Presage

I open my eyes to Ghost’s chirping alarm.  “Are we there?” I ask.  I scrub at my face.  I must have fallen asleep.  

“Almost,” Ghost says.  Their voice is an odd metallic harmony, but that isn’t an artifact of the ship’s speakers.  Their nature has always been a bit of a mystery.  They are in service of the Traveler, but I still haven’t figured out exactly what that means.  I am pretty sure they don’t know what it means either.  

Our ship is graceful as it weaves between the asteroids of the Reef.  Ghost is a better pilot than I am.  I would have laid our hull open in the first few minutes, even with all the gifts of the Traveler granted to me through my bond with Ghost.  

“There,” Ghost says.  The ship’s display, which has been tracking signal strength now flashes with a bright red box.  There isn’t much to see yet—just more asteroids.  Anyone else might believe Ghost had made a mistake, but I know better.

The target emerges from the darkness, sliding from behind an asteroid, neatly encapsulated by the red box Ghost so helpfully provides for me.  It’s clearly a transport.  Massive hanger doors are sealed against the void.  Its enormous thrusters are silent.  

“The hull looks intact,” I say. 

There is a pause and I can tell Ghost is scanning the derelict.  “There is a lot of interference.  I’m moving us closer.” 

Several tense moments pass as Ghost maneuvers our ship between a nearby asteroid and the ship.  Our proximity alarm chirps out a warning.  Just three meters from the asteroid.  

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?” 

“Nonsense,” Ghost says.  Their tone is playful; their way of telling me they know what they’re doing.  

“Have you called it in yet?” 

“I was going to let you do the honors.” 

“Then patch me through to Osiris.”  

Our ship continues to maneuver closer to the derelict.  I can see better now.  The hull is intact, but the ship is a mess.  Access points around the ship, at least the ones designed to be able to be activated from the outside, are scarred with damage.  “What happened there?” I ask, pointing.  

Ghost doesn’t have a chance to answer.  

Osiris’s voice comes through the comms.  “Have you found the source of the signal, Guardian?” 

Ghost responds for me.  I roll my eyes.  So much for letting me call it in.  “We have.  It appears to be a Cabal ship.  I am sending you the scanning data now.” 

“I see it,” Osiris says.  There is a pause.  “Interesting.  Several months ago, a Cabal vessel bearing the name Glykon disappeared near the Reef.  This ship matches its description and heading.”

“I’m not sure we care about a Cabal vessel,” I say.  I know Caiatl is our ally now, but Guardians aren’t so numerous that the Vanguard would have us out here tracking down a random distress beacon. 

“We do when one of our Guardians is aboard.  The distress signal isn’t of Cabal origin.” 

“Because our Guardian had to splice together a signal with what they had,” Ghost says. 

“Why not just use the Vanguard encryption?” I ask.  

“Maybe something has happened to their Ghost,” Osiris says.

I shudder at the thought.  Ghost is as much a part of me as my own hands.  I would be lost without them—dead a million times over.  Their Light is my connection to the Traveler.  Without Ghost, I am only human.  

“I’m hailing the Glykon,” Osiris says.  Ghost has already patched the signal in to piggyback from the Tower through our communications array.  “If the Guardian is able to send a distress signal, perhaps they have control of the ship.”  

Minutes pass and Ghost and I continue our slow rotation around the Glykon.  The scanning data is still coming in.  The damage to the access ports looks deliberate.  “Sabotage?” I ask Ghost. 

“Perhaps.  To keep the crew of the Glykon from taking the ship back?  Lock them out?” 

“Maybe,” I say, “but that doesn’t feel right.  My gut tells me there’s something else going on here.” 

Ghost makes a humming noise.  “Perhaps.”  They don’t sound sure.  

I am so focused on the ship, on trying to work out what happened to it, that Osiris’s voice causes me to flinch.  “So far, our hails have gone unanswered and the distress signal continues to loop.  Board it, and find our missing Guardian.”

“Understood.”  I unstrap myself from the pilot’s chair—really a formality, since Ghost does all the flying—and punch in my code for the armory.  Weapons of all shapes and sizes are laid out by type and use, ammunition, and so on.  Osiris and Ghost have no data on the dangers of the mission, so I will need to be flexible.  I pluck my handcannon from its storage mount, reassured by its weight, then slip it into the holster on my thigh.  I rub my thumb against the edge of my katana to test the blade before I sling the scabbard across my back, hilt in easy reach for my right hand.  The handcannon will be good at the ranges I’ll find inside the ship and the katana will give me a close-quarters combat solution, but neither will be enough if I run into any serious numbers.  I need something else.  More firepower.  

I’m not worried about accidentally breaching the hull.  The Cabal’s transport ships are heavily armored and nothing I have with me would even put a dent in the Glykon.  Even our ship’s guns would have to pound on it for a while to find a chink in that armor. 

I have a rocket launcher, but that would be too dangerous up close.  A shotgun makes a lot of sense, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to restrict myself to waiting until any enemy was in my face before I could do anything about it—if that happened, the sword or hand cannon would likely be a better pick anyway.  Fusion rifles are fun, but the charge time needed to meet critical mass makes them less than ideal in a pinch, and they suffer many of the same range issues as a shotgun.  

Also, the fissionable mass required to fire them is really expensive.  

I grin as I reach for the grenade launcher and crack the breech open.  Versatile and fun.  Well, maybe not for close encounters, but there are so many interesting things a Guardian can do with the right grenade launcher.  I fit the quick-access sling around my armor and test the draw, adjust, then test again.  The sling snaps it back behind me and out of the way when I let it go.  Feels good.  Now, I just need to grab the right grenades to shore up any weaknesses in my armament.  I have spots for a dozen on my vest, so I evenly split them between pulse, scatter, lightning, and wave.  

Ghost materializes into the armory.  “We’re in stable position next to the Glykon,” they announce with their usual joviality.  Things could be at their worst, but Ghost never sounds worried.  I’m not sure they are even capable of it.  “The good news is, I have found an entry point.  The bad news is that their trans-shielding is still operational.  No matter can be transported into or out of the ship without first disabling that functionality.” 

“Sounds like our first priority is to reach the bridge, then.”

“I agree, yes.  In all likelihood, the distress signal is originating from there as well.  Are you ready?  I can at least transport us onto the hull.” 

“Give me a hand with this, will you?”  I grab knives and hold them up for Ghost to scan.  He’s tagging them for recovery later, if there’s time.  They slide into sheaths I have outfitted into my armor everywhere:  back of the forearm, upper arm, chest, shoulder, waist, thigh, top of the boot, you name it.  If I could sew a sheath into the armor, I did.  There’s never been a time when I thought I’d brought too many knives.  There’s been many an occasion when I wish I’d had more.  

I check everything over one last time, snap in a tank of air, lock my helmet into place, and pressurize my armor.  Dying in the void of space would be as permanent a death as being mortal.  Ghost could bring me back just to watch me die again.  Not a pretty way to go. 

I take a deep breath of the stale, canned air, and say, “Alright, let’s do this.” 

Mat-trans is disorienting.  I close my eyes against the sudden weightlessness and light.  Ghost explained it to me once.  They essentially scan me, convert me into energy, then store me in their memory.  Other Guardians often times use their Ghosts to store weapons or armor so they don’t have to plan ahead on their missions—they just call out for a weapon and their Ghost makes it appear.  It’s nice and convenient, until Ghost doesn’t have enough storage left to mat-trans you out of a hot spot.  It also leaves Ghost exposed.  You never know when one of your enemies is packing a paracausal bullet.  Cayde learned that lesson for all of us. 

I’d rather have the ability to leave at any time and Ghost needs memory to mat-trans themself for protection.  I have never been able to figure that one out.  How does a paracausal entity store itself digitally in its own memory?  If Ghost knows, they aren’t sharing it with me.  Maybe the Traveler knows.  But the Traveler only communicated with the Speaker, and they’re dead, so…

The brightness behind my eyelids fades and I know they’ve restored my physicality.  I open my eyes and reach out to grab the handle Ghost has placed me in front of.  It gives me a sense of grounding in the weightlessness of space.  It’s not a standard entry.  Instead, it appears to be one of the many atmospheric vents the Glykon would use to exchange breathable atmosphere when planetside. 

“This was the best you could do?” I ask.

“It will work fine,” Ghost says.  “Here.”  He materializes next to me, his robotic eye scanning the surface.  “I’ve accessed the controls.  The inner shutters are closed.  Opening the outer shutters now.”  Their floating cyclopic eye turns towards me and I swear I can see a patronizing smile there, despite the fact that they have no face.  “You might want to step aside.” 

I use the access handle to lever myself to the side, moving away from the shutters.  “Ready as I’ll ever be.” 

It’s a good thing Ghost suggested I move.  At the first crack of the shutters, a puff of air blows past me.  The depressurization would have sent me sailing off into space for sure.  

With the shutters open, I am able to reach through and gain access to the manual latch holding the whole assembly in place and move it aside long enough to climb in.  The ventilation shaft is smaller than I expected.  Maybe one of the Cabal’s psions could fit, but certainly not one of the Legionnaires or any of the other warrior castes.  For me, it is a bit narrower than I’d like, but tall enough that I don’t need to stoop.  I am able to turn around and pull the shutter closed behind me.  Ghost activates the servos to re-seal the shutters as soon as the assembly is secure.  

“Hmm.  I am unable to access the inner shutter pressurization controls from here,” they say.  

“That’s alright.  We’ll find it soon enough.”  

Ghost’s answer is to activate the service lights.  They are low, dull things.  They provide just enough light for me to see the path.  It makes me wonder for a moment whether the Cabal see in a different spectral wavelength than the ones visible to humans.  

It takes only a few minutes to reach the inner shutter and Ghost to patch in.  The shutters open and the silence of vacuum gives way to a dull roar as the space pressurizes.  I’m not sure why the Cabal designed a ventilation system that could effectively operate as an airlock, but I’m grateful—seems like a security flaw just waiting to be exploited, if you asked me.  

I can hear the hum of the power lines and the mechanical whir of servos and other automated ship processes now.  There are other sounds too.  Ones I don’t recognize.  A clicking that sounds almost…  Organic isn’t the right word, but I can’t think of a better one in the moment.  

“There,” Ghost says.  “Now let’s open this shutter…”  A pause.  “Huh.”

“What?” 

“There does not appear to be a way to open the shutter from here.”

“What?”  I can’t keep the annoyance out of my voice.  So much for this path into the ship being a security flaw.  Perhaps the Cabal designed the outer shutter to be so easily penetrated to trick their enemies into attempting just such an incursion.  Once here, the Cabal could close the shutters and purge the air, effectively trapping and eliminating the threat. 

“Suggestions?” 

Ghost is silent for a moment.  “Break the shutter?” 

“Genius,” I say.  I backtrack through the shaft until I find a four foot section of straight conduit on the wall that I can actually remove.  I use a knife to unscrew the brackets and pull down the conduit, then cut the wires inside it while praying I don’t get electrocuted or short out some critical functionality of the ship.  With the length of conduit pipe in hand, I make my way back to the shutter and fit it between the louvres.  With the proper application of force, first one louvre pops free, then another.  It’s hard work and I’m sweating in my armor.  After three more louvres are loose, I have just enough room to squeeze through.  

The ventilation shaft on the other side of the shutter is wrong.  Black mold grows in the corners and along the access panels.  My light reflects off of dust particles floating through the air.  “This seems like more than poor maintenance.  What am I seeing?” 

There’s more clicking out of the darkness, louder now and from several sources.  My skin crawls.  The access lights flicker.  

“You’re not hallucinating,” Ghost confirms.  “I’m not picking up any harmful elements in the air, but I recommend you stay on your own supply.  For now.” 

“Right,” I say.  I draw the handcannon from its holster and carefully make my way forward.  The outer ventilation shaft was a straight passage, but now that I am inside the ship itself, a maze spreads out before me.  “Which way, do you think?” 

It’s Osiris who answers, still piggybacking on our comms signal.  “There’s a distortion in the feed-no, frequencies…like ripples meeting in conversation.  Executing trace.  Stand by.”

Ghost appears next to me.  “I can see how Osiris’s trace is going.  I will show you the way.” 

I don’t like Ghost exposing themselves in such an unknown environment, but I don’t really have any other ideas.  We make our way through a series of access passages, ventilation ducts, and conduit ports.  At each intersection, Ghost leads me unerringly.  All the while, the mold grows thicker.  In at least two places, I have to kick through it to make progress.  

“Any idea what this stuff is?” 

“Darkness,” Ghost says.  

I pause.  “Darkness?  As in, the Enemy?”  I can’t decide whether I should be more concerned that such a seemingly harmless thing was able to undo the Traveler or that I’m walking ankle-deep through it.  More evidence that I don’t understand what’s really going on here. 

“Yes,” Ghost says, “and no.  It’s hard to tell.  It feels bad.  Wrong.  The antithesis of my very existence.” 

“Maybe we should turn around,” I say as I open a hatch.  Ghost doesn’t answer. 

Beyond is an open space.  I’ve made it out of the ventilation system finally.  The room has been taken over by the mold.  Instead of black smears here and there, it has grown up into pillars.  Bulbous glowing blue stalks reach toward the ceiling from mounds of the stuff in the corners.  I nudge one with a boot, smearing some of it away.  Beneath is a skeletal finger.  From its size, it belonged to a legionnaire.   

I shiver.  “I’m going to need to decontaminate after this mission,” I say.  “Ghost, I need you to monitor my vitals.  If something looks off to you, I want to know about it.  And keep an eye on my armor.  I want to know if this mold starts to grow on me while I’m here.” 

“Darkness,” Ghost says.  “Not mold, Darkness.  I…think….the Darkness can only claim you if you let it.” 

“You’re saying this Cabal welcomed this?” 

“Maybe not this, no.  But, they have been allies to the Darkness in the past, have they not?” 

Osiris interrupts us.  “I’ve sourced the distortion.  There’s an open patch into the ship’s computer.  Perhaps courtesy of our lost friend.”

“We’re on it,” I say and gesture to Ghost to lead the way.  The path is clear, with the exception of the mounds of Darkness.  Each appears to be centered on a corpse.  I’ve never seen anything like it before.  Something happened here that the Vanguard has never seen before.  Or something they’ve never shared with the rest of us Guardians, at least. 

I pull up short as I round a corner.  Across the path in front of us is a membrane.  It isn’t quite like a spiderweb or a physical barrier, but as I reach out a hesitant hand to touch it, it resists any effort to push through it.  

“What is this?”  

Osiris must be monitoring our progress.  He says, “Those spores are harmonizing with a nearby concentration of Darkness.  There’s no Light here.”

“Spores?” I ask.  Osiris must have seen something I missed. 

“Here,” Ghost says.  They float above one of the blue glowing piles of Darkness mold.  “This is what Osiris is talking about.  I can feel it.”  They make a shuddering sound.  

Hesitantly, I touch the glowing mold.  I’m gentle, unobtrusive, but even the slightest disturbance is enough to send a cloud of blue-green spores into the air.  I see them settle onto my armor.  I can’t feel anything, but I see them there, coating my fingers.  

There’s a whisper in the back of my head, more of an impulse than any real words.  It feels as though there is power waiting at my fingertips, just beyond the veil of reality.  A sense of cold seeps through me, starting at my extremities and working its way inward.  I have a sudden vision of a squall of ice and silence freezing my enemies in their tracks, shattering their bodies.  I need only reach out and grab it to make it real.  

“This is wrong,” Ghost says, their voice wiping the vision away.   

I push my hand against the membrane again.  The reaction is immediate.  My hand passes through the barrier of Darkness.  

Already, I can see the spores on my glove turning black and drifting away.  Ghost’s words echo in my mind, The Darkness can only claim you if you let it.  My Light is already burning it away, which means I need to move quickly.  I jump through the barrier, feeling the briefest tug against my ankle as the last of the spores die.  

Ghost glides ahead of me, guiding my way into the next passage.  Osiris is speaking again.  His tone hasn’t changed, but it feels like he’s speaking just to fill the silence.  “I’ve gained access to the Glykon navigation system.  It marks their destination as an anomaly left in the wake of Mars’s disappearance.”

“An anomaly?  What kind of anomaly?”  I’m following Ghost’s directions, winding my way deeper into the ship.  

“If we could classify it, we wouldn’t call it an ‘anomaly,’ would we?”  Ghost’s tone is dryer than normal. 

“I can see your point.  Is there any additional information on this anomaly?”  The Vanguard hasn’t approved any missions back to Mars since a fleet subservient to the Darkness appeared from outside the solar system and attacked many of the Vanguard’s forward operating bases.  Mars was just one of the celestial bodies that had vanished off our sensors.  The gravitational silhouette hadn’t changed; the planet wasn’t moved or destroyed, just had disappeared from our sensors.    

“I’ll keep looking,” Osiris says.  

I am picking up hints of what the Cabal did to try to isolate the outbreak of the Darkness on the ship.  I keep having to find ways around doors and override and redistribute power back to bulkhead doors and access panels.  I’m retracing the Cabal’s failing efforts to contain the Darkness, but in reverse.  Each step forward opens the ship further, where the Cabal’s efforts had clearly been to stall or stop the spread of this…creature?  Presence?  Darkness.   

Clearly their efforts to waylay the spreading contagion failed.  Those efforts only slow me now and I have no interest in staying aboard the Glykon any longer than I have to. 

Maybe it’s the presence of the Darkness in such a concentrated form, but I am unnerved.  I’m not running, although I want to.  In the name of the Light, I have traveled space, fought against the enemies of the Light, and survived.  I have faced a thousand challenges and prevailed.  I force myself to move slow, methodical.  I can’t afford to miss anything.  

“Guardian, you’re not the only life sign aboard,” Osiris says.  “I see at least one other.  It may be our missing friend.  It may not.”

I hear the chittering again, this time from behind me.  I spin, Ghost vanishing into the ethereal plane of their own memory.  Chittering and clicking trickles down from above me, echoes off the corridor behind me.  I spin in reaction to the noise, my handcannon up.  Without Ghost’s light, my eyes can’t penetrate more than a few feet into the shadows.  

Silence. 

I can’t stay here forever.  As quietly as I can muster, I move away.  The handcannon stays out ahead of me, ready.  

The service corridor ends near the ship’s reactor.  “Is this really the most direct route?” I ask Ghost. 

There is a hesitation in Ghost’s voice.  “No.  I am directing us around the rest of those spores as I detect them.” 

I don’t stop moving as I consider their words.  “That’s probably a good idea.” 

“They were wrong.”  

The service corridor ends at the maintenance area for the Glykon‘s reactor.  “Where to?” 

Ghost throws up a point on my HUD.  “There’s a service access to the waste compactor on the other side of the wall, there.  From there, we take another service corridor to the ship’s hangar deck.  The bridge is right on the other side of that.”

“Simple enough,” I say.  I make my way to the indicated service hatch, slap the control to open it.  Slap it again.  No luck.  The door stays closed.  “I should have kept my mouth shut.” 

The handcannon goes back into its hoster and a knife comes out.  I use it to pry open the cover of the control panel.  

I’m in the process of tracing wires when Ghost says, “I have found the fuse that controls the door.” 

“I’ve got it,” I say and cut the control wire between the capacitor and the solenoid.  The door slides open. 

“Always have to do things the hard way,” Ghost says. 

I give them a wry grin.  I know they can’t see me under my helmet, but I know they can feel my amusement through our bond.  “I can’t let you do all the work.  Life is boring that way.” 

Osiris’s voice comes over our comms.  “I found a journal of Calus’s scribe, Amsot.  Translation as follows: ‘Today, Calus graced the Glykon with his presence and gazed upon the anomaly.  His councilors prepare the exhibition chamber with gold from the Castellum.  They are confident the crown is ready. The end will lay eyes upon him and weep at his magnificence.'”

I pause at that.  “Crown?” I ask.  “What crown?” 

“I have my theories,” Osiris says.

“That you are unwilling to share,” Ghost says.  Osiris doesn’t respond.  

I take a deep breath and keep moving.  This next access shaft is short, just a dozen steps or so.  On the other side is a waste compactor large enough for a dozen Guardians to stand in and still have room to throw a party.  “Where’s our next door?” 

“There,” Ghost says and causes the indicated panel to flash red in my vision.  

I clamber down the ladder to the floor of the chamber.  It’s surprisingly clean, but I think that is only in comparison to the rest of the Glykon‘s current condition.  I swipe a hand across the panel to clear away the dirt and debris, find the handle, and yank up.  I feel the latch release, but as I am lifting the panel up, an alarm pulls my attention up.  

Red lights flash, casting scattering shadows across the room.  “What’s going on?” I yell.  

“Accessing.”  There is a pause, then Ghost says, “It appears that someone has activated the compactor.”  Their jovial voice makes it sound like a joke, but I can feel their fear as a sudden spike of ice in the back of my own head. 

I realize I have let the access panel slam shut in my distraction, so I reach down and pull up.  It doesn’t budge. 

“Magnetically sealed,” Ghost says.

“Of all the ways I’ve died,” I say, “this is definitely a first.” 

I cast my vision about, looking for a way out.  A wet, gurgling chuckle draws my attention to a figure standing at the controls above me.  The flashing lights give the creature a nightmare cast across its pale skin and ritualistic tattoos and bindings. 

Scorn.  The staff of office and headdress it wields marks it as a captain.  

I don’t have time to wonder why there are Scorn on a Cabal ship and how all of the pieces fit together.  The walls screech to life and what felt like a giant space before suddenly feels claustrophobic.  

“Options?” I ask. 

“Back the way we came,” Ghost says.  “We’ll take our chances with the spores.” 

I haul myself up the ladder, hoping there are no more surprises.  I am wrong.  The service access I used to move from the reactor to here is full of chittering, clicking, softly glowing screebs.  I curse and throw myself backward off the ladder.   

The landing is hard, and I roll to absorb the impact.  I hear the clacking of the screebs as they follow me into the compactor.  The laughter of the Scorn captain echoes between the shrieks of the alarm.  

Screebs may be the most dangerous weapon the Scorn can throw at me.  I can’t afford to let these suicide bombers get close enough to trigger their self-immolating chemical explosion.  My handcannon is out and I cannot hear its report over the tortured metal and alarms as I fire again and again. 

“Find us a way out!” I yell to Ghost. 

“Searching.” 

Ahead of me, more screebs are leaping over the bodies of their comrades as they scramble to reach me.  “Search faster!”  The handcannon is out of rounds.  I pop it open, throw in another magazine, keep firing. 

“The panel behind you,” Ghost says.  “There’s a fuse there that should release the magnetic lock on the floor panel.” 

“I’m a bit busy!”  The walls of the compactor are almost to the access hatch I need to use.  If I wait any longer, it will be covered and I will be crushed. 

“Do you need me to fight them off while you open the door?” Ghost asks.

I can’t help but laugh.  It’s a tough spot, but we’ve been in worse and survived.  My mind is racing, lining all the pieces up.  To get us out of this, I realize I need three things to happen.  My body is already moving before I have fully committed to the idea.  

My right hand slams the handcannon back into its holster while my left hand plucks a wave grenade from my vest.  I throw myself into a backflip, using the momentum to pull the grenade launcher from my back.  The breach cracks open and the wave grenade is chambered in a single practiced motion.  I aim for the ground ahead of me and fire. 

Wave grenades are perfect for just this sort of crowd control.  The shaped charge bursts, sending a wave of solar energy forward in a line away from the explosion, triggering the chemical accelerants in the bodies of the screebs.  A massive explosion deafens me, rocks me to my knees.  Blinking hard to focus my vision, I scramble for the panel, peel it back, grab the fuse and yank. 

Praying this works, I sprint forward through the burning bodies, slide onto my knees by the panel and yank up.  I jerk it up enough to slip through.  One last glance as I let it close above me tells me that more screebs are jumping into the pit in a last, desperate attempt to stop my escape. 

Then the panel shuts and I’m safe. 

I let myself take a moment to steady my heart and take a breath, but that’s as much as I can allow myself.  The Scorn know I’m here now.  I need to keep moving.  

“This ship’s passageways no longer connect as they should,” Osiris says. 

“What does that mean?” I ask. 

It is Ghost who answers.  “Osiris is right,” they say.  “I can see the ship’s schematics against the original plans in the Glykon‘s systems.  It’s as if the Darkness is warping reality.” 

“This passage doesn’t take me to the hangar?”

“It does,” Ghost says.  “But it shouldn’t.”

Great.  Just great.  

I need to keep moving, and quickly.  Otherwise there will be more Scorn in the hangar waiting for me when I come out the other side.  There’s no time left to be stealthy.  I’m running as fast as I can through the passage.  Ghost has apparated before me, their face glowing with the Light of the Traveler, guiding my steps.  We are an obvious target, but we need to get clear of the passage before we’re hemmed in.  Need to give ourselves more options.  

Osiris’ voice is ominous.  “Movement in the dark!”  He must still be patched into the Glykon‘s onboard sensors through Ghost.  “They’re waiting for you.” 

I can see the end of the service tunnel ahead.  “Mark the targets for me,” I tell Ghost and three outlines appear on my HUD.  Two on the left, one on the right.  They’re waiting for me to step out where they can ambush me, but since I know they’re there…  I slide the grenade launcher forward on its quick-access sling, and slap a scatter round in, pause, take aim, fire.  

The cluster of concussions staggers me back a step as seeking microgrenades find their targets, but the red outlines are gone.  Ghost is reporting the targets are down and I’m sprinting forward again.  

“More,” Ghost says as they paint the targets on my HUD.  My handcannon is out of its holster and bucking in my hand.  One, two, three shots.  Two targets dead, one crawling away.  The rest fall back.  

“They relent,” Osiris says.  “We must not.  Forward.” 

I’m in a standard corridor now.  It’s wide enough for two Cabal legionnaires to walk side-by-side, so it feels cavernous for me.  My footsteps echo off the walls, announcing my arrival to the hangar, but it can’t be helped.  

Osiris begins speaking again.  “Guardian, I’ve pieced together another of Amsot’s records.  It reads, ‘A tragedy of silence.  He tore the wilting failures apart himself.  The connection is strong, but the Darkness does not speak through them.  An ocean without wind.  Even the Lightbearer could not coax it to awaken.'” 

“What does that mean,” I say.  

“Cabal, Guardian,” Osiris says, as if that explains everything.  

If the corridor felt too expansive, the hangar feels like a world of its own.  One occupied by an army of Scorn.  

There is a moment when I stare at them and they stare at me, as if each of us is curious what the other will do.  But we both know this can end in only one way.  The Scorn serve the Darkness, after all.  And there is no negotiating with the Darkness. 

The moment my hand moves to the grenade launcher, the Scorn Captain orders his forces to attack.  I load another scatter round, launch it into their midst, and then I’m sprinting for a pile of crates to my right.  Through the sound of the Void blasts striking the metal around me, I can hear the chittering of more Screebs.  They’re not making this easy.  I load an lightning round into the grenade launcher.  

“Ready?” I ask Ghost.  

“Ready,” they say.  

“Here we go.”  I can’t afford to get pinned down here, so I sprint down the wall.  Ahead of me, two Scorn are moving to cut me off.  Behind me, I can hear the Screebs rounding the corner of the crates.  The grenade launcher slides back into place when I let it go, and the sword slides from its sheath.  This must have surprised the enemy in front of me, because their shots go wide before I cut them down.  I gather the Light and leap forward, farther than any mortal could have achieved, spinning as I leap, and launching the lighting grenade into the group of Screebs behind me.  The grenade doesn’t explode, but instead latches to the surface and begins sending out Arc bolts in all directions.  The mass of Screebs is caught, the lightning frying their nerves and igniting the self-immolating chemicals in their bodies.  Their fratricide nearly knocks me to the floor.  

I stagger upright.  There are more enemies.  I can fight them, but my fear is that I will get bogged down here and they will call more reinforcements.  I’m talented, but I don’t know how many Scorn are on the Glykon.  

I keep running.  

There are blasts of Void energy missing me by inches now, and I duck behind a console for a moment, break my stride, then sprint again.  The gambit works and those Scorn that almost had me dialed in for range are thrown off.  

“Here,” Ghost says and they highlight another access panel near the ceiling.  

I am already mapping my way up there.  I leap to one catwalk, then to another.  Two Scorn manage to leap ahead of me and I strike them down with a pair of thrown knives.  There’s no time to collect the steel from their corpses, so I sprint past and leap for the panel and haul myself inside. 

Osiris’s voice is calm, as if he doesn’t know that I am on the run.  Maybe he doesn’t.  He might be busy rooting around in the Glykon‘s records instead of monitoring my progress.  “Hanger systems are intact…  Why didn’t they try to run?”

I punch the button to seal the access port behind me.  Ghost materializes and with a thread of light, disables the control.  The Scorn won’t be able to follow me through this way.  I have time to get ahead of them now.  I hope.  

This access tunnel ends at a ventilation shaft.  The ladder is designed for a Psion, so it is roughly human sized.  I start climbing.  “How many deck do I need to go up?” 

“Three,” Ghost says.  “Then you’ll be on the Ops deck.”

It takes longer that I want, but I don’t have another option at this point.  The ventilation shaft ends where Ghost predicted, and I duck into the access tunnel there.  Ghost and Osiris aren’t showing me any enemies, so it appears that I’ve beaten them here.  I can’t afford to slow down, give them time to catch up.  

The access tunnel ends in a storage room, which in turn opens into another corridor.  If I didn’t trust Ghost with my life, I would believe I was going around in circles.  Maybe the floors would look different if they were clean, but the spores are thicker on this floor.  There are more growths of whatever this Darkness fungus is clinging to the walls and ceiling, in some places making columns of the stuff.  

“Make a left,” Ghost says as I approach a junction. 

I turn and run face first into another one of the Darkness barriers.  The ones we were going out of our way to avoid.  “This is the only way?” 

“It is,” Ghost says.  

So be it. 

I reach out and touch the spores, let them coat my armor.  As before, the sense of wrongness floods me.  I can hear the shadow of a whisper in the back of my mind.  An urging to reach back.  The promise of power.  It’s harder to reject this time.  

“What are you doing?” Ghost asks. 

I realize I have been standing still, listening to the voice instead of moving.  Already, my Light is burning away the spores.  “Sorry,” I say and step through the barrier. 

As the last of the spores burns to ash, the voice in my mind is more than just a hint.  Words, for the first time, form in my mind.  You were always my favorite.

I shudder against the sudden chill.  

“That was bad,” Ghost says. 

I don’t answer.  I’m already moving ahead.  

Osiris speaks into the silence.  “Amsot kept notes on experiments as well.  It seems that Scorn exposed to the anomaly all suffered contiguous neuron death.  It consumed their minds.  All but one, who ‘spoke with many dead voices.’  This survivor would become the centerpiece of their studies.”

“Do we know anything about the survivor?” I ask. 

Osiris pauses.  “I will look, but I’m having to piece everything back together.  The records appear to be as altered as the ship itself.” 

I’m running again.  It’s not far now, only a hundred meters based on Ghost’s information.  No sign of any of the Scorn that were following me, which frankly has me a little worried, but I don’t have any time to think more on it.  

“Guardian,” Osiris says.  “This anomaly left in Mars’s wake…  I have seen it and others like it.  Too many Scorn for an active Guardian.  In place of each world the Darkness stole.  At the edge of our heliopause.  Calus meant to commune with the Darkness.”

I don’t respond.  Ghost already has the door open by the time I get there and I don’t even break stride.  The Ops center is just as overgrown as the rest of the ship, with columns and piles of the Darkness spores everywhere.  The control panels are barely recognizable, the growth is so prevalent here.  The dominating feature of the room is the Guardian, though.  They are suspended in the air, held in place by spears of Darkness from all sides.  

They are clearly dead and have been so for some time.  

“So,” Ghost says, “who sent the signal?” 

Whispers in the back of my mind.  I look about in a panic, sure that I must have brushed the spores, given the Darkness access to my head again.  Even as I confirm there are no spores on me, I hear the voice clearly again.  “Shall we be friends?”

A massive form steps from the shadow of the room, one I feel sure could not have hidden such a creature from my notice.  Which means it wasn’t there before.  

Something about the creature reminds me of Reksis Vahn.  Maybe it is the smoldering censer it holds before it like a mace.  But the Hangman is dead by my hand back when Uldren Sov released the Forsaken from their prison.  This is not the Hangman.  It is bigger, more menacing.  

Osiris is still monitoring our progress.  “Put this decrepit creature to rest.” 

The form stalks closer to me, hand up as if to parlay.  I have a moment of hesitation that I don’t recognize in myself.  It isn’t fear, but something else.  Something alien.  The Darkness?  Is this the Survivor from Amsot’s notes? 

“Guardian?” Ghost says.  

It takes all my will to move, but once I start, it becomes easier.  I have the handcannon out and empty the magazine into the form as fast as I can blink. 

It doesn’t even flinch. 

I take a step backwards.  A predator sensing weakness, the creature lunges forward, swinging the censer down in an explosion of ash and soot, knocking me to the ground.  I roll backward, but not fast enough.  One of the giant hands grabs me up and hoists me into the air.  The whispers are in the back of my mind again, the Darkness clawing against my Light.  Seize the power.  Use it!  This being is nothing to you.  Freeze the marrow in its bones.

I drop the handcannon and grip the wrist that is holding me.  I can still hear the whispers.  I can feel the cold on my fingertips and I know instinctively that I can reach for that promised power the same way I reach for the Light.  It’s there, just waiting for me. 

I shove it away with a yell, draw my katana and hack at the wrist.  The Void-infused blade slices cleanly through the wrist and I drop.  The hand goes limp and I twist out of it.  I’m already in motion when I land, but the dismembered hand gets in my way, trips me up.  I duck, but the swing of the censer catches me again, flinging me against the wall. 

This beast didn’t even make a sound when I chopped off its hand.  It’s like it doesn’t even feel pain.  

But I do.  And I’m reeling after that last hit.  I’m on the defensive, ducking and dodging.  I know another direct hit from that censer will be my last.  

“I can-” Ghost starts to say. 

I interrupt them.  “No.  Stay out of sight.  There’s no telling what else is out there in the dark.”  I will not let my Ghost be slain the same way Sundance was.  Even if it means I have to finish this fight wounded.  

I get my chance to go on the offensive when the censer gets stuck.  Just the half a second it takes for the creature to yank the metal free from a bulkhead is enough to let me catch my breath and move inside the effective range.  The handcannon is gone; I’ll have to find it later.  The grenade launcher is too dangerous for close-quarters work.

The katana spins in my hands, slicing over and over, each strike flowing into the next.  The creature doesn’t make a sound as I carve it up.  It also doesn’t slow down, doesn’t show weakness.  

The stump of its arm comes down on me, knocking me to the side, breaking my attack.  I turn the hit into a roll and land on my feet, dodging away.  I hear the censer slam into the ground behind me.  I feel the heat against my back.  

This thing is aggressive and it won’t give me time to use the grenade launcher.  Makes me wonder if it knew what I was bringing to the fight.  Was it watching my progress through the Glykon?  Was it preparing for this fight? 

If so, I only have one trick left that it wouldn’t have seen.  One that I haven’t used.  One it can’t have prepared for.  It’s not a risk-free plan.  If I miss my shot, it will take time for me to recover all the expended Light.  It might mean my death.  

I’m still ducking and dodging.  The censer seems like a spinning shield at this point.  It will be difficult to get close enough to do what I need to do, but I don’t have a choice at this point.  I have no doubt that falling back from this fight will result in my death.  The rest of the Scorn will be waiting for me. 

Besides, I want my handcannon back.  I’m fond of it.  

I draw on the Light and leap up on top of a console, then up higher.  I’m trying to get above the Scorn, get above the spinning censer, for what I need to do.  

As if it senses the sudden danger, the creature surges forward and redoubles its efforts to smash me into pulp.  I am in the air above it now and I feel like I’m floating there between moments as I reach into the space between realities to touch the Light.  

Before I can seize it, the voice whispers back, urging me to reach for the Darkness instead.  I hesitate again.  A part of me wants-needs-to see what the Darkness can do.  I know in my heart that I can take the ice of that power into myself, shape it, use it.  In my mind’s eye, I can see a pair of hand scythes.  I can see them reaping this enemy, shattering it.  

It is Ghost that pulls me back from the brink.  

“Don’t,” they say.  “You can’t trust the Darkness.” 

I reach past the voice, shove it aside, and focus my mind on the Light.  

Arc energy forms between my fingers, expanding into a staff of pure power.  I wrap my other hand around the staff, bringing it down with the full might of the Light, intent on smashing this creature into the bulkhead and grind it beneath my heel.  

It’s too fast.  The censer comes up and catches me in the middle of the air, throwing me away from the target.  I only have a handful of seconds before the manifested Light loses its coherence.  There isn’t enough time to redirect myself back to my target.  I won’t be able to close the distance fast enough. 

I do the only thing that comes to mind. 

I focus all my will on the staff and reforge the Arc energy, change its shape.  It takes everything I have to sharpen the end into a spearpoint, as if it is resisting my efforts.  As if the Light doesn’t like me trying to use it differently than I have in the past.  

I don’t care.  The Light won’t be able to work through me if I am dead.  I need it to adapt, to change, and it does.  

With a scream of effort, I force the Arc energy to that spearpoint and I aim and throw.  

All my Light leaves me, traveling with the newly forged spear.  I land hard, the wind knocked out of me.  It will take moments for my body and Ghost to gather enough Light to augment my basic abilities again, but that’s the risk of using this power in such an overt way.  I’ll be weakened for those moments, easier to kill.

The end doesn’t come. 

When I crawl to my feet, I am surprised.  I can see the creature standing there, nerves locked in place by the Arc energy of the spear through its chest.  There are bolts of lightning arcing all around the spear, burning the flesh off the Scorn behemoth.  The Light has remained cohesive for longer than I expected, but I know it will cease any moment from now.  

But I have recovered enough to finish the fight.  Katana in hand, I gather my Light and leap forward again.  Two slices of Void-infused blade and the fight is over, the creature’s other arm and head separated from its body.  It slumps to the floor as silently as it fought.  I never heard it utter a noise.  

I check the door.  The corridor is clear.  If any Scorn came to watch the fight, they have retreated for now.  I have a few moments, so I ask Ghost to seal the door and I inspect the control room.  The first thing I do is disable the trans-shielding.  I want to have a quick exit if the remaining Scorn recover their resolve.  

Once Ghost returns, I have them do a full data dump back to Osiris.  The Vanguard will want to analyze everything.  

Only one last thing to do.  The Guardian looks much worse up close.  I had thought the Darkness had grown into the Guardian, but it is clear now that the Darkness grew out.  The armor is pushed out and aside as the spores grew from the body.  

I don’t bother to suppress the shudder that overtakes me.  Is this the fate that awaits Guardians who take up the Darkness?  I don’t say it aloud.  I am sure Ghost knows how close I came to grabbing onto that power, to using it.  I don’t need to hear the quaver in my voice, even if they can sense it in my being anyway. 

My eyes trace the remains of the Guardian, then pause.  They’re holding a rifle.  Built by Tex Mechanica for sure, based on the design, but unlike anything I have seen before.  I reach out, hesitate.  

Osiris speaks through the comms.  “Faint traces of Light.  That thing…was a Guardian.  We’re too late-far too late.  Take the rifle.  Better in your hands than left for another.  I’ll speak to Zavala about authorizing exploratory outings.  If we can recover our lost friend’s Ghost, we may learn more of how he died.  Return to the City, we must assess our findings.” 

The rifle comes free easily.  I wipe a hand across it, but no spores seem to be clinging to it.  “Ghost,” I say.  “It’s time to go.” 

As the matter-transfer begins, I swear I hear the voice again, a tickle in the back of my skull. 

You’re my favorite.

 

A Note from the Author

Any fan of the video game Destiny 2 reading this story will immediately come to two conclusions about this story:  (1) the events of this story narrate a streamlined version of the mission “The Presage” for the exotic scout rifle Dead Man’s Tale; and (2) the combat and powers of the game are only loosely accurate in this version of the story when compared to the in-game mechanics. 

I love video games, but I find books about video games to be tedious at times.  I feel that too many stories involving people playing games or being in an immersive environment focus too much on in-game mechanics.  Sometimes, but rarely, this can be interesting.  Instead, I chose to focus on the narrative and allow the mechanics to be flexible enough to fit the story, while trying to stay true to the intent on why those mechanics are important. 

For example, I know that Arcstrider hunters do not typically have access to throwing knives.  In a game, this sort of mechanical limitation makes sense:  it forces players to make meaningful choices on how they want to play based on rewards and trade-offs.  But why would a Guardian limit themselves in a real battle?  Furthermore, I chose to make grenades a finite resource through the use of a grenade launcher, where their use in the game is infinite, but based on a cooldown timer.  Believe it or not, cooldown timers are difficult to make interesting in a narrative format.    

I did trim out several portions of the mission in order to make the story less tedious (I didn’t think anyone wanted to read paragraph after paragraph of jumping puzzles, fuses, barriers, spores, and so on).  I hope you enjoyed the story and I look forward to writing more stories of this type in the future.