CHAPTER THREE
Getting into the building was simple, if worrying. A quick search of the loading docks revealed that one of the doors had been pried open recently, which at least gave me a way inside, although I probably didn’t want to run into the people indulging in breaking and entering before me. “They could still be inside,” Ghost decided to point out as we moved into the building.
Stepping around a puddle, I couldn’t help but grimace slightly. “So, we go slowly,” I whispered.
“It probably wouldn’t hurt?”
“Even with a possible army of four armed monsters landing behind us?”
Even though it was currently intangible, I could almost feel Ghost shuddering at the thought. “Okay, fair point, but the only other plan I’ve got right now is screaming, and I can’t really think of any way that would actually help,” it admitted weakly.
Despite everything, I had to smile at that. “It might make us feel better,” I replied, earning a giggle from the tiny robot.
As we moved through the halls, it was clear the Fallen had been hard at work, demonstrating that looters remained the same across species. Storage cupboards torn open, desk drawers thrown on the ground, I could even see computer cases that had been ripped open and the motherboards stolen. It was odd, really. This entire Cosmodrome had been killed, slowly and painfully, by time and neglect, but seeing crude vandalism here was actually rather infuriating.
Still, at least the power was on somehow. Trying to navigate this place in the dark would just be asking for trouble. As I moved into what looked like some sort of machinery workshop, I wondered just how anything in the Cosmodrome could have power after all this time. Maybe the Fallen had hooked up a generator to make their scavenging easier?
Appearing next to me in a flicker of light, Ghost flew across the workshop towards a desktop computer. “This computer still has power, and I think it’s hooked up to the local intranet,” it reported. “Or what’s left of it at least,” it corrected itself, running its scanner lights over the computer tower. A moment later, the light cut off, and it ducked under the desk. “Ah, I found the router. You know, there’s a lot more of the network up and running than I would have expected. They used to really make things to last.”
“Glorious Soviet Engineering at work,” I commented, looking over a workbench that contained what I guessed was a half-disassembled turbine. “I don’t suppose the security system survived?” I added, picking up an old socket wrench. “We might be able to find a way around the Fallen.”
There was a rather unladylike snort from under the table. “Not with ‘Glorious Soviet Paranoia’ getting in the way,” it grumbled. “Everything I’ve got access to here is civilian or administration. Anything like that would go through the military network.” There was a pause, then Ghost flew back up into view. “Got it,” it declared. “Records show there was an Arcadia-class jumpship in dock thirteen. That could be our ticket out of here.”
“If it’s still there, and if it still flies,” I pointed out.
“I’ve heard stories about Arcadias surviving a lot worse than time in a hanger. It’ll be a bit battered, but it’ll fly,” Ghost said, sounding rather confident as it vanished back into my head. (I really needed to come up with a better description than that.)
Putting the socket wrench back down, I made my way towards the door, but I couldn’t resist one last dig at the drone. “If it’s still there.”
I couldn’t help but grin at the grumbling I heard. “I found such a pessimistic Guardian, I swear…”
***
It wasn’t too hard to actually find Dock 13. While the signs were old and faded, they were still more or less legible. And the biggest obstacle in our path there turned out to be some rooms where the floor had caved in from water damage, requiring a brief detour. Really, we should have known it was too easy.
The actual hanger wasn’t much to look at. Tin walls, a retractable roof that had collapsed at some point, and some old machinery that, at this point, was probably only good for scrap. The jumpship that was parked at the far end of the hanger was much more impressive. About the size of a small airplane, it was an advanced, sleek looking craft, although it clearly got more thrust from the large turbines mounted on each side of the fuselage than the aerodynamic parts of the design. While it was covered in dirt and grime, and showed some damage from time and the elements, it looked to be in surprisingly good condition.
So naturally, between us and the way out of this particular madhouse, were quite a few Fallen.
Leaning against a wall, I carefully leaned over and risked a peek into the hangar before pulling back into cover again. “I count seven,” I whispered, closing my eyes for a moment and feeling the sweat form on my forehead. “At least.”
“Rebuke,” Ghost said, in a tone of voice that suggested the word was a curse of some kind. Honestly, I couldn’t blame it. If not for the fact that my voice was audible outside my head, I’d be swearing, and rather loudly. “My count was the same. I think two of them were Vandals too.”
“I can’t take seven of them at once,” I said quietly. “Not with just this,” I added, gesturing at my Khvostov. The battered old assault rifle had served me well today, true, but it couldn’t kill that many aliens before they regrouped and cut me down. Which assumed there weren’t more of them in there, behind the jumpship or the old machinery. It didn’t seem fair. A way out of this madness was right there, but right now, it might as well be miles away.
Before the terror could truly take hold of me, Ghost made a thoughtful sound. “You have more than just that gun at your disposal. As I said earlier, being a Guardian grants a number of abilities. Quite a lot of them are intended for offense.” It sighed, and when it continued, it sounded slightly embarrassed. “I was planning on going over them later, once we’d gotten somewhere safe, but, well…”
“Desperate times and all that?” I said, taking a breath. Knowing that maybe there were still options, the fear began to recede again, the death grip I had on the rifle loosening enough that for a moment, my fingers tingled oddly. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Just… try not to make any noise,” Ghost said. “I’ll walk you through it, but this first part is going to feel… weird.” Raising an eyebrow, I resisted the urge to ask for more detail, instead simply letting my breath out. “Beginning Light infus-”
***
Silence surrounded me as I walked through the massive garden, carefully placing my bare feet between the black vines that covered the ground. A young girl walked alongside me, her hand in mine, clearly afraid but determined. With every step we took, the shadows moved ever closer, hiding the large, square stonework that surrounded the garden. Soon, the only light left was coming from the girl, the simple white robes she wore glowing softly.
As we moved deeper into the garden, shapes began to appear within the darkness. Men of bronze, watching us with hateful red eyes. Every step the girl and I took, they anticipated, moving a heartbeat before us. We unintentionally matched their pace, with their sharp, mechanical movements backed up by the sound of gears clicking over. Terrified, the girl huddled in closer against me, but her Light never wavered, and the bronze men never dared to step past that barrier.
Eventually, our way was blocked by a door seemingly made from hundreds of carefully carved bones. Stepping forward, but never releasing my hand, the girl reached into her robes and took out a key made of Light. Placing the key into the lock, she turned to me and smiled, before unlocking the door. Her robes glowed brighter, driving the darkness back, and the bronze men shrieked in agony. By the time I turned to look at them however, they were gone, leaving only flickers of red light behind.
Opening the door, the girl tugged at my hand, and I followed her out of the garden and into the crypt. From the moment we stepped inside, it was clear no rational being belonged here. The bones of the long dead had piled up under massive barbed hooks hanging from the ceiling, while the statues that lined the walls showed figures in agony, their bodies ravaged and mauled. This was no place for the dead to rest. This place was a celebration of their murders.
But in contrast to the horror of this place, at the far end of the chamber, there stood a figure of Light, sitting cross-legged on the ground, head slumped forward as if asleep. Its body was bright enough that I couldn’t make out details, only the general shape. But when I saw it, I felt my fear begin to dissipate, knowing we weren’t alone in this hell. It looked up from the ground when we approached, tilting its head to the side thoughtfully as it considered us. Then it relaxed slightly and climbed to its feet, the movement sending bizarre shadows dancing around the room.
As it walked towards us, I realized that the Light that made up its body wasn’t actually consistent. There were areas where it was weaker, looking like a pattern of scars that ran up its left leg. From the way they limped, taking care as to how much weight they put on that leg, it was clear the injuries went far beneath the skin. I couldn't help but wonder how long they’d been like this. Injured, and trapped in a place they clearly didn’t belong.
Pausing, the figure glanced down, following my gaze, before turning its attention to my companion. She squirmed under the attention, but still looked back up at them with a smile. After a moment, it looked back at me, and while I still couldn’t see its features, their smile literally brightened the entire room. By the time I’d blinked the spots out of my eyes, they’d stepped forward again, holding their hand out towards me. I paused, looking down at the girl by my side, who grinned and nodded eagerly.
The moment our hands made contact, I felt a sudden warmth flow through my fingers and into my hand. Around us, the shadows began to recede, as the Light emanating from the figure and the girl was joined by my own. The warmth flowed up my arm, resting deep within my chest, even as our Light burned away the horror show around us, leaving the room clean and peaceful, the madness driven away. Grinning, I held up my other hand for my new friend to see, palm upward, commanding the power it had gifted me with. It flowed through me, weaving together in a simple yet beautiful pattern, and there was a spark of flame-
***
“-ion. Huh,” Ghost said, as I held up a sphere seemingly made of solidified flame, that utterly failed to burn my hand as it should have. “That was easier than I expected. I thought I’d have to walk you through the process.” I didn’t reply to her. Instead, eyes wide, I stared at the impossible object in front of me. Somehow, I could feel the energy flowing through it, the ‘Travelers Light’ Ghost had told me about. Tiny threads of power, woven into a complex pattern around a larger, more excited ball of energy. One that seemed to be straining against its bonds, constantly trying to expand and…
Understanding made me flinch, holding the object as far away from me as possible. An explosion. I’d made an explosion and somehow trapped it in a net. Only the knowledge that the ‘net’ would start to unravel the moment I let go of my new grenade allowed me to hold onto the damn thing. And, as if that wasn’t crazy enough, I’d done it while having a bizarre hallucination about a darkness infested garden and a man made of light, one that had lasted less than half a heartbeat in the real world. Of course, that was assuming that any of the other madness taking place around me was real...
Gritting my teeth, I shook my head. This wasn’t the time for the existential crisis I could feel closing in. For now, I needed to focus on escaping the Cosmodrome and the Fallen. Only then could I really allow myself to freak out. So instead, I took a breath, braced myself, then turned and tossed the grenade into the hanger. It bounced twice, coming to a stop in a puddle next to a pair of Dregs, the sound of steaming water grabbing their attention. They both looked down, at which point one of them froze, while the other screeched in understandable terror and tried to dive for cover. A moment later, both aliens vanished in a burst of fire.
As flames danced across the room, burning several Fallen and setting at least one of them on fire outright, I moved into the room, Khostov at the ready. My rather energetic distraction seemed to be working rather well, at least in regards to the Dregs, who were running around all over the place, avoiding flames or trying to put themselves out. Unfortunately, the Vandals were a bit quicker to recover, with both of the four armed monsters rapidly taking cover behind support beams and machinery.
Bullets and bolts of Arc energy crossed paths in the air, and one of the Dregs screamed as I skidded to a halt behind a crate. Ghost shouted a warning and I turned, catching another one in the face with the butt of my rifle, knocking it to the ground before it could stab me with the knives it had been holding. As it moaned, clutching at its face, I was moving again, firing on the Vandal raising one of the charge-to-fire rifles I’d dealt with in the Wall. My shots went wide, but the creature ducked for cover anyway.
With the flames from my grenade dying down, and the Vandals snarling what I suspected were orders, all the Fallen still on their feet were now directing their attention towards me. Agony raced across my lower back, and I stumbled up the steps into a side room, nearly crashing into the old, broken computer racks along the wall inside. “Reload,” I gasped, ejecting the nearly spent magazine, and Ghost immediately materialized another one in my hand. With surprising ease, I locked it into place, then brought the weapon up and opened fire on the Dreg that had decided to follow me inside.
Even as the creature's body sprawled across the floor, I was already running away again, taking another exit out of the room to try and circle behind the rest of the Fallen. I could already feel the pain in my back beginning to fade, replaced with a soft warmth as the Travelers Light healed my injuries. By the time I’d reached the hanger again, that pleasant warmth was gone again, leaving the adrenaline, fear, and more than a little excitement. And an odd sense of confidence and familiarity, like I’d done this before, far more than once.
Coming to a halt in a doorway, nearly slipping in a puddle in the process, I brought the Khostov up, placed the crosshairs in the cracked sights on the Vandal crouching behind a support beam, and promptly put half a clip into its back. As it fell, shrieking in agony, I couldn’t help but wince in a combination of sympathy and guilt. That guilt promptly vanished as the last Vandal lunged at me from the wall it had been climbing across, a pair of cutlasses in two of its hands.
One of the blades glanced off my rifle, the other barely missed my face, and then things it was on top of me. The Dregs were short, scrawny monsters who honestly looked like they weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. But the Vandals were taller, bulkier, and it seemed to be mostly muscle, judging by the way those two blows forced me back across the room. And of course, it had four arms, a fact which I was reminded of as one of those extra fists drove into my stomach, hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs. I stumbled, gasping, then dropped to my knees to barely avoid those swords again.
Moving on what felt like instinct, or possibly some forgotten memory, I drove the butt of my rifle into the side of the creatures knee. As it staggered back, howling in pain, I stood up again, and followed up with a second blow, this time to the helmet that covered the aliens face. That drove it back towards the hangar door, giving me the room to move again. A moment later, I had the Khostov up, and then the Vandal was on the ground, moaning in pain. “Sorry,” I muttered as I walked past it into the hangar, one arm resting over my stomach. “God, I feel like you popped something…”
The hangar was deserted now, with only the dead and the unconscious to keep me company. As I turned to check my surroundings one last time, Ghost appeared in the air next to me, flying over to the jumpship and running her scanner over it. It was an interesting sight. Unlike the Fallen craft I’d seen fly past earlier, this looked much more, for lack of a better description, human. It was mostly symmetrical, everything was where I expected it to be, and there was even some faded safety markings in the sections a person wasn’t supposed to touch while the vehicle was running. At the same time however, the thick layer of dust, visible rust, and the other signs of time having an effect, did not exactly fill me with confidence. Wincing at a flash of pain from what felt like my kidneys, I watched Ghost work. “So, will it fly?” I asked her at last, “or were the last few minutes a horrible waste of time?” Which, given what I’d just done, really wasn’t a pleasant thing to be considering right now.
Pausing in her scans, Ghost glanced over at me. “Actually, all things considered, it’s worse than it looks. I mean, I wouldn’t want to try leaving orbit, not without getting a professional to look at the jump drive, but for what we need?” She giggled, bobbing up and down slightly. “I can make it work.” With that declaration, she vanished in that now familiar flicker of light, but not into me, as was becoming almost normal at this point, but into the jumpship.
For a moment, nothing happened. But as I felt the Light settle in my waist, the gentle warmth washing away the pain, the jumpship slowly began to come to life. The turbines began to spin, slowly at first, forcing past an eternity of rust, then faster, evening out in a mostly-smooth roar. As the hangar walls rattled from the noise, a cloud of dust erupted out from underneath the craft, forcing me to take a step back. And then, slowly, unsteadily, it began to rise into the air. It wavered slightly, nose dipping back towards the ground, before straightening up again, the engines settling into a mostly consistent growl.
“See? No problem!” Ghosts voice called out from somewhere inside the ship, sounding utterly delighted with herself. That honest enthusiasm brought a smile to my face, and I walked towards the vehicle, trying to work out how to get inside. It could fly, which meant I had options now, options that were more than just running on foot, hiding, and probably getting hunted down like an animal.
As if I’d needed any more reminders of that particular problem, the shrieks of more Fallen echoed through through the building. Sighing, I turned back towards the hangar entrance, readying my gun, before pausing at a sudden thought. “Ghost, how much ammo do we have left?”
“... The clip that’s already in the gun. Oh dear. Um, I’ll get the transmat running!” I glanced at the magazine of the Khostov, which had maybe a handful of bullets left, if I was lucky. Biting my lip, I backed closer to the ship, eyes darting around the room. I’d seen at least one Fallen crawling along the roof and walls earlier, and I seriously doubted that sneaky bastard had been unique among his people.
Which meant that this time, they used the door I’d first entered the hangar through. Dregs at first, taking cover in the room beyond, as I had only a few minutes ago. Then a Vandal carrying a large rifle appeared. And behind that, was something bigger. Much bigger. When we were sneaking through the Wall, Ghost had told me Captains were nine feet tall, but being told that was nothing like actually seeing it in person. A four armed giant large enough its head almost scraped the ceiling, almost as wide as I was tall. Red and grey armour that looked like it belonged on a tank covered almost all of its body, and as a final, wonderful touch, it was holding two absolutely massive swords that could probably kill an elephant. All four of its glowing eyes focused on me and it marched forward, snarling something in a language I had no way of understanding.
“Oh, you’re mad at me,” I whispered to myself, feeling my hands start to shake. I’d fought Dregs and Vandals. I’d even killed them, and my strange new powers even meant I didn’t have a scratch afterwards. But this monster? It was probably going to tear me into tiny little pieces. Slowly.
“Not a problem. Bringing you inside,” Ghost called out. Light flickered around me, a sensation like falling into ice-cold water flashed over my body, and then instead of the old hangar and the angry aliens, I was sitting in an old, rather uncomfortable chair, surrounded by various panels covered in switches and lights, and a screen that looked out at… Understanding dawned on me, as Ghost quickly lifted the ship up through the hole in the hangar roof. Transmat. Obvious what it was when you thought about it.
Arc bolts flashed past outside the ship, but it looked like we were already high enough that the Fallen didn’t have much chance of hitting us. “And we are out of here!” Ghost declared, just before acceleration pushed me back into the chair, and my view of the hangar's roof was replaced by sky. As we fled the Cosmodrome, I couldn’t help but sigh in relief. Whatever was going on, I’d escaped the worst of it. I’d escaped the Fallen, we were heading towards this city Ghost had told me about.
And there, maybe I’d get some answers.
***
Standing on top of the Wall, a slender, feminine figure watched the ship vanish into the clouds. As she watched, several Fallen skiffs turned to follow, but she paid little attention to them. She knew they’d lose track of the battered old spacecraft in about thirty seconds at worst. “Not the most dignified start,” she said to herself. “Still, there’s signs of who you’ll become. No wonder you’ll grab my attention.” Turning, she walked away, fading to mist as she did so.
Getting into the building was simple, if worrying. A quick search of the loading docks revealed that one of the doors had been pried open recently, which at least gave me a way inside, although I probably didn’t want to run into the people indulging in breaking and entering before me. “They could still be inside,” Ghost decided to point out as we moved into the building.
Stepping around a puddle, I couldn’t help but grimace slightly. “So, we go slowly,” I whispered.
“It probably wouldn’t hurt?”
“Even with a possible army of four armed monsters landing behind us?”
Even though it was currently intangible, I could almost feel Ghost shuddering at the thought. “Okay, fair point, but the only other plan I’ve got right now is screaming, and I can’t really think of any way that would actually help,” it admitted weakly.
Despite everything, I had to smile at that. “It might make us feel better,” I replied, earning a giggle from the tiny robot.
As we moved through the halls, it was clear the Fallen had been hard at work, demonstrating that looters remained the same across species. Storage cupboards torn open, desk drawers thrown on the ground, I could even see computer cases that had been ripped open and the motherboards stolen. It was odd, really. This entire Cosmodrome had been killed, slowly and painfully, by time and neglect, but seeing crude vandalism here was actually rather infuriating.
Still, at least the power was on somehow. Trying to navigate this place in the dark would just be asking for trouble. As I moved into what looked like some sort of machinery workshop, I wondered just how anything in the Cosmodrome could have power after all this time. Maybe the Fallen had hooked up a generator to make their scavenging easier?
Appearing next to me in a flicker of light, Ghost flew across the workshop towards a desktop computer. “This computer still has power, and I think it’s hooked up to the local intranet,” it reported. “Or what’s left of it at least,” it corrected itself, running its scanner lights over the computer tower. A moment later, the light cut off, and it ducked under the desk. “Ah, I found the router. You know, there’s a lot more of the network up and running than I would have expected. They used to really make things to last.”
“Glorious Soviet Engineering at work,” I commented, looking over a workbench that contained what I guessed was a half-disassembled turbine. “I don’t suppose the security system survived?” I added, picking up an old socket wrench. “We might be able to find a way around the Fallen.”
There was a rather unladylike snort from under the table. “Not with ‘Glorious Soviet Paranoia’ getting in the way,” it grumbled. “Everything I’ve got access to here is civilian or administration. Anything like that would go through the military network.” There was a pause, then Ghost flew back up into view. “Got it,” it declared. “Records show there was an Arcadia-class jumpship in dock thirteen. That could be our ticket out of here.”
“If it’s still there, and if it still flies,” I pointed out.
“I’ve heard stories about Arcadias surviving a lot worse than time in a hanger. It’ll be a bit battered, but it’ll fly,” Ghost said, sounding rather confident as it vanished back into my head. (I really needed to come up with a better description than that.)
Putting the socket wrench back down, I made my way towards the door, but I couldn’t resist one last dig at the drone. “If it’s still there.”
I couldn’t help but grin at the grumbling I heard. “I found such a pessimistic Guardian, I swear…”
***
It wasn’t too hard to actually find Dock 13. While the signs were old and faded, they were still more or less legible. And the biggest obstacle in our path there turned out to be some rooms where the floor had caved in from water damage, requiring a brief detour. Really, we should have known it was too easy.
The actual hanger wasn’t much to look at. Tin walls, a retractable roof that had collapsed at some point, and some old machinery that, at this point, was probably only good for scrap. The jumpship that was parked at the far end of the hanger was much more impressive. About the size of a small airplane, it was an advanced, sleek looking craft, although it clearly got more thrust from the large turbines mounted on each side of the fuselage than the aerodynamic parts of the design. While it was covered in dirt and grime, and showed some damage from time and the elements, it looked to be in surprisingly good condition.
So naturally, between us and the way out of this particular madhouse, were quite a few Fallen.
Leaning against a wall, I carefully leaned over and risked a peek into the hangar before pulling back into cover again. “I count seven,” I whispered, closing my eyes for a moment and feeling the sweat form on my forehead. “At least.”
“Rebuke,” Ghost said, in a tone of voice that suggested the word was a curse of some kind. Honestly, I couldn’t blame it. If not for the fact that my voice was audible outside my head, I’d be swearing, and rather loudly. “My count was the same. I think two of them were Vandals too.”
“I can’t take seven of them at once,” I said quietly. “Not with just this,” I added, gesturing at my Khvostov. The battered old assault rifle had served me well today, true, but it couldn’t kill that many aliens before they regrouped and cut me down. Which assumed there weren’t more of them in there, behind the jumpship or the old machinery. It didn’t seem fair. A way out of this madness was right there, but right now, it might as well be miles away.
Before the terror could truly take hold of me, Ghost made a thoughtful sound. “You have more than just that gun at your disposal. As I said earlier, being a Guardian grants a number of abilities. Quite a lot of them are intended for offense.” It sighed, and when it continued, it sounded slightly embarrassed. “I was planning on going over them later, once we’d gotten somewhere safe, but, well…”
“Desperate times and all that?” I said, taking a breath. Knowing that maybe there were still options, the fear began to recede again, the death grip I had on the rifle loosening enough that for a moment, my fingers tingled oddly. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Just… try not to make any noise,” Ghost said. “I’ll walk you through it, but this first part is going to feel… weird.” Raising an eyebrow, I resisted the urge to ask for more detail, instead simply letting my breath out. “Beginning Light infus-”
***
Silence surrounded me as I walked through the massive garden, carefully placing my bare feet between the black vines that covered the ground. A young girl walked alongside me, her hand in mine, clearly afraid but determined. With every step we took, the shadows moved ever closer, hiding the large, square stonework that surrounded the garden. Soon, the only light left was coming from the girl, the simple white robes she wore glowing softly.
As we moved deeper into the garden, shapes began to appear within the darkness. Men of bronze, watching us with hateful red eyes. Every step the girl and I took, they anticipated, moving a heartbeat before us. We unintentionally matched their pace, with their sharp, mechanical movements backed up by the sound of gears clicking over. Terrified, the girl huddled in closer against me, but her Light never wavered, and the bronze men never dared to step past that barrier.
Eventually, our way was blocked by a door seemingly made from hundreds of carefully carved bones. Stepping forward, but never releasing my hand, the girl reached into her robes and took out a key made of Light. Placing the key into the lock, she turned to me and smiled, before unlocking the door. Her robes glowed brighter, driving the darkness back, and the bronze men shrieked in agony. By the time I turned to look at them however, they were gone, leaving only flickers of red light behind.
Opening the door, the girl tugged at my hand, and I followed her out of the garden and into the crypt. From the moment we stepped inside, it was clear no rational being belonged here. The bones of the long dead had piled up under massive barbed hooks hanging from the ceiling, while the statues that lined the walls showed figures in agony, their bodies ravaged and mauled. This was no place for the dead to rest. This place was a celebration of their murders.
But in contrast to the horror of this place, at the far end of the chamber, there stood a figure of Light, sitting cross-legged on the ground, head slumped forward as if asleep. Its body was bright enough that I couldn’t make out details, only the general shape. But when I saw it, I felt my fear begin to dissipate, knowing we weren’t alone in this hell. It looked up from the ground when we approached, tilting its head to the side thoughtfully as it considered us. Then it relaxed slightly and climbed to its feet, the movement sending bizarre shadows dancing around the room.
As it walked towards us, I realized that the Light that made up its body wasn’t actually consistent. There were areas where it was weaker, looking like a pattern of scars that ran up its left leg. From the way they limped, taking care as to how much weight they put on that leg, it was clear the injuries went far beneath the skin. I couldn't help but wonder how long they’d been like this. Injured, and trapped in a place they clearly didn’t belong.
Pausing, the figure glanced down, following my gaze, before turning its attention to my companion. She squirmed under the attention, but still looked back up at them with a smile. After a moment, it looked back at me, and while I still couldn’t see its features, their smile literally brightened the entire room. By the time I’d blinked the spots out of my eyes, they’d stepped forward again, holding their hand out towards me. I paused, looking down at the girl by my side, who grinned and nodded eagerly.
The moment our hands made contact, I felt a sudden warmth flow through my fingers and into my hand. Around us, the shadows began to recede, as the Light emanating from the figure and the girl was joined by my own. The warmth flowed up my arm, resting deep within my chest, even as our Light burned away the horror show around us, leaving the room clean and peaceful, the madness driven away. Grinning, I held up my other hand for my new friend to see, palm upward, commanding the power it had gifted me with. It flowed through me, weaving together in a simple yet beautiful pattern, and there was a spark of flame-
***
“-ion. Huh,” Ghost said, as I held up a sphere seemingly made of solidified flame, that utterly failed to burn my hand as it should have. “That was easier than I expected. I thought I’d have to walk you through the process.” I didn’t reply to her. Instead, eyes wide, I stared at the impossible object in front of me. Somehow, I could feel the energy flowing through it, the ‘Travelers Light’ Ghost had told me about. Tiny threads of power, woven into a complex pattern around a larger, more excited ball of energy. One that seemed to be straining against its bonds, constantly trying to expand and…
Understanding made me flinch, holding the object as far away from me as possible. An explosion. I’d made an explosion and somehow trapped it in a net. Only the knowledge that the ‘net’ would start to unravel the moment I let go of my new grenade allowed me to hold onto the damn thing. And, as if that wasn’t crazy enough, I’d done it while having a bizarre hallucination about a darkness infested garden and a man made of light, one that had lasted less than half a heartbeat in the real world. Of course, that was assuming that any of the other madness taking place around me was real...
Gritting my teeth, I shook my head. This wasn’t the time for the existential crisis I could feel closing in. For now, I needed to focus on escaping the Cosmodrome and the Fallen. Only then could I really allow myself to freak out. So instead, I took a breath, braced myself, then turned and tossed the grenade into the hanger. It bounced twice, coming to a stop in a puddle next to a pair of Dregs, the sound of steaming water grabbing their attention. They both looked down, at which point one of them froze, while the other screeched in understandable terror and tried to dive for cover. A moment later, both aliens vanished in a burst of fire.
As flames danced across the room, burning several Fallen and setting at least one of them on fire outright, I moved into the room, Khostov at the ready. My rather energetic distraction seemed to be working rather well, at least in regards to the Dregs, who were running around all over the place, avoiding flames or trying to put themselves out. Unfortunately, the Vandals were a bit quicker to recover, with both of the four armed monsters rapidly taking cover behind support beams and machinery.
Bullets and bolts of Arc energy crossed paths in the air, and one of the Dregs screamed as I skidded to a halt behind a crate. Ghost shouted a warning and I turned, catching another one in the face with the butt of my rifle, knocking it to the ground before it could stab me with the knives it had been holding. As it moaned, clutching at its face, I was moving again, firing on the Vandal raising one of the charge-to-fire rifles I’d dealt with in the Wall. My shots went wide, but the creature ducked for cover anyway.
With the flames from my grenade dying down, and the Vandals snarling what I suspected were orders, all the Fallen still on their feet were now directing their attention towards me. Agony raced across my lower back, and I stumbled up the steps into a side room, nearly crashing into the old, broken computer racks along the wall inside. “Reload,” I gasped, ejecting the nearly spent magazine, and Ghost immediately materialized another one in my hand. With surprising ease, I locked it into place, then brought the weapon up and opened fire on the Dreg that had decided to follow me inside.
Even as the creature's body sprawled across the floor, I was already running away again, taking another exit out of the room to try and circle behind the rest of the Fallen. I could already feel the pain in my back beginning to fade, replaced with a soft warmth as the Travelers Light healed my injuries. By the time I’d reached the hanger again, that pleasant warmth was gone again, leaving the adrenaline, fear, and more than a little excitement. And an odd sense of confidence and familiarity, like I’d done this before, far more than once.
Coming to a halt in a doorway, nearly slipping in a puddle in the process, I brought the Khostov up, placed the crosshairs in the cracked sights on the Vandal crouching behind a support beam, and promptly put half a clip into its back. As it fell, shrieking in agony, I couldn’t help but wince in a combination of sympathy and guilt. That guilt promptly vanished as the last Vandal lunged at me from the wall it had been climbing across, a pair of cutlasses in two of its hands.
One of the blades glanced off my rifle, the other barely missed my face, and then things it was on top of me. The Dregs were short, scrawny monsters who honestly looked like they weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. But the Vandals were taller, bulkier, and it seemed to be mostly muscle, judging by the way those two blows forced me back across the room. And of course, it had four arms, a fact which I was reminded of as one of those extra fists drove into my stomach, hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs. I stumbled, gasping, then dropped to my knees to barely avoid those swords again.
Moving on what felt like instinct, or possibly some forgotten memory, I drove the butt of my rifle into the side of the creatures knee. As it staggered back, howling in pain, I stood up again, and followed up with a second blow, this time to the helmet that covered the aliens face. That drove it back towards the hangar door, giving me the room to move again. A moment later, I had the Khostov up, and then the Vandal was on the ground, moaning in pain. “Sorry,” I muttered as I walked past it into the hangar, one arm resting over my stomach. “God, I feel like you popped something…”
The hangar was deserted now, with only the dead and the unconscious to keep me company. As I turned to check my surroundings one last time, Ghost appeared in the air next to me, flying over to the jumpship and running her scanner over it. It was an interesting sight. Unlike the Fallen craft I’d seen fly past earlier, this looked much more, for lack of a better description, human. It was mostly symmetrical, everything was where I expected it to be, and there was even some faded safety markings in the sections a person wasn’t supposed to touch while the vehicle was running. At the same time however, the thick layer of dust, visible rust, and the other signs of time having an effect, did not exactly fill me with confidence. Wincing at a flash of pain from what felt like my kidneys, I watched Ghost work. “So, will it fly?” I asked her at last, “or were the last few minutes a horrible waste of time?” Which, given what I’d just done, really wasn’t a pleasant thing to be considering right now.
Pausing in her scans, Ghost glanced over at me. “Actually, all things considered, it’s worse than it looks. I mean, I wouldn’t want to try leaving orbit, not without getting a professional to look at the jump drive, but for what we need?” She giggled, bobbing up and down slightly. “I can make it work.” With that declaration, she vanished in that now familiar flicker of light, but not into me, as was becoming almost normal at this point, but into the jumpship.
For a moment, nothing happened. But as I felt the Light settle in my waist, the gentle warmth washing away the pain, the jumpship slowly began to come to life. The turbines began to spin, slowly at first, forcing past an eternity of rust, then faster, evening out in a mostly-smooth roar. As the hangar walls rattled from the noise, a cloud of dust erupted out from underneath the craft, forcing me to take a step back. And then, slowly, unsteadily, it began to rise into the air. It wavered slightly, nose dipping back towards the ground, before straightening up again, the engines settling into a mostly consistent growl.
“See? No problem!” Ghosts voice called out from somewhere inside the ship, sounding utterly delighted with herself. That honest enthusiasm brought a smile to my face, and I walked towards the vehicle, trying to work out how to get inside. It could fly, which meant I had options now, options that were more than just running on foot, hiding, and probably getting hunted down like an animal.
As if I’d needed any more reminders of that particular problem, the shrieks of more Fallen echoed through through the building. Sighing, I turned back towards the hangar entrance, readying my gun, before pausing at a sudden thought. “Ghost, how much ammo do we have left?”
“... The clip that’s already in the gun. Oh dear. Um, I’ll get the transmat running!” I glanced at the magazine of the Khostov, which had maybe a handful of bullets left, if I was lucky. Biting my lip, I backed closer to the ship, eyes darting around the room. I’d seen at least one Fallen crawling along the roof and walls earlier, and I seriously doubted that sneaky bastard had been unique among his people.
Which meant that this time, they used the door I’d first entered the hangar through. Dregs at first, taking cover in the room beyond, as I had only a few minutes ago. Then a Vandal carrying a large rifle appeared. And behind that, was something bigger. Much bigger. When we were sneaking through the Wall, Ghost had told me Captains were nine feet tall, but being told that was nothing like actually seeing it in person. A four armed giant large enough its head almost scraped the ceiling, almost as wide as I was tall. Red and grey armour that looked like it belonged on a tank covered almost all of its body, and as a final, wonderful touch, it was holding two absolutely massive swords that could probably kill an elephant. All four of its glowing eyes focused on me and it marched forward, snarling something in a language I had no way of understanding.
“Oh, you’re mad at me,” I whispered to myself, feeling my hands start to shake. I’d fought Dregs and Vandals. I’d even killed them, and my strange new powers even meant I didn’t have a scratch afterwards. But this monster? It was probably going to tear me into tiny little pieces. Slowly.
“Not a problem. Bringing you inside,” Ghost called out. Light flickered around me, a sensation like falling into ice-cold water flashed over my body, and then instead of the old hangar and the angry aliens, I was sitting in an old, rather uncomfortable chair, surrounded by various panels covered in switches and lights, and a screen that looked out at… Understanding dawned on me, as Ghost quickly lifted the ship up through the hole in the hangar roof. Transmat. Obvious what it was when you thought about it.
Arc bolts flashed past outside the ship, but it looked like we were already high enough that the Fallen didn’t have much chance of hitting us. “And we are out of here!” Ghost declared, just before acceleration pushed me back into the chair, and my view of the hangar's roof was replaced by sky. As we fled the Cosmodrome, I couldn’t help but sigh in relief. Whatever was going on, I’d escaped the worst of it. I’d escaped the Fallen, we were heading towards this city Ghost had told me about.
And there, maybe I’d get some answers.
***
Standing on top of the Wall, a slender, feminine figure watched the ship vanish into the clouds. As she watched, several Fallen skiffs turned to follow, but she paid little attention to them. She knew they’d lose track of the battered old spacecraft in about thirty seconds at worst. “Not the most dignified start,” she said to herself. “Still, there’s signs of who you’ll become. No wonder you’ll grab my attention.” Turning, she walked away, fading to mist as she did so.