their head was a pair of Hunters that, to Rook, seemed trustworthy enough to entrust with his refugees. Beneath his flock’s soot-covered faces, their eyes shone bright with gratitude and fear. He gave them a confident nod, trying his best to convey a bravery he knew he was feigning. He slipped back into the night, aiming himself toward the Tower and its hangar. Toward Atlas.
Rook’s clandestine passage through the broken districts wore on him like a waterfall on stone. He dropped his broad pauldrons to hasten his flight, but the weight of the surrounding holocaust was almost too much for him. Andalusia Street had been swallowed in the collapse of the apartment complexes that used to surround it. The Orenheim Market glowed like a jack-o-lantern, the flames licking its blackened husk. The 72nd was so filled with billowing smoke, it reminded him of last summer’s thunderheads.
But worst of all were the corpses. Before, when he had been guiding his flock, he hadn’t noticed; his eyes too occupied as they frantically scanned the horizon for Cabal. But now the bodies were all he could see. He could hardly stand it. His mind reeled within its metal frame, trying to cope with the loss by quantifying it, subconsciously counting each and every one that came into sight. Rook venomously cursed the anxious arithmetic but he was powerless to stop it.
A weak comm burst made it through to his headset. A Ghost’s voice, one he recognized: Ezri.
“Tower!……Anybody on comms?…oes this thing even……anguard chan…0721… request… mediate evac…” The signal was more static than not, likely rebounding on jagged surfaces and melting relays. Rook could barely make anything out of the stutter, until one message burst through the static.
“Guardian down!”
Rook’s mind suddenly sharpened to a fractal edge.
Not Atlas. They couldn’t have gotten Atlas. He had knew Cabal tactics even better than Rook; lessons learned from their frequent tours around Freehold and Phobos. Then Rook remembered his failed strength, his fallen hammer. He crouched beside a slab of lifted concrete and, keeping to the shadows, he peered down the street to the heart of the City. For the first time he saw the Cabal’s infernal machine gripping the curvature of his god.
If the Traveler’s Light had been his strength, Rook wondered, could it have also been the crux of Atlas’ intellect? Could he really be…
“Guardian down!” Ezri’s cry rang more desperate. “…ommand? Rook?……nybody?”
His name snapped him free from fear.
“ZI!” He hissed into his mic, wholey expecting it to not work.
“Rook?!”
“Ezri, give me your cross streets and then clear comms!” The Cabal were star-faring conquerors. Radiowave bursts from any Ghost would be one of the easiest targets to paint with cannon fire.
“98th and Salstadt! HURRY!”
He shot from the debris like a bullet, heading north into the storm.
— -\\// — -
“Rook! We need to hit the treeline!” Ezri pulled him back to the present. How long had he been leaning on the snow-crusted boulder between them from the remains of the Last City, he couldn’t say. Ezri continued.
“They’re sending gunships. I can make them out against the night sky. We need to move!” Her voice then softened with profound desperation, “I need you to save my Guardian.”
She was right. Rook spied the haphazardly cauterized scars through Atlas’ bloodstained robes. Whatever Ezri could do was only just keeping him alive. Saving them both was on Rook’s shoulders. Reaching down, he hefted the warlock onto his back, more gentle now than he had been before their flight from the City. Once he was secure, the Titan kicked off of the boulder and trudged steadily into the cover of evergreens.
And with every step, the question repeated in his mind:
Tom. Tom. Where is Tom?
— -\\// — -
A red dawn slowly bled over the decimated remains of the once Last Safe City, charred to a husk of its former pride. The lone sun shone through colossal plumes of smoke that rose from the Tower and the residential ruins over which it once stood vigil. Defeat hung stale in the air. The Red Legion fleet slowly prowled around the captive orb like a clan of hyenas spiraling inward toward their prey. And as their meat, the Traveler clung silently to its place. A mute god now muzzled.
The growls of more than one Goliath tank reverberated in the ruined districts below, stalking the streets with foot soldier escorts eagerly looking for the next Lightless victim. Squads of centurions combed the alleys that could not take the wide berth of a Goliath, and with every building, a scrawny Psion would stretch out their mind to search for pockets of survivors or any sign of gathering resistance. Any human, Guardian or not, was shot on sight.
Tom kept his watchful eye on every patrol as he whizzed past. These Red Legionnaires were better shots than the expeditionary forces that he and his Guardian had encountered on Mars. And the Psions were even more keen. Constant war had bred them to be especially sharp.
As he wove his way through the wasted remains of the residential district, he made scattered comm bursts, each time only emitting a single word.
Rook.
His red and bronze shell anxiously spun in every vector, cycling through different configurations and frequencies to find his Guardian. He received no answer.
Maybe he’s still holed up where I left him, Tom thought. Maybe I’ll find him at the cantina, protecting people, clutching the grip of his blood red Eyasluna.
Maybe I’ll find him covered in blood.
Maybe I’ll find him…dead.
“No, Tom.” He stopped to peer at his own reflection in a window flickering with fluorescent static. “Don’t think like that. You’d know if he were dead. You’d have felt it. My Guardian will be alright. Rook will be alright.” He stared at himself and tried to make a tough sort of look, lowering the top center cubelet of his shell over his eye. Rook had taught him that one a while ago. It had never been very convincing, not then and not now.
When the Light had gone out, he had almost made it to the Vanguard. The Severance had caused him to faint and fall from the height of the Tower. He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, only that it was darker when he awoke. He couldn’t account for the time he was out. Anything could have happened to Rook during that blackout and there wouldn’t have been any way he could have known.
He started for the cantina again. Every spinning, sickening thought made Tom fly faster and faster. His comm bursts increased in frequency.
Rook. Rook. Rook.
He soared in and out of every window he found, unafraid to break glass if it hastened his flight. The shortest distance is a straight line. Weaving around buildings took time. He didn’t have time. He’d lost too much of it during the Severance. He had to find his Guardian.
“Rook,” he pinged in another frantic comm burst. Again and again and again. Rook. Rook. Rook.
Just as the sun crested the Wall that circumscribed the City — the Wall both Tom and his Guardian had spent days on as sentinels of humanity — he found the bombed out remains of the cantina. The shattered glass. The spent cartridges. The charred Cabal flesh.
And a Lightless Hammer. Dead in the road.
“Oh Traveler, please no.” Tom tumbled toward the fallen steel, widening his aperture for a scan. It was undoubtedly a Hammer of Sol, but Tom had to break it down to a molecular level. He knew Rook’s Light like a bird knows its own nest. If the steel’s harmonic frequency matched Rook’s, then it could only mean…
The Ghost isolated variables in the metallic compounds; ran a comparison between past recorded data; cross-checked it with cursory scans from other Titans that frequented Rook’s fireteam; correlated probability matrices; all to disprove his worst fear.
All in vain. This dead hammer belonged to none other than Rook-9. Tom’s Guardian.
“Rook. No. You’re… You can’t be…”
Tom tried to muster what little Light resided within him. The Ghost’s shell expanded weakly, only to falter and slump back upon him in utter exhaustion.
“And I — I can’t…”
I can’t…
I can’t…move.
Tom suddenly noticed his fidgeting shell had seized up. He couldn’t spin it across any axis. He tried to propel himself forward like before, with the ease of a minnow in calm waters, but he couldn’t. He was transfixed to the spot above Rook’s Hammer. He couldn’t figure out why. He couldn’t turn, couldn’t spin his shell, couldn’t fly. And the pressure around him seemed to be ramping up exponentially. He was trapped by an unseen force, crushing him into submission. Fight all he could, his struggle was fruitless.
Only then did he hear it: the slurred chatter of alien voices and the high whine of telekinetic distortion. He felt his scuffed angular shell cracking under the weight of another’s mind, and as he fell once again into that pit of unconsciousness, the last thing he saw was the single triangular pupil of a Psion’s eye.
— -\\// — -
A man turned in perturbed darkness. His extremities were splayed lightyears apart, every nerve sparking like a flashbulb, poignant and blinding, then succumbing to the numbing deep. His eyes squeezed shut against the growl of distant sounds, a pounding in his feverish ears. Amid the din, a voice murmured like a morning rivulet.
“…Atlas?”
His eyes opened with all the vigor of a dying tortoise. As the myopia receded, he thought to take stock of his surroundings as they gradually came into focus.
The air was soft, thick and green. A gentle draft rolled across his face, filling his nose with musty notes of soil and rotten wood. Somewhere nearby, a clock ticked like a metronome for a chorus of crickets. Croaking timbers and distant footsteps oscillated with the ache in Atlas’ head. And above it all, he could hear the soft purr of his Ghost mere feet from his face.
“Can you hear me? Can you speak?” Ezri cooed.
Her voice, like yarn mallets on a steel drum, made his ears ring. It was more dizzying than painful, but it made his face scrunch. Ezri zealously launched into a diagnostics routine, casting a beam of light across his face and slivering eyes.
“Gah!” Atlas gasped in a raspy voice, “Cut the light show.”
“Oop, sorry!” Ezri said, dimming her bulb. “It’s just… I wanted to make sure… well, you’re alive!”
“As alive as the day you found me,” he groused.
“Well, that’s more than some can say.”
“It’s more than some deserve.” Atlas’ eyes eased back open to survey his whereabouts.
It was a bedroom; emphasis on was. A faded pastel wallpaper curled against the walls around him with tufts of moss and black mold filling in the gaps. The wooden floor had seen better centuries, it now being a bed of splinters and termites. The two windows, one on either side of the room, were tinted by age and long since broken into sharp wedges. Cobwebs shivered in every corner. And to speak of the bed: it was nothing more than a dented collection of copper tubes holding the stained remains of a sagging spring mattress. It’s years of service to generations of rodents stuck to Atlas’s exposed skin like sap.
“Where are we?” Atlas asked.
“The European Dead Zone. Though the locals lovingly call it the EDZ,” said Ezri, showing off just a little bit.
“Locals? I thought most everyone had relocated to the City by now, what with the Fallen.”
Ezri shook her shell.
“Apparently not. From what I’ve heard, the Fallen keep mostly to the more urban ruins around here. Better for scavenging, I guess. And with how armed the locals are, not to mention the occasional patrolling Guardian, the Fallen have rarely bothered. And even with the skirmishes, I can understand why people would want to stay: it’s beautiful!” Her shell carelessly spun as she got lost in thought of their new haunt.
“Right…” Atlas said, giving the decrepit room another onceover. “Beautiful.”
“Ooooh!” Ezri growled, “Just look outside.”
Atlas sat up, eagerly at first but soon regretting his haste. His head throbbed inside his skull, retaliating against the jarring ascent with a wave of nausea. Atlas felt his insides trying to come out. He screwed his mouth shut as the spicy bile bubbled up to his throat. After a few risky seconds, it simmered back down into his stomach.
As the moment passed, Atlas began to take note of what he could and couldn’t feel. There was something absent, but he couldn’t put a word to it. He was too distracted by a new and growing pain.
His skin was on fire. His clothes were sandpaper, and the once timid breeze felt hot and cruel. The headache was understandable, expected even, but this? This was a surprise. He looked at this hands and was surprised to find them bandaged, the fabric course and browning from what he could only assume was his own blood. How had he not noticed them before?
“Ezri.” Atlas strained, “What’s this?”
She hovered down to his hands. “Well…this is why you were unconscious. Partially why.” Atlas glared at her, his typical unspoken request for further explanation.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” The Ghost asked. Atlas tried to think back, but the pulsing of his skull dissuaded him from trying too hard. He pushed past it as much as he could, parsing out his memory like an equation to be solved bit by bit.
“I remember…the cantina…the Cabal…and…the crowd?”
“Right. During the attack when…” Ezri paused briefly, trying to process recent events, “…when the Cabal came, we were on our way to the Tower Hangar. People were trying to escape, but some of the lifts weren’t working. You used your Light to power them, using yourself as a conduit to power the elevators. It was working great until…”
Ezri paused again, this time longer than before. Her eye spun, and Atlas could tell she was looking past him, through everything, vainly trying to process something she had thought impossible. Unimaginable.
“The Light,” said Atlas, touching his stinging hands together. That was what was missing. The equation resolved itself more and more.
“They stole it, Atlas!” Ezri whimpered. “And when they did, it was like the sun itself had been extinguished. I felt so weak and dizzy and wrong! Worse still, the Severance happened while you were bridging arc streams, and when I finally came to, you were laying face down, your arms burnt, heaving for breath. I couldn’t ease your pain because I needed the adrenaline to keep your heart beating. But I did everything I could to keep you from dying. I-I was so scared you weren’t going to make it…” She drifted down with every word, finally resting in Atlas’s bandaged hands.
Atlas could see the memory of it dragging her inward, trapping her like a whirlpool, so he took over.
“The Severance? Is that what they’re calling it?”
His inquiry pulled her back to the present. “Some of them. At least, that’s what Rook calls it.”
Rook. His oldest friend. Atlas hadn’t thought about what might have happened to him. Hearing he was alive felt like a salve upon his burnt flesh. There was so much he had to catch up on.
“So, Rook and Tom made out alright. That’s a relief,” said Atlas.
Ezri’s reply came reluctantly.
“Not entirely.”
Atlas cast her another inquisitive glare, this one more confused than the last. She sighed and said, “I’ll explain on the way. There’s something you should know.”
— -\\// — -
The settlement was ramshackle at best. Ivy-cloaked houses and barns that were surely condemned centuries ago had been repurposed as emergency shelters for the civilians lucky enough to make it this far. How many had actually escaped the City? As far as Atlas knew, evacuation protocols were rarely practiced. After all, the Last City had withstood Six Fronts and Twilight Gap. Under the protection of the undying and in the shadow of the Traveler, humanity’s city had grown for centuries. If all past campaigns had failed, who could have imagined that this one would have succeeded?
Atlas followed Ezri as she led him through the villa to a small dock. The lake hugged the western fringe of the rundown town. The afternoon was thick with clouds occasionally striped with blue sky, and the water was veiled in a light fog that clouded the horizon. Atlas could barely see the silhouettes of the evergreens on the other side. The comings and goings of City Hawks cut clearly over the haze. Ezri had promised to take him to some place called the Farm, and she had even gotten someone to ferry them across the water. Jumpships were so busy transporting survivors that they didn’t have time to handle local travel.
The ferryman was an odd fellow, although Atlas thought one would have to be if they preferred living outside the city. He reminded Atlas of a boulder with his broad shoulders and thick legs. His belly stretched the straps of his rubber overalls, and a salt and pepper beard clung like moss to his stiff face. Age cut deeply into his brow, and the effort of rowing the boat made his eyes bulge, bestowing upon him a grave and unsettling demeanor. How Ezri had gotten him to agree to ferry them, Atlas could only speculate.
The voyage took longer than Atlas would have liked. He was accustomed to starflight and sparrow racing. The small boat, with its faded veneer and splintered hull, creeped unbearably slow to his taste.
Despite the stillness of the air on shore, a cool northern breeze broke upon them as they glided further into open waters. The ferryman adjusted his course, setting them against the wind. He softly grunted at every stroke. His exertion was rhythmic; the man clearly seasoned in navigating these waters. As he paddled, Atlas heard humming, likely a jig the ferryman had learned to keep his tempo. The chanty would lilt, end and repeat every couple minutes and after the melody’s fifth round, the ferryman retracted the oars to give himself a second to breathe as well as grant Atlas a moment of respite from the off-key tune.
There they lazily bobbed in the celadon water, the thin mist freckling their faces and masking their position relative to any shore. The ferryman’s eyes were closed and his smile was as faint as his breathing. The currents of air and water tempted them south.
“They’re sayin’ yer Light is gone.” The ferryman broke the stillness of the moment.
Atlas didn’t answer.
“Knew the Traveler was no good. City too. Figured only fools would live by a dead god.”
“Watch what you say, friend.” Atlas hissed through gritted teeth, eyes lifted to match the ferryman’s gaze. While he wasn’t nearly as dogmatic as other Guardians regarding the sanctity of the Traveler, his respect did not require reverence.
“Mah name’s Yorke,” the ferryman interrupted.
“Watch what you say, Yorke,” Atlas started again, colder this time. “Those people have just lost everything they’ve ever known. Piling on your personal grievances might not be the best idea.”
“Ya know,” Yorke said, disregarding the Warlock’s words, “When I was young, I stood on those walls. Right ‘long side the Titans. So tall and strong they were, an’ I wanted to be jus’ like ’em. Jus’ as tall an’ strong. They taught me how to shoot. Quite liked the Häkke models. I think it was the Lyudmila-D that was ma’ favorite. Aye, now you have a heavy hitter. Good grip, an’ a bit chunky in the body. Jus’ like me!” His belly and his boat shook with his laughter.
“One lesson I learned right quick was to clear the range. Ya’ see, we were poppin’ clays off the side of the wall, lookin’ out toward the Gap. I was a young twig, havin’ jus’ made the militia, but I couldn’t handle the kick of my rifle yet. Kep’ missin’ the pigeons, ya see. So one of those Titans, I don’ remember his name, he went down along the wall, knelt down, and wouldn’t you know it, the daft bastard told me to shoot him instead. Swore he wouldn’t move, and gave himself up to be a big ol’ target. Titans can be real thick, jus’…”
“Just like you,” Atlas cut in this time. The ferryman laughed.
“Aye,” he started again. “So I took mah aim, tight grip and both eyes open, jus’ like they taught me. I pull the trigger an’ send a burst right at the big man’s chest, the gun kickin’ like an ass. Three solid rounds sank into his body. The first only dented his breastplate. The second bit into his neck, and I must have hit a vein because damn did he bleed. The third sunk right into his face,” Yorke pointed with one of his calloused hands, touching his sharp cheekbone, “an’ blew the side of his face off. Oh, the bastard laughed after his Ghost did its work. They had a good time trying to settle me down.”
“Cute story, but — ” Atlas said, but Yorke lifted a finger.
“Aye, and it’s not over. Now think, do ya know what makes Häkke models so special? Their burst fire rifles in particular?”
His headache finally receding, Atlas gingerly rifled through his memory. The Lyudmila-D had never been a favorite of his. But, at one point, Banshee-44 had tuned a model that actually met his specifications — it had taken months for the amnesiac gunsmith to correctly remember his order. It was a decent enough weapon. A long sight. A Bullpup frame. And…
Atlas groaned and looked down, “They fire four-round bursts.”
The smile had drained from Yorke’s face, “Aye. An’ where do ya suppose that fourth bullet flew?”
Atlas met his ferryman’s intense stare and shook his head.
“Right through my captain’s chest.”
The moment hung like the blurred sun behind the distant pines.
“She was comin’ to relieve us for the day. And I ended up bein’ relieved instead, despite the Titan’s blubberin’s and pleadin’s. Not everyone is as lucky as you Guardians to come back from the dead.”
Yorke took up the oars again.
“Humanity lived behind the biggest target in the universe. We were bound to get hit by somethin’ we couldn’t survive.”
The second half of the voyage was longer than the first and somehow even more awkward. During Yorke’s story, the current had carried them away from their destination, so he had to work a bit harder to reach the Farm’s dock. If Yorke were humming, Atlas didn’t hear it. As time wore on, the clouds and the fog cleared, revealing the harbor just as they were approaching. Atlas slowly and achingly rose, careful to not put too much stress onto his bandaged hands. They were healing quickly thanks to Ezri’s ministrations, though the prickle of nerve damage persisted. Stepping onto the dock, Atlas felt visceral relief to be on a stable ground once more.
He turned to dismiss himself from Yorke, but found that the ferryman had already pushed himself off. As usual, he interrupted Atlas.
“Take care, Guardian. I’ve got matters to attend to. Do me a favor though: if you see that lass Suraya and her dumb bird, tell her I’m happy to lend her my farm, but that I want it back, an’ with everyone out, when this is all over.”
— -\\// — -
The Farm was numb with chaos. It wasn’t long after Atlas disembarked that he could hear it. Small clumps of refugees fresh from their escape huddled near the southern cliffside, clutching what remained of their supplies and belongings with pale knuckles. City Frames, though few in number from Atlas’ count, buzzed around corners and ushered the masses to unseen camps with an almost inappropriate zeal.
“There are so many,” Ezri whispered.
“The City was a big place,” Atlas responded, spying a new cluster of civilians transmatting onto the cliffside north of them. “How long have the Frames been at it?”
“As long as we’ve been here, so three days at least.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, how did we get here? We’re quite a ways from the City.”
“You’ve got me to thank for that!” Ezri chirped as they rounded the corner of the tall, ivy-infested farmhouse. Scaffolding, sharp from fresh matterforging, crowned the old home’s roof, and a half finished radar tower was being set as its proud crown jewel. “You see, Rook might have carried you away from the immediate danger but it was I who — ”
Not ten feet in front of them, two dusty figures broke into a scuffle. One of them, a tall Titan with olive skin and wavy dark hair, had attempted a cheapshot with her elbow. But her opponent an Awoken and clearly a Hunter by his dilapidated cape, had been ready for it, sweeping the legs out from under the Titan. She landed hard on her back. But with surprising dexterity, the Titan tucked her armored knees to her chest, rolled backwards onto her feet and launched herself at him. The Hunter had expected the counter-attack, but not its momentum. His foot was raised, ready to kick her back down, but she grappled onto it, and with the force of her rebound knocked the Hunter back off his feet. They landed with a foul crunch, the Hunter howled wildly. Even from a distance, Atlas could see bones, bloody and protruding from where a knee was supposed to be.
The Hunter unsheathed a knife as the Titan raised her shaking fist.
“THAT’S ENOUGH!”
The command was like smelling salts. Hazy rage lifted from the clouded minds of the dueling Guardians. From one of the house’s darkened doorways came a tall woman, wrapped in a crimson and periwinkle poncho, her dark hair tucked neatly back into its hood.
“I can’t have you Guardians fighting each other when we’ve got bigger problems around here!” Her hands gripped the wooden patio banister, her tattooed face red with fury.
The Titan lowered her fist. The Hunter dropped his knife and all at once remembered his punctured flesh. A Ghost puffed out of thin air and groaned as they inspected the wound, casting a weak light over it. Pain twisted the supine Hunter’s face. He had his leg firmly pressed to his chest, arms wrapped around it to keep it still. The Ghost asked for the Titan’s help to straighten the leg and she repentantly agreed, kneeling back down to help.
“Thank you!” The poncho’d figure spoke again, her gratitude exaggerated. She hopped to the ground from a gap in the broken old handrail and assisted in the first aid. Atlas heard a crackling snap and the painful gasp of the now mortal man. Before the Severance, some Guardians had taken to eating a bullet any time they were seriously wounded. Faster to resurrect than to wait for their Ghost to work its magic, they figured. That was no longer an option.
Atlas approached the scene, leaning in to glean any information that he could.
“Sorry, Hawthorne,” the Titan said, “We were talking about how…how we lost everything back there. Khalil here started blaming the whole thing on Titans, and I dished it right back. That’s when we kinda lost it.” Khalil, the Hunter, remained silent and still on the ground, sucking down breaths as his Ghost performed what miracles it could.
“Look, I get it, we’re all a bit on edge right now,” Hawthorne scolded, “but we need you to keep it together. You see those cityfolk over there?” She nudged her head to a distant huddle of refugees. The Titan’s eyes, heavy with exhaustion, followed her direction. Atlas did as well. This group was larger than others, and while a Frame was trying to herd them past the rickety barn, most of them were turned toward the scuffle, stunned. They were a diverse group, every one of them a distinct shade of humanity, but even from a distance you could see the same thing in all their faces: despair.
“They’ve lost everything, same as you. But unlike you and me, they don’t know what life is like outside the walls, and now they don’t have any choice but to deal with it. And they’re looking to you two,” Hawthorne shot a glance at both of them, “to be their Guardians. Do you really think fighting like this is going to make them feel safe?”
Atlas could barely hear them each mutter ‘no’.
“That’s right.” She reached down, grabbing Khalil by the inside of his arm, and heaved him up from the ground. “Now go help that Frame get them set up in a tent. They’re pitching new ones on the other side of the wind turbine.”
They stood awkwardly, clearly wanting to say something like an apology to her. Hawthorne just nodded her head toward the refugees and gave them a “Get going!” And with that, they dismissed themselves, the Hunter hobbling away with his arm around the Titan’s shoulder.
She turned toward Atlas and the door she had come from, collecting a long rifle that lay propped against the wooden banister, and let out an exasperated sigh.
“Well done,” said Atlas.
“Yeah?” Hawthorne perked up, looking at him, yet another Lightless Guardian. “Someone’s gotta keep the peace around here, now that you Guardians have all fizzled out.” She stopped, eyes squinting with regret. “Sorry. Not used to people hearing me when I think out loud.”
“You aren’t wrong,” Atlas remarked as he took a closer look at her uniform. It was worn, but well maintained. She clearly wasn’t a refugee. But it wasn’t the clothes that gave her away. It was the confidence. “How long have you been out here?”
“Longer than most.” She said, slinging her rifle over her shoulder, passing him on his left. “Sorry, I’d love to chit chat, but we’re about to head out for another sweep to look for survivors out near the Gap. You fit to fly?”
“Love to, but no,” Atlas tipped his head in thanks. “I am looking for somebody. Maybe you’ve seen him: Exo, long yellow ears, has an affinity for bad jokes and throwing things?”
Hawthorne shook her head as she walked away from Atlas and up the hill toward a makeshift cliffside landing pad. “Nothing rings a bell. Got lots like him around here nowadays. You might want to ask around.”
Atlas thanked her, and as she turned to go, she paused and regarded him again.
“Now that I think about it, I heard tell of someone chucking an axe into trees behind the barn. One of the mechanics yelled at him to stop, ’cause the last thing we need is a tree dropping in on us, but I never followed up on it. Anyways, might be worth a look.”
Atlas nodded appreciatively and watched as she hiked up the hill. She called out again, not turning around this time, “Good luck, Guardian. Oh, and while you’re here, at least enjoy the view.” She extended her arm and from some hidden roost in the waving trees, a large brown falcon silently swooped down and neatly perched on her.
“Wait a minute, was that Suraya?!” Ezri gasped, the two of them coming to the realization simultaneously. “I’ll catch up with her and pass on Yorke’s message.”
Atlas shook his head, smirking.
“No. He can wait.”
The Warlock turned back to head deeper into the Farm, pondering Hawthorne’s words. At least enjoy the view? All around him were downtrodden strangers and the dilapidated husk of a pre-Collapse hamlet, surrounded by scant woods backlit by a golden hour sun. As he continued walking, that same sun peeked through a gap in the trees and what looked like an ivy-wigged watermill. He rose a bandaged hand to shield his eyes from the twilight, and that was when he saw it.
Against the distant sky rose the monolithic curve of an alabaster god, wreathed in smoky clouds and flashing with arcane light. The curved and cracked shell was firmly planted into the horizon, seemingly growing out of and towering over the green foothills. Atlas couldn’t tell if it was due to the dying light or the thickness of the atmosphere, but the whole region around the Shard glowed with an eerie jade aurora.
“Uh…Ezri?” the Warlock said, dumbfounded.
“Oh yeah!” Ezri piped up. “I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Atlas broke into a brisk canter, bounding past the barn and across the splintering bridge. He winced at every shock that rippled through his still sensitive skin.
“Not entirely,” she corrected. “The locals call it the Shard of the Traveler. From what I’ve picked up, there is no Light to be found in it.”
Atlas’ shoulders slumped when he heard this. He was halfway across the muddy field, the tails of his sooty robe now speckled with muck. But his eyes still fixed upon the Shard. It was so close. He was so close. This couldn’t possibly be a dead end.
“Do you know who did the scouting?”
“Atlas…” Ezri replied, reluctant.
“Ezri, who scouted the Shard?” he repeated.
She sighed, checking the local networks for logistics. “They’ve got a man holed up in the nearby town. He’s been leading field operations.”
“Is he reliable?”
“I’m showing years of distinguished service in the militia. Medals for marksmanship. Plenty of field experience.”
Atlas kept digging, “What about the scouts he sent out?”
“Take your pick. Too many Hunters and an assortment of Titans, Warlocks and civili-”
“Warlocks, good,” Atlas cut in. “Who and from what order, if any?”
“Atlas…”
“Ezri,” he hissed. “Names.”
After a second of silence, the list came. Sheru, Dawes-7, and Saranya, a trio of Thanatonauts. Morgen-4, an orderless. Ostero, a sharp Praxic. And Prytania, the Gensym Scribe.
Atlas reached into his memory. His mind felt somehow more constricted with no Light. He might have known the Thanatonauts, but he tended to keep his distance from them. He respected their craft from a healthy distance. Dying wasn’t something Atlas took lightly.
He had gone on strikes with Morgen-4, who, in Atlas’s estimation, was more haughty than intelligent.
Ostero did good work, particularly his investigation into the Cryptarchy and their engram skimmings, stealing some of the more valuable finds. But he had always struck Atlas as more clerical in his inquiries. Syphoning Light from a Shard would by no means be his métier. The Gensym Scribe however…
“Prytania.” Atlas roused from his meditation. “Get me in contact with Prytania. I’ll need to ask her about her modus operandi to see if I can find any holes in her conclusion.”
“Logs indicate she left on a Search and Rescue yesterday, and long distance communications are spotty. Technicians are still sifting through our satellite connections to see which ones the Cabal haven’t demolished.”
“Do we have an ETA on her return?”
“No,” Ezri mumbled.
“Well, shit!” Atlas kicked a stone, sending it sailing and bouncing off the rusty cattlegate between them and the Shard.
Ezri shimmered into sight before him. They stared at each other for some time, the rush of approached jumpships and the rustle of wind through trees being the only sound to pass between them. Neither blinked.
As usual, Ezri broke first.
“Atlas.”
“I refuse to do nothing, Ezri,” he said, acrid and hushed.
Ezri nodded. “Alright then, what can you do, Atlas?” She rose with her voice, looking down on him. “What are you going to do against the Red Legion that just took our home, our Light, and almost took YOU AWAY from ME!?” Her whole miniscule frame trembled. “Three days, I thought you were going to die! Three days of me doing all I could with what little I have left, and now you want to dash off and put yourself right back into a place I can’t pull you out of? Is that it, huh? Answer me! What are you going to do!?”
The Ghost wilted, her shell drooping off her eye. Her strength had been spent healing Atlas’ wounds and now the last of it evaporated along with her patience. As she drifted down, her Guardian brought forth both hands to cradle her.
She looked up at him, sobbing, “What are we going to do?”
Atlas looked to her, his eyes soft with pain.
He brought her close to his face and gently whispered, “Let’s find Rook.”
— -\\// — -
Rather than pass back over the bridge, which had creaked unsettlingly upon his first crossing, Atlas opted for a more direct route to the barn. The brook between them was shallow and lazy, and its water found holes in his boots. Waves of goosebumps rippled up from his legs to his nape and the hair above it. Atlas winced painfully. He likely would have thought its coolness refreshing, but the nerve damage denied him the pleasure. He found the opposite bank slick with a clay, so by enlisting the lip of a broken handcart that had sunk into the earth long ago, Atlas hefted himself onto a nearby log and continued on his way.
The wind had picked up a little since their arrival at the Farm. The copse hugging the barn from behind swayed in the breeze, creaking and rustling with living static. On approach, however, Atlas heard something cut through the blustering leaves: a slow, wooden beat of steel meeting trunk.
He clumsily grappled over the wooden fence protecting the grove, hands sore, legs still thawing from the river. As he landed, the twigs littering the forest loam cracked beneath his feet. He heard a voice, deep as ore, call out.
“Go away.”
He heard a grunt, but then came a twang of a ricocheting steel bouncing off a tree followed promptly by muttered curses. Footsteps sounded out of sight. Atlas slowly approached. He could see the shimmering outline of an Exo bending over reaching for something, his frame burning with the last of the sun’s light. The Exo stood up, his face obscured by a tree’s shadow, but his long yellow ears gave him away.
“Rook,” he said.
The Exo flinched, then turned to meet the Atlas’ gaze. His shoulders visibly relaxed, his orange eyes dimming.
“Atlas,” he sighed. “You’re alright.”
“Thanks to you, from what Ezri tells me,” Atlas replied graciously.
“Yeah, well… I did what I could.” He paced away from Atlas, retaking his spot from before. A hatchet as old as the hamlet creaked in his tightening fist. “For those that I could, at least…” the Titan’s voice trailed off, his eyes lost in the underbrush.
“Ezri told me,” said the Warlock.
Rook turned and readied the hatchet. “You’ll want to move. This thing is a lot lighter than my hammer, and I can’t get it to land consistently. Bugger can bounce.”
Atlas moved forward and posted himself off to the side of his friend, thinking of what to say. ‘Sorry’ wasn’t in his vocabulary, not even in the case of condolences. So instead he stood in silence, watching as Rook hucked the hatchet at the tree over and over, at times successfully, at other times less so.
The sun finally set, leaving the pair in fading dusk light. As Rook returned from reclaiming the rusted axe from the tree, he looked down at it in grave reverence. When he spoke, his voice broke, despite his efforts to keep it tempered.
“It’s my fault. Nothing came over the comms, and I didn’t know what to do so I sent Tom for orders. I wanted to be where I could do the most good.” His chest shuddered with restraint, shoulders trembling. He continued.
“How stupid could I be? Where else should I have been? The people needed me where I was. The Cabal kept coming. If I had left, those people would have been killed.”
Atlas spoke up, “You don’t know that.”
“Oh-ho, don’t I?” Rook’s words were bitter. “I brought down at least two dozen Legionnaires. I had a fistful of bullets left. I was bingo on shells. Tom was gone.” He held back the regret with his whole frame. “It got to a point where I was just bashing their heads in with my hammer and hoping they wouldn’t hit the place with a drop pod, because if they did…” His voice trailed.
“But did they?”
“Did they what?” Rook looked up from the ax, brows furrowed eyes alight with anger.
“Did they get to the people?”
“No,” Rook’s gaze hardened. “After the Severance, we got away somehow. Then I came looking for you.” He looked at his friend, sighing softly. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it.”
“But I did. And so did Ezri,” Atlas firmly stated.
The chirping of crickets filled the night. Fungus growing at the base of the trees around them did what it could to fill the void the sun left behind. Atlas could see stars breaking through the eastern sky beyond them.
“Is Tom gone?” Atlas asked
“Like, dead gone or…” Rook questioned.
“I figured that was obvious.”
“I…can’t tell,” Rook answered him slowly, his eyes darted like fireflies back and forth, trying to interpret whatever he could feel inside him. “You’d think I’d know, but I can’t tell. Everything inside me feels…”
“Hollow,” Atlas said, realizing it was the word for it. Hollow of Light.
“Yeah,” Rook continued, “I’ve heard of Guardians that lost their Ghosts in dark places. Heard they felt something similar, like an empty dread. But I don’t know.”
In what little light the night offered them, Atlas could see his friend drifting inward again, haunting himself with regret. Atlas had to pull him back out. The Warlock’s mind had been turning the whole time, thinking of the best way forward. Ezri’s question hung over him. What were they going to do?
“Rook, you’ve got a three day lead on me. What’s the word around the Farm?”
The Titan shouldered the hatchet and began his recount. The Tower was decimated, along with the Vaults and the Hangar. Only Guardians on patrol, or those that were stationed in the Reef or Felwinter Peak still had access to their jumpships, and those were being used for scouting and search and rescue. From what they could tell, every form of Light was gone. Two days ago, a stray Warlock had tried to see if they could pool the Light of the Ghosts into a single Guardian, but nothing came of it. They had been lucky enough to have a matterforge, but Glimmer was in short supply, with the only reserves coming from those Guardian and civilian ships fortunate enough to not have been obliterated by the Cabal blockade.
“Speaking of the Cabal,” Rook said, “They’ve got an outpost here in the EDZ. Somebody lovingly dubbed it Firebase Hades, since none have come out alive. How the Legion built it so fast, I’ll never know. Scouts that say they’re tunneling around into the mountains.” He sighed, returning to his position and reading his hatchet for another toss.
“Tunnelling?” Atlas puzzled.
The axe flew, but the handle struck the piecemeal bark, sending it rebounding toward them and into the dark underbrush. “Yeah. Can’t quite tell what for. Sometimes a local House of Fallen gets caught in their path, and the Cabal call in one of their gunships. From what I’ve heard, it’s not pretty.” He waded through the shrubbery in search of his distraction, carelessly cracking any branches that got in his way.
“Fallen? Not Devils, are they?” Atlas asked.
“Nope, not Devils,” Rook grunted, keeping to his search. “Not Kings either.” He paused, turning to Atlas. “Now that I think about it, I don’t know WHAT house they are. None that I’ve seen before. Whoever they are, they seem to be running on empty, just like us. They’ve got crews all over the region mining glimmer.”
Atlas perked up at this.
“If they’re not from any House, chances are they aren’t as well supplied as the rest of the Fallen. Which means they could be easy targets for pirating.”
“Pirating?!” Rook guffawed in success, hatchet in hand. “So, if I’m hearing you right, you want to get fireteams to pillage the Fallen a little, resupply our Glimmer stores, and then what?”
Atlas could feel Ezri tumble inside of him. She did not like where this was going. Sure enough, she burst into the night air between the pair.
“Then what?!” Ezri erupted, her eye darting between the two of them. “Then nothing! I’m not going to let you two go on some suicide mission!”
“Ezri!” Atlas hissed.
“No, Atlas!” She hissed back. “Rook, talk some sense into him! What about the Vanguard? What about the Consensus? What do they have planned?”
Rook cringed, “There’s still no word from the Vanguard. Speaker is MIA too. I double-checked earlier today. There’s no word.”
“And the Consensus?” Ezri asked.
“Nothing from Dead Orbit, so chances are they’ve taken their fleet and finally pulled the trigger on that little exodus of theirs. I’ve heard rumors that FWC and New Monarchy were planning an insurgency in the City.”
“You can’t be serious!” Ezri replied, voice betraying a mild shock.
“Zi, they’re called the Future War Cult. Emphasis on WAR.”
“And cult,” mumbled Atlas.
Rook shot him a snide glare. The Factions were one of the many things the two didn’t see eye to eye on, but at least they were each pragmatic acolytes. Rook had aligned himself with the FWC for their sponsorship of the Omolon Foundry, which fashioned his favorite rifles. Atlas had loosely supported Dead Orbit for their cis-jovian satellite data and because he had an affinity for the color black.
“That doesn’t leave us with much,” Atlas said, doing the mental math, “but no Vanguard does mean one thing…”
“What’s that?” Rook and Ezri said in unison.
Atlas smirked. “No one to tell us no.”
Rook, however, did not share this mirth.
“Atlas, I don’t know.”
The Warlock recoiled slightly “Since when have you been shy about an op?”
“Since I lost Tom. I can’t this time.”
“Why not? They’re just Fallen.” Atlas’ prodding was getting sharper.
“Yeah, and I’m just an Exo!”
“An Exo with how many years of combat experience? At least a twenty, by my count.”
“And more deaths than most!”
“And more successes too! You know what a deathtrap looks like, Rook. Who better to lead these missions than someone who can stare death in the face?”
“Not me,” Rook rumbled.
“Why not?” Atlas asked pointedly.
“BECAUSE!” Rook erupted into the night. “Because with every one of those successes came a dozen individual defeats. And for every death, a resurrection! But I don’t have Tom anymore. Don’t you get it? We don’t come back anymore, Atlas! And after the City, I can’t trust my gut to make the right call! I gave the order for him to go, and for all I know, it killed him! And if I give an order to anyone else, I’ll kill them too!”
Rook-9’s mouth burned hotter with every incrimination. He roared as he sent the hatchet ripping westward through the grove toward the Traveler. Its rusted steel sang out as it struck something hard. A gulp of river-water and then silence. Even the crickets held their peace.
Atlas could see Rook’s trembling frame, his fists suffocating bitter rage. For a moment, only the wind spoke, the leaves whispered back.
Rook spoke again, his voice a course whisper, “I was supposed to be the wall the Darkness broke against. I failed. And now? I’ve lost everything I thought I could protect. The City. The Traveler. Tom. They’re all gone.” He sunk to his knees, the dark of night engulfing him entirely.
Atlas looked down on his friend, a cocktail of anger and awe swirling inside him. In all their years together, he had never seen Rook this low. Atlas turned away, walking back toward the fence that he had scaled. The waning moon offered what light it could. The distant profile of the Shard hooked into the night sky. Flashes of stormlight haunted its black interior. Atlas’ mind again worked on Ezri’s question. What were they going to do?
If only Tom were here, Atlas thought. Even Lightless, he knew that Rook would be unstoppable if he only had that one assurance. And so, he flipped the equation.
“Rook,” Atlas called out.
The Exo offered only a deep grunt.
“What if we could get Tom back?”
“How?” Rook asked in a cracking voice. “Go back to an occupied City and search every block? Do you realize how long that would take? We don’t even know if he’s alive.”
He’s right, Atlas thought. But that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.
“If that’s what it takes.” He turned to his crumpled friend hidden in the shadow of the past three days. From the darkness, Atlas saw Rook’s orange eyes kindle. “Whatever it takes, Rook. We’ll get Tom back.”
The Titan rose steadily to his feet, branches crackling beneath his weight, and slowly plodded toward the Warlock. The moonlight was soft on the Titan’s scarred face. He took his place next to Atlas, leaning against the wooden fence, and stared into the distance toward the Shard of the Traveler. From behind its cracked face, four bright blue lights gradually emerged, one after another. Atlas recognized them as the thrusters from a Cabal Warship. Firebase Hades had been far closer than he had thought.
From somewhere within Atlas’ clouded mind, a new idea was born. He caught hold of it, working against the numb resistance. He gave it time to breathe and used his attention as kindling. The Cabal were so close. They were so new to the system. They must be busy. Maybe… maybe they wouldn’t notice if their new neighbors borrowed something.
The Warlock turned to his towering friend, “I’ve got a plan.”
— -\\// — -
“This is a terrible plan,” Rook-9 whispered to himself. Under normal circumstances, his good humor would have outshined his nerves. Nowadays, he struggled to even entertain the idea of warmth.
“You do realize you were broadcasting when you said that, right?” Atlas buzzed in his ear.
“…Yeah,” Rook was still getting used to the rudimentary interface of his hastily cobbled field-plate helmet. He checked his channels, and upon realizing his pessimism had only been shared over a direct link between him and his friend, he relaxed a little.
“Riiiiiight. If it helps, I’ve already got the next op planned.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the working title is Operation: Viking Funeral. It’s a solo op where I cremate the remains of everybody that signed up for this mission.”
Rook’s eyes rolled hard, “Your altruism is inspiring. Too bad for you I’m made of metal.”
“Oh, but that’s the best part.” Rook could hear the treacherous sneer. “You want to know what I’ll do to your body? I’ll give you a hint, it involves a Sparrow, three canisters of helium explosive, and — ”
“CLEAR COMMS!” Rook snapped. A burning wind, heavy with a sulfuric aftertaste, rioted the trees around them as a Cabal gunship burned dangerously close overhead. “Threshers”, the Cabal called them. Probably related to the way they had sifted through the fleeing refugees after the City fell. The name was apt, however unpleasant.
Rook and his fireteam were perched on a high rock shelf overlooking a tight ravine about twenty kilometers south of Firebase Hades. Running north to south, the ravine itself was wide enough for Sparrow traffic and maybe a Cabal Interceptor, but too bottlenecked by frequent boulders for anything larger. Moss-robed conifers crowded the ravine’s slopes, and frequent rain had made the underbrush supple and silent. And at the base of the ravine, where the overgrown road met mountainside, a small detachment of Red Legion kept vigil as they cleared the ground with flamethrowers.
Rook spied them with a strange sense of envy. As far as the Cabal were concerned, they had already won this theatre of war, and yet to see them still so disciplined and alert…as vile as the thought was, Rook couldn’t help but note that Humanity had something to learn from their conquerors.
“Status?” The question came from an inquisitive Hunter they had drafted for their operation.
Recruitment had gone easier than Rook would have thought. As it happened, there were plenty of Guardians willing to lend a hand, and for plenty of reasons. The Ghostless were the easiest to conscript, since their plight was the same as Rook’s. Others, like this Hunter, acted purely upon their drive for revenge. Others still were simply fulfilling their need for action. Their kind had roamed the solar system with active command for untold years. Waiting wasn’t a hobby Guardians found easy to pick up.
Especially after a nameless Guardian had gotten their Light back. Word had spread fast, and with that blood in the water, every ex-Lightbearer in the Farm was thirsty for action. Because who knew? They might be the next to reclaim their godhood.
Gossip spilled over the radio about how exactly it had happened. One of the first theories to be floated around was that the Guardian had a sliver of the Traveler that they had stolen back from some Hive ritual years ago. Another was that the Guardian didn’t have the Light at all; that they had followed the path of the Dredgen, wielding the Darkness like a forbidden blade. Some speculated that perhaps the Guardian had made a bargain with a wish dragon. That last theory, however, was one of the few to be summarily shot down. As everyone knew, Ahamkara had gone extinct years ago.
However the Guardian had done it, in reclaiming their own power, the rest of humanity had been imbued with power as well — power that Atlas and Rook sought to direct.
Rook peered back over the jagged rock’s edge and responded to the Hunter’s request.
“All clear up here, Khalil. From the looks of it, they’ve just about finished clearing the underbrush, and lucky for us, that Thresher didn’t spot us on its last pass.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me, we’d know,” Rook said flatly. Of all Cabal tactics, he knew subtlety was not one of them.“Alright, last check before we’re live. Sound off, militia first.”
Local non-Guardians checked in in a semi-orderly fashion. They had been lent rather reluctantly by their field commander, a gentleman by the name of Devrim. Per the agreement, militiamen were posted the farthest from the action. They would serve as eyes and ears, as snipers and scouts, best positioned to bug out if things got a little too hot.
Next were the four fireteams of Lightless and mostly Ghost-less Guardians. One by one, each of the ragtag fireteams Atlas had assigned under Rook reported their positions and status. They would be the ones causing the most of the ruckus. Their weapons were refurbished or kitbashed, their armor utilitarian and, much to the chagrin of many a Hunter, nowhere near as ornamental as before they’d lost the City. To even be able to forge such threadbare armor, Guardians had had to pillage quite a few Fallen caches, stealing as much Glimmer as possible.
Atlas and his wingman, a Warlock named Amparo, were the last to check in. They were the real crux of this operation.
The whole plan was a scam — a bait and switch. Rook went over the plan again in his mind.
Step 1: A Red Legion Warship enters low orbit above the ravine and deploys a drill.
Step 2: Once the drill is active, Guardian fireteams move in using the noise of the drilling as cover.
Step 3: Engage Red Legion forces. While killing them all at once would be preferable, this would only give the Warship above every excuse to firebomb the entire ravine. Since they sought to maximize survival, fireteams would have to ensure that the Cabal were neutralized at a controlled pace in order to prevent either being overwhelmed or bombed out.
Step 4: Incite enough manageable chaos that the Cabal send in a Thresher in order to provide aerial support. That was the real prize.
Step 5: In their jumpships, Atlas and Amparo emerge from their hiding spot behind the mountain and engage the Thresher. With the odds being two to one, there was a good chance the Thresher would retreat toward Firebase Hades. The two pilots were to disable the Thresher before it could escape. Then, a fireteam would be sent to repair the Thresher-turned-trojan-horse so the Ghostless could return to the Last City in search of their Ghosts .
Step 6: The Fireteams engaging with the ground forces retreat before more reinforcements arrive.
And that was that. Rook looked to the pair of Guardians hiding with him in the underbrush. Sylva Kine, an Awoken Hunter, sat back in the bushes with her head against a rock painted with yellow and white lichen. Her bright eyes sat transfixed to the north, toward Firebase Hades. Her leg bounced incessantly.
“Sylva,” Rook reached for with a whisper.
“Yeah?”
“You good?”
“Anxious.” Her rosy eyes flicked toward Rook, “But good.” Then, back to the horizon they retreated.
Their third was another Titan by the name of Nebun, scarred helmet fixed in place, his breathing course but calm. Rook knew little about him other than his name and his eagerness to volunteer. Before the Red Legion, Rook would take time to get to know everyone in his fireteams, at least on a superficial level. He enjoyed learning bits and pieces about his companions. With Nebun, however, Rook didn’t have to ask. He could feel the bloodlust seeping through his mask with every breath Nebun took.
The sky boomed. They looked up, and sure enough, a Cabal Warship crept into the sky high above their little ambush, blotting out the high noon sun. They had been camped out in the ravine for over a day, not knowing exactly when the ship would come. It had been Devrim’s scouts who had informed Rook and Atlas of the location of the mining expedition, but they had to guess at the Legion’s timetables. Lucky us, Rook thought. Not only would the drill mask their approach, but the shadow would help keep them out of sight.
“Maybe this will go smoother than we thought,” Rook shrugged at his fireteam. In response, Sylva donned her helmet and fixed her hood. Nebun only cracked his neck.
Another loud burst echoed through the ravine, closer and hotter than the last. Rook looked up to see a little orange dot, brilliant against the black hull of the Warship, grow louder and divide as it descended. The drill’s three engines burned hard, slowing its fall in a thunderous roar. The Cabal on the ground made way for their hardware. It landed with a clank onto its three thick legs, and after some preliminary jitters and clicks, the drill spun to life. Faster and faster it wound above its compact derrick until finally the thick bit slammed into the ground, crashing and scratching into the packed earth, flinging pebbles and hot rocks in every direction.
That was their cue. Rook gestured to his fireteam. They followed wordlessly.
The slope was steep but manageable, the trees and smaller bushes serving to slow their descent. After a hundred meters or so, they positioned themselves behind a thick bundle of pines.
The drill was deafening. From the reports, however, the noise would subside once the bit bored past the rocky topsoil. They had to hurry. Rook called out orders over the comms, but there was no chance he would be able to hear his team. The machinery drowned out his voice entirely. He would have to trust that they were in position.
Rook nodded to Sylva and they both raised their long rifles. At this distance, the Legionnaires were easy targets, but they would have to pick their shots wisely. They had to balance keeping the platoon busy and keeping themselves alive. Rook pointed to their mark: a Cabal bearing a flamethrower that slowly lumbered roughly 40 meters away.
Rook raised his sights. He steadied his aim. Centered his crosshairs on the Cabal’s hefty fuel tank. And fired.
The bullet snapped into a tree to the left behind the Cabal. Sylva’s bullet, shot not a millisecond after his, hit true, denting the fuel tank, but nothing more. Rook cursed. Of course the tank’s casing was too thick to be pierced by a single round.
The Incendior jumped in surprise and spun in their direction. Rook’s heart jumped in its chassis. Panic swirled in his mind. There was no time to fix his scope. He peered down sights once more, picking where he wanted his bullet to strike, then banked his gun to the right and fired again. This bullet ricocheted off the Cabal’s shoulder just below where Rook had been aiming. Another miss. The Incendior marched toward their hiding spot, flamethrower coughing up ember spittles. The other Cabal were beginning to turn curiously toward them.
Rook had expected his Hunter to have followed up on her shot by now. He turned to Sylva. Her gun was in her arms, her fingers fumbling near the ejection port. Her yell barely crested of the din of the drill.
“JAMMED.”
As he turned back to the approaching Incendior, Rook noticed movement to his left. The trees were shaking. Nebun was skidding down the hillside, bounding clumsily between trees, both hands clasping his machine gun. He meant to run interference, without orders. But there was no way his piecemeal field plate could stand the sustained jet from a flamethrower. He would die, no matter how stubborn.
Rook raised his rifle again. The Cabal was close now, and it had seen the approaching Titan. It trudged toward him, the spout of his flamethrower roiling with fire. Rook took aim, compensated right, he pulled the trigger once. Twice. Thrice.
The fuel tank erupted, engulfing the Cabal and the ground around it in a mushroom of orange flame. Heat washed over Rook. The sudden flash had blinded him. He lowered his rifle, blinking wildly until he could see again. He looked down to see the mad Titan marching through the smoke of the blazing crater where once there had been a Cabal. His machine gun was glued to his hip, its barrel spitting flaming iron onto the approaching Red Legion platoon. And over it all, Rook could hear his maniacal laughter.
The battle had begun.
— -\\// — -
Bullets flew like wind-whipped snow through the tight ravine. From elevated positions tucked away on the mountainside, sniper fire from Guardian and militia alike hailed down onto the gravel and the Cabal’s crimson armor. Every once in a while, a round would find its mark, squeezing through the thin gap between their heavy helmets and thick breastplates. The punctures hissed and ignited the gas within their suits, the Cabal dying from fiery decompression.
However, the Red Legion wasn’t the only one taking losses that day.
Rook crouched behind a massive boulder sitting at the north end of the ravine. His long rifle was laid at this feet alongside a wounded Hunter from another fireteam. Her cape had been shredded for impromptu bandages. She kicked in pain, her hands digging into the rough cloth quickly darkening from the blood spilling from her right shoulder. She would survive if they could only stop the bleeding.
“You’re good! You’re fine!” Rook tried to console the Guardian over the crackling gunfire, his voice shaking. “Your Ghost can heal you!”
The Hunter shook her head. “No ghost.”
Rook cursed himself. He had failed to pack in any first aid. Why would he, he had thought. It wouldn’t get this bad. Behind cover, he scoured the ground until he found the Hunter’s belongings to see what she had in the way of field dressings. The bag was empty except for a scope, a pair of unused pulse rifle magazines, and a large battery.
Rook stared at the battery for a full second before realizing what it was for. A fusion rifle. One of the few they had on this mission.
Rook tapped the Hunter’s visor a few times to make sure he had her attention, and holding up the battery, he yelled over the nearby gunfire, “WHERE?!”
The Hunter tipped her head somewhere behind Rook. He frantically glanced all around them. It was nowhere to be seen.
“WHERE?!” he repeated.
The wounded Guardian tipped her head again in the same direction, this time more violently, and then curled up in pain against Rook’s greaves. This time Rook understood. The fusion rifle was behind him, south past the boulder, in the no-man’s-land between them and the drill. Between him and the enemy.
Leaving the writhing Guardian behind, Rook leaned against the boulder and craned his head out to see how the fight had progressed.
Not well. For either side, from the looks of it. The Cabal were disoriented, hunkered behind freshly requisitioned barricades and lobbing heavy slugs in every which way. Their round bodies littered the floor of the ravine. Every once in a while they would gather for an advance, only to be rebuffed. Any caught in the open would be skewered by sniper fire.
In surveying the battlefield, Rook spied bodies of two fallen Guardians. One of them, a Titan named Yung, had thought to transmat in her Sparrow in order to do a high speed maneuver to catch the Cabal off guard. A flying Cabal blade caught her first. Her Sparrow had crashed into the hillside, a tree stuck between its forks, grey smoke billowing from its engine. Rook could see the tangerine shell of her Ghost lying motionless on the ground near her corpse. The other Guardian, Greyston, thought to retrieve the body. His failure was equally as fatal.
Rook kept scanning the ravine floor until he found what he was looking for: the Hunter’s fusion rifle. He shouted over the comms, his voice bellowing over the crackling gunfire and the red-hot grinding of the Cabal drill: “I NEED COVER FIRE, WEST OF MARK.”
Rook had thought that he would have hesitated. He was Lightless. Ghostless. He should have been petrified. Instead, he took flight. Years of experience moved in every swerving step, bounding over the hulking mounds of dead Cabal and well past cover. The fusion rifle was only twenty, maybe thirty meters from his boulder. His armor was light. He was free to sprint as fast as he could without the Light’s aid.
He picked up a shadow of movement in his peripherals, massive and impending. His eyes flicked to it: a Legionnaire, red as death, barrelling out to greet him in no man’s land. Its arm was raised, bearing a sizzling razor from its wrist-borne sheath. It could have shot him, could have launched its blade right at him, angling it to tear through Rook’s body. But that wasn’t enough for this Cabal. It was as frenzied as Nebun had been. It was dead set on slaughtering Rook by hand.
The wake of slug rounds lobbed over head. The twang of sniper fire ricocheted all around. He didn’t have far to go. The rifle was close now. Fifteen meters. Rook bounded over an exploded husk of red armor. The Legionnaire was closing on him. How was is it so fast? It didn’t bother to avoid the bodies — it just plowed through them like a train through heavy snow.
Suddenly, sharp pain sliced through Rook’s abdomen. His hand, still slick with the Hunter’s blood, whipped to his side. It couldn’t have been a slug round. One of those would have split him in half. His left hand found the hole. It was thin and deep, like a round fired from a sniper rifle. From friendly fire. A ricochet. He heard someone over the radio exclaim something that sounded like regret. He tumbled to the ground right as the Legionnaire came upon him. Rook heard the heaving grunts through the beast’s mask. Their eyes made contact.
Rook’s hand found the grip of the fusion rifle. Instinct gleaned from a hundred deaths took charge. The Legionnaire raised its arm to plunge its blade into Rook’s chest. The fusion rifle whipped in between them and Rook squeezed the trigger. It quaked in his tight grip, raw power spooling within its accelerated coils. A burgeoning sun ignited from its muzzle and right as the Legionnaire moved to skewer the prone Titan, a flurry of fire spurted from his rifle, burning a gaping hole through the Cabal’s chest. It collapsed forward, blade arm limp. Dead before it hit the ground.
Rook dropped the fusion rifle and gasped in relief.
Then Rook’s jaw followed the rifle to the ground. He hadn’t seen it before while the Legionnaire was bearing down on him, but now with it dead beside him, Rook had finally noticed the menacing, crimson gunship coasting low into the valley above him. The Thresher approached from the north, a red shadow against the storming Shard behind it. It glared at him with its long rectangular cannon.
All Rook could do was close his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Tom.”
Hot wind and gunfire.
Then more gunfire.
Rook didn’t think he would hear so much shooting while dying. Shouldn’t it have only been one shot? He opened his eyes to see the Thresher lifting up and over him, it’s lone cannon firing in deafening clanks. Sparks jumped from its head. Its three engines burned hard, giving birth to a sizzling dust devil that roiled within the basin. Past Rook it flew, firing constantly at something he couldn’t see.
A blue blur sliced through the ravine from behind Rook. A sonic boom cracked and shook every tree. It was a jumpship, flat and wide, its single engine flaring white.
“YOU WERE RIGHT! THIS IS A TERRIBLE PLAN!” Atlas’s voice boomed in his ear.
“ATLAS!” Rook shouted, a sudden grin growing wildly on his face.
The dark blue bird banked upward and careened back down toward the ravine, slashing past once more and leaving another sonic boom in its wake. Rook didn’t hesitate. With one hand grappling his side and the other on the fusion rifle, he spun to his feet and made a break for the boulder. Amazingly enough, no Cabal slugs flew past him. They must have been just as awestruck at the sight of the jumpship as Rook.
He rounded the boulder and slid to a knee next to the Hunter. Her tattered cloak and the ground around them were brown with blood. She had removed her helmet, whether to breathe easier or to witness the gunfight, Rook couldn’t say. Her dark skin and charcoal hair glistened with sweat.
Rook replaced the rifle’s battery, not daring to check how close to empty the last one had been. He didn’t want to know how close he had been to getting stuck like a pig. After removing the bandages, he placed the muzzle of the fusion rifle against the Hunter’s her wound, barrel angled away toward the hillslope. Rook pulled the trigger, and another flash of fire erupted from the rifle’s mouth, scorching the ground meters past them. The Hunter screamed and convulsed, her body jumping from the shock of cauterizing flame.
“You’re good! You’re fine!” Rook told her a second time, though this was the first he actually believed it.
“Rook, come in!” Sylva’s voice rang over the comms.
“Go ahead,” Rook replied.
“Are we done here?” Her voice was bolder than before the assault. “The Warlocks are in pursuit of the target, and per orders, we’re not supposed to kill all the Cabal.”
Rook thought about it for a second. She was right. That had been the plan. But if they pulled out now, would the Cabal know that they had only come for the Thresher? That would give away too much. On the other hand, if they finished off the Cabal, what was stopping them from simply nuking the valley?
Rook took another gamble. “Change of plan. Finish them off.”
In response, there came a deep, malevolent laughter. It was Nebun. Rook should have known he wouldn’t question that order. He pulled the Hunter upright and laid her against the boulder. Her chest heaved from the sharp, labored breaths. Rook managed to stand despite his aching abdomen and peered beyond the boulder.
Nebun approached the Cabal bunkered near the drill, machine gun still adamantly stuck to his hip. Sylva advanced upon the enclosed position as well, using the Titan’s body as a shield. Her long rifle flashed and Rook heard the spirit of Legionnaire venting into the early afternoon sky. Rook brought a flat hand to his brow, and then forward into a closed fist. A Titan’s salute. Nebun turned to Rook, nodding and chuckling all the while.
Rook reached for the fusion rifle and moved to rejoin his fireteam.
BOOM.
The drop pod’s impact sent a shockwave through the ravine, throwing Rook back down to the ground. Dust once again clouded the air. The onyx monolith gleamed in the light of the sun peeking out from behind the looming warship. Its sharp corners cut into the surrounding verdant landscape.
“SYLVA! STATUS!” Rook cried out. No response. He looked down between his feet, eyes locked on the massive drop pod. It had landed right where his fireteam had been.
Fiery trenches cut into the pod’s surface like a freshly heated brand into flesh. The top of it melted and the black ferrofluid collapsed on itself, cascading away and flooding the basin with a tar-like ichor that quickly evaporated. From behind the melting walls emerged a towering figure, a monster plated in crimson-gold armor. In its claws it hung a massive two-pronged cannon, heavy enough to crush a Guardian beneath its weight.
Rook rolled back behind the boulder. The Hunter, now sitting against the rock, shot him a manic look.
“What is it?!”
Rook-9 caught her in the eyes and could barely choke out the word.
“Colossus.”
— -\\ END OF PART ONE OF ORIGIN STORY// — -