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“Hey,” Orion’s voice crackles to life over her radio. “ I think there’s a guy down there.”
“A guy,” Vestra deadpans, scanning the debris of the ship’s ruined hull through her scope. There’s a fallen patrol picking their way through rusted steel, two Dregs and a Vandal. She puts the Vandal’s head in her sights, thinking. The Captain’s last known location is still pinged on her HUD, less than three hundred and fifty yards away. If she takes the shot now there’s no way he doesn’t hear her fire and sound the alarm. Dammit. “You really think that out of all the stupid shit you come up with, ‘a guy’ is what’s gonna get me?”
“I’m being serious! I saw ‘em sneaking around one of the wings a few seconds ago.”
“Huh. Thought we were the only ones out here.” One of the Dregs trips over a pile of rubble and into the other one, sending them both falling to the ground. “You get a good look at them?”
“Not really.” Vestra can hear the quiet click-click-click of a hand canon’s barrel spinning in the background. She can practically see Orion fidgeting with it in her head, doing the same mental math she is. “Human for sure though.”
“Could be a civilian,” she guesses. It’d be unlikely and really damn inconvenient, but there have been more and more caravans coming to the City these days, full of people eager to see what they’ve managed to carve out in the shadow of the Traveler. There’s plenty of danger this far out from the walls and it’s not hard to imagine someone left stranded, scavenging to survive.
“Could be,” Orion agrees. “Might be a Guardian, too.”
“Like we need more Hunters sneaking around and fucking with our missions.” The Dregs are still sorting themselves out on the ground while the Vandal shakes his head, throwing up one pair of arms and crossing the other. Not the brightest bunch, that’s for sure.
“Oh yeah? From the way they were movin’ around down there I’d say they’re more like a Titan. All muscle and no grace. Or brains, if we’re being honest.”
"You wanna get honest, huh?” A smile creeps up onto her face at the amount of genuine annoyance in his tone. She swings her scope up and to the left, surveying around the exposed cockpit when she catches something moving by a chunk of control panel and snaps to attention.
It’s Orion’s guy. They’re doing their best to keep low and to the shadows, but there’s only so much good that’ll do with the early evening sun still illuminating everything with a pretty, golden glow. She sees what Orion meant about the way they move, too, unsure and jumpy as they clutch the beat up looking auto rifle in their hands just a little too tightly. The longer she watches, the worse the sinking feeling in her stomach gets. Their clothes are ragged and stained, the only piece of armor on their body being what looks like a junky helmet that hasn’t seen any action since the Collapse. They probably are just a civilian hoping to scavenge something useful from the wreckage who found themselves faced with either sneaking around the Fallen patrol to get out of the canyon or scaling the cliffs and becoming an even easier target.
“--estra? Ves? Are you even listening to me anymore?” Orion asks. “Friendly banter is a two way street, you know.”
“I found ‘em,” she says, pinging their location on the team overlay of her HUD. “Definitely not a Guardian.”
Orion’s tone sobers immediately. “ Shit. Of course they aren’t. Any chance they’ll be fine on their own?”
Vestra watches them stumble over a steel beam and grimaces inside her helmet. “Not a one. We gotta move fast.”
“On it,” Orion says. “I’ll circle around south and see if I can catch them before they attract too much attention and—” He cuts off, static coming over the open line until his voice picks up again, much more urgently. “Fuck fuck fuck, Ves that Captain’s on the move and he’s heading right for our civilian.”
A new ping appears on her hud, steadily moving closer to the cockpit as Orion keeps marking him. “I’m not gonna have sight of him for much longer.”
She lowers her scope, taking in the full view of the canyon. The patrol she’d been keeping her eye on has moved closer to the tail and there’s another set of three pulling in on pikes from the canyon’s entrance. The Captain has two Vandals with him at all times, the rest of the platoon spread out in various patrols with a handful of Shanks and Servitors hovering around for good measure. The plan had been to wait for a good opening and take out the patrols without the Captain getting suspicious and calling in a skiff, but it’s looking like that’s getting thrown right out the window.
“Keep moving south,” she says, a rough plan pulling itself together in her head. “Try not to let them see you. I’ll set off the explosive barrels to the east to draw their attention and hopefully I can—”
A single shot rings out through the canyon. In the distance, the civilian drops to the ground.
Vestra’s moving before she can really register what happened, rolling back behind the rock she’s been laying next to for the better part of an hour. Her eyes snap to the cliffs above, searching for the enemy. There, ten yards up and to the west, is the glint of a Fallen sniper’s scope. It’s a bad position that’s made even worse by the sun bouncing off parts of their armor. She’d been so sure that she’d had the cliffs locked down, but somehow, she’d managed to miss the obvious. Guilt creeps up the back of her throat. The other sniper hasn’t seen her yet, meaning there’s still time to get a clean shot. It won’t be enough, but it’ll have to do.
There’s a familiar hum at the base of her neck, warm and bright. Normally, it’d be a welcome feeling. Not now, she thinks, forcing the feeling down. Need to focus.
The humming doesn’t stop and quickly turns to buzzing, a familiar synthesized voice speaking out over her comm. “Wait, Ves,” Tango says, sounding just as frantic as she’s starting to feel. “Look at his body!”
She redirects her attention, peering around the rock and back into the canyon below. Her scope snaps back to her eye, sweeping back over the wreckage and settling on the slumped over body of the civilian. She pans back and forth for a second, confusion rising, before she sees it: the fresh white shell of a ghost hovering near their corpse.
The guy’s a Risen. They still have time.
“What’s going on up there, man?” Orion asks, the panic in his voice rising. “Talk to me, please.”
“There’s a sniper, didn’t see him ‘til it was too late.” She reels around, lining up her shot on the other sniper again. They still haven't moved despite giving their location away and she wonders for the millionth time today what kind of shoddy training this House has been giving their troops. “He got a shot off but there’s a Ghost by the body, trying for a rez. Looks like they’re a Risen after all.”
Orion whistles low. “They have to be pretty new to try that kinda shit in the middle of a Fallen camp. We gotta move fast.”
She follows the line of the Fallen’s rifle into the scrawny bushes, putting their head between her crosshairs. “You read my mind. Ready to go loud?”
“How is that even a question?”
Vestra relaxes her shoulders and takes a few steadying breaths. She’s made this shot a thousand times before. Breathe in, exhale, pull.
Her shot cracks through the canyon, followed half a second later by the sound of hand cannon fire. The Fallen sniper’s rifle slips out of its owner’s limp hands and drops thirty feet down the cliff face. She snaps her own into the mag holster on her back and bolts.
She’d chosen this perch for a few reasons, not least among them that the sheer drop off the edge in front of her ends in a flat slab of asphalt instead of sharp rocks unlike the rest of the area. It’s a perfect landing pad for exactly this kind of situation. She checks the mag on her SMG and pauses. If they're going loud, she might as well do it right. She slips the SMG back into it's holster, too.
She takes a few steps back from the edge, bouncing on her heels.
“Coming in hot!” She hollers over the radio, grinning at the put upon sigh Orion gives her in response. She runs towards the cliff, boots pushing off from the ledge as she jumps forward into the open air.
She focuses on the warm hum just under her skin, lets it well up in her lungs and her fingers until it runs hot and bright through her veins, like it'll burn her alive if she keeps it contained any longer. For a second she can almost see herself from an outsider's perspective, the way Solar flames lick up her armor, almost engulfing her as she falls. She sees a hammer appear in her hand and curls her fingers around a phantom handle reflexively, not at all surprised when she finds resistance and feels the real thing materialize in her hand. It’s the best feeling in the world and yeah, yeah , Vestra doesn’t think it’ll ever get old.
The impact jolts her back into her own head, her armor’s alarms sounding off as her shield takes most of the damage. Vestra barely feels it, not wasting another second as the Dregs she’d been eyeing before start firing.
One hammer for them as she charges forward and another for the Vandal that nearly takes her by surprise but it uncloaks just a second too soon. A sunspot erupts on impact and she basks in the burst of light she feels as she rushes through it, one destination on her mind. She vaults over a fallen support beam onto a more intact part of the wrecked ship and lets another hammer fly, disintegrating a frantic group of Wretches caught without their spears. The floor slopes up steeply and makes for a good ramp as she jumps again, this time onto the upturned tip of one of the wings.
The canyon comes alive around her, the crackling of shock rifles cut short by punchy hand cannon shots that are getting closer. Vestra drops into a slide down the wing, her fourth hammer nailing a group of exploder Shanks with a noise so loud it leaves her ears ringing. She banks hard left when she catches the smallest glimpse of the Captain frantically chattering into some kind of handheld communicator through the chaos, the impact of yet another hammer bouncing off him uselessly as the purple beam of a Servitor shields him. One of his Vandals is caught in the blast but the other is still nowhere to be seen.
A few shots graze her shield and she ducks behind a concrete barrier, the cockpit just out of sight. Chances are the Risen’s Ghost is still a sitting target and she can feel the last of her super fading fast. She tosses the hammer up once and catches it before popping up from behind the barrier and focusing as much Solar energy into it as she can manage. The Captain is gone, but the Servitor spins to face her, purple lights flashing as it readies a teleport. Her arm pulls back, launching her final hammer with all the force she has.
It goes up in golden flames, its optics flickering before going dark, the empty shell dropping to the ground with a thunk.
The last of the excess Light bleeds off of her, leaving Vestra to shake off the last of the euphoria and keep moving. It’s like coming down from an adrenaline high every time, how fast her head clears always jarring. She pulls out her SMG and quickly checks for any signs of the Captain. Nothing.
It’s quieter now, no more gunfire from either side, but Vestra knows better than to trust it. She sprints straight for the cockpit with her gun at the ready.
She rounds the corner of a pile of rubble, what’s left of the cockpit finally coming into view. The Ghost is still there, thank the Traveler, but so is the missing Vandal, creeping around from the other side with one of its blades positioned to strike. It doesn’t see her coming.
She squeezes the trigger, a burst of energy bullets firing from the barrel and hitting the Vandal square in the chest. It staggers back in pain and shock, fumbling its weapons before another burst from her gun finishes the job, sending it crumbling to the floor. She sweeps the area again for good measure before turning back to the Ghost.
“Hey little guy,” she says, voice soft. It’s wedged itself halfway inside an exposed panel underneath the console, the white glow of its optic peering out at her cautiously. She lowers her gun and crouches down to get closer, holding out her hand like it’s some kind of stray animal, but flinches back into the panel. She sighs. “Skittish little thing, aren’t you?”
She glances around again, eyeing all the spots where it’d be easy for someone to hide. Satisfied, she pulls back her hand and summons Tango into her palm. She spins into the air with a flourish, her orange shell bright and gleaming. “See,” she says, nudging Tango gently forward. “We’re friendly. Not gonna hurt your—”
Two shots ring out, missing Vestra’s head by an inch. She wheels around just in time to watch the missing Fallen Captain tumble backwards, just a few feet from where she stands. She whips her head in the other direction and standing between two blown open walls of the ship is Orion, hand cannon raised and smoking.
Orion holsters his cannon and steps towards her, his cloak swishing behind him. “Getting sloppy there, Ves.”
“The only sloppy thing here was your shooting,” she says, taking a few steps towards him. “Almost blew my damn head off.”
“I save your life and all I get in thanks is a complaint?” He puts a hand over his heart and takes a step back in mock offense. “One of these days I’m gonna join a fireteam that actually appreciates all the hard work I put in.”
“Ha! Gotta find one who’ll put up with you first,” Vestra says, playfully flicking the visor on his helmet. “Kills in the crucible’ll only get you so far once everyone figures out how insufferable you can be.”
“Me? Insufferable? I think you need to take a good long look in the mirror here, man.” Orion swats her hand away from his face and pokes a finger into her chestplate. “I mean, ‘coming in hot’? Seriously?”
“It’s a classic!”
“Uhhh,” comes a voice from over by the console. “How long are you two planning on doing this?”
They freeze. Standing awkwardly in the shell of the spacecraft is the freshly rezzed Risen who looks between them cautiously.
“Oh,” says Orion.
“Hey,” says Vestra.
They stand there in silence, each blank helmet staring uselessly at the other two as if to will one of the others into putting them all out of their misery first.
Orion takes the metaphorical bullet, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his head, restless. He clears his throat. “The name’s Orion. This,” he motions to Ves, “is my partner, Vestra.”
“Howdy,” says Vestra, cringing before the word is even halfway out of her mouth. Fucking howdy ? Maybe she is the embarrassing one. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece.”
While technically correct, ‘one piece’ might be a little too generous of a descriptor for the Risen. He looks like he’s had a rough couple of days or, hell, even weeks with how tattered his clothes are, his rifle held together by what looks like wire and genuine duct tape. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were the exact clothes he’d been rezzed for the first time in, or if it turned out that he’d dug the gun out of some Golden Age dumpster, but she can’t really judge the guy for making the most of what he had. At least he’d managed to find a helmet.
The Risen nods at both of them. “Tory,” he says, holding his hand out and then almost immediately pulling it back when he remembers that there are, in fact, two of them. “Thanks for the rescue.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Vestra waves him off. Tango is gleefully scanning his Ghost, spinning around him in quick little circles while he gets dizzy trying to follow her. Amusement well up in Vestra’s chest. There’s nothing Tango likes more than meeting a new friend, but that doesn’t mean that they’re always as eager. “Just happened to be out here.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen anyone who wasn’t out to kill me,” he says, his shoulders drawing up tight. She knows the feeling. Her first few months weren’t exactly smooth sailing, either. “What were you two doing out here?”
“We’re from the Last City,” she starts, reaching out to gently pull Tango back by one of her fins. Tory’s Ghost looks relieved, darting back behind his Risen. “There’s been a lot more Fallen in this area than usual and they needed someone to check it out.”
“The city?” Tory’s Ghost perks up, floating up from where he’d taken refuge behind Tory’s shoulder. He sounds about as shy as he looks. “You’ve been there?”
Vestra nods, rocking back on her heels. It’s good that they’ve already heard something; convincing fresh faces who’ve never heard about the City to come with them doesn’t always go so well. “It’s a pretty neat place. Lots of good people.”
“So it’s not just a rumor,” Tory says, almost to himself more than to her. “There’s more Risen like us, working together?”
“Oh yeah, tons of ‘em.” Orion cuts in, stretching his arms out to illustrate his point. “Gave us a fancy name and everything: Guardians. Humanity's last defenders.” He wiggles his fingers at the last bit, earning a chuckle from Tory.
Vestra looks at Orion. When he nods, she knows they have the same idea. “We’re headed back there soon. We could take you with us, if you want.”
Tory starts to say something but the unmistakable sound of a skiff popping into the atmosphere draws all of their attention.
“Guess the Captain got off an SOS,” Orion says, staring up at the sky. They can hear the sound of Fallen soldiers hitting the ground close by, punctuated by indistinct yelling. Their job isn’t over yet. He pulls out his hand cannon again.
Vestra readjusts her grip on her SMG and gives Tory a quick once over. The helmet really is the only armor he has, the next heaviest piece of clothing just a dirty canvas jacket covered in scorch marks. There’s no time to get him in any kind of half-decent armor, but she can do something about the shoddy AR he’s wielding. “Here.” She holds a hand and transmats a scout rifle out of her inventory. “This’ll serve you a lot better than that piece of junk you’ve been using.”
He rests the AR against the console and takes the gun from her, testing the weight of it in his hands. Once he’s satisfied, he holds it up, holding this gun much more confidently than his old one. “Thanks.”
“Stay behind us as best you can and try not to get shot. Just because you can get rezzed doesn’t mean you need to bleed out on us here, got it?”
“Got it,” he affirms, standing up straight. She turns to Orion next.
“We’ll stick together on this one, try to clear them out as fast as we can and get back to the transmat beacon in one piece.”
“Roger,” he replies, giving her a lazy salute. “Kill everything, don’t get shot.”
Vestra smiles, turning on her heel and peaking out from partial cover the cockpit’s been providing them. No sign of the reinforcements yet, but they’re close. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
Orion groans. “She does this every time,” he tells Tory. He laughs like he hasn’t before, a half choked little thing that makes her grin wider. She likes this kid.
They sprint out of cover, guns at the ready. The skiff looms over head, dropping another round of Fallen onto the battlefield. Three super-powered beings with a machine god on their side versus twenty-something aliens bred to be cannon fodder are exactly the kind of odds Vestra likes. The first round of Fallen run out from behind a chunk of the ship’s massive jump drive and three weapons fire in near-perfect sync, mowing them down with brutal efficiency.
Oh yeah, she thinks. They’ll be out of here in no time.