Chapter Text
Ghost, after years and years of searching, finally decides to investigate the Cosmodrome.
It’s a desolate place, where Fallen are known to lurk and scavenge, but he must search.
His Guardian is somewhere around here, they’ve got to be.
An anomaly on his scanner draws his attention.
“Is it possible?” He asks, applying more energy to his newest scan.
“There you are!”
“Guardian? Guardian! Eyes up, Guardian!”
“It worked…You’re alive!”
Something floats in front of her face, and it seems to be talking to her.
“You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you.” He’s right. She doesn’t know.
“I’m a Ghost. Actually, now I’m your Ghost. And you… Well you’ve been dead a long time. So, you’re going to see a lot of things you won’t understand.”
The wave of new information takes a while to process. She’s been dead for…who knows how long, and at this point in time there are many differences from what there were.
But…what things are supposed to be familiar to begin with?
A distant roar reaches her ears and her…Ghost looks spooked.
“This is Fallen territory. We aren’t safe here,” he floats around, getting farther away from her, “I have to get you to the City.”
“Hold still.” He zooms to her face and vanishes. She looks around, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t worry, I’m still with you,” he says, sounding like he’s in her…did she always have a helmet on her head?
“We have to move, fast.”
That’s enough of a motivation for her. With another few roars in the distance, she takes off at a sprint, looking around for anything that could attack her.
“Get inside the wall. We’ll be safe there,” he says, and she heads for the only doorway in sight.
From what sounds to be right behind her, a guttural noise reaches her ears, and she only runs faster.
She clears the doorway and continues through. The walls are chipped and metal rusted, and debris covers the ground.
Inside it’s dark.
“Ok, I need to find you a weapon…before the Fallen find us.”
She continues, looking for anything. A metal bar, maybe.
“Quiet.” She stops moving, “they’re right above us.”
The tapping and banging of metal, and various growls and snarls, goes right over her head.
Just where the hell is she?
They come into a pitch black cavern, and her Ghost flies off.
“Hang tight. The Fallen thrive in the dark, we won’t. We need more light. I’ll see what I can do,” and with that he disappears from sight.
She looks around and sees, in the darkness, a shutter. Ghost says something, but the words do not hold her interest, and it seems he’s talking to himself anyway.
The shutter opens at the same moment the lights come on, and on one of the nearby walkways she sees a squad of Fallen running in the direction she’s going to go.
“They’re coming for us!” The Ghost whizzes past her face and heads through the now accessible pathway.
For a brief moment she considers just waiting and letting the Fallen kill her. Let her stay dead, as she was not too long ago.
“Here! I found a rifle. Grab it!”
The thought passes, and she rushes to grab the weapon. Holding it feels like second nature. Maybe in her old life she used them a lot. Was she a fighter?
They proceed through the derelict structure quietly.
“Watch for motion on your tracker,” he whispers, drawing attention to the radar hovering in the upper left corner of her vision, on the HUD.
There’s a bit of red at the top, in the way she’s facing, but nothing is in front of her.
Until she rounds the corner.
A creature with four arms jumps out form a bit of the wall and starts shooting at her.
Instinct tells her to shoot back.
The creature drops, and another one is peeking around the corner up ahead.
“That’s a Vandal. Second smallest of their species,” he informs as she stares at the body.
“But we have to keep moving. We need to find a ship and get out of here, before they all converge on our location,” Ghost says, and she takes off again.
Another one drops from the ceiling above her.
Some instinctual reflex causes her to drop her gun and swing her right hand at the enemy.
A purple light shoots from her hand and instantly kills the Fallen.
What was that?
She stares at her hand in confusion, then tries the motion again.
Nothing.
Another try, this time thinking she wants to attack.
The light happens again.
“That’s your Light, the power you were gifted with, and the power that will help you do great things.”
Cryptic, yet also interesting.
She keeps moving.
A whole group try to jump her when she continues through, and her fear of death perseveres. She completely runs past them and across the catwalk, weaving slightly to dodge their shots.
Thankfully they don't follow, but now she's alone again...in an old structure that's teeming with creatures that want her dead. She continues through the corridors, eyes constantly looking at her tracker. No way does she want another one jumping out from the walls and getting the jump on her.
A whole room opens up before her, well lit, and the second she’s through the door, many more Fallen pour in and drop from the ceiling.
Nope.
Again she dodges them, and sustains many more shots, but she finds another exit and follows it, bypassing a lone Vandal who’s still heading in.
Now she's in some tunnel, with huge fans at either end, rusted and broken. But a bit further down she sees a door with a dim light overhead. Hey, it looks more appealing than the room full of murderous creatures, so she runs over and heads through.
Instantly she emerges on the other side of the wall, with the sky - now darkened with the onset of night - overhead.
“This was an old Cosmodrome. There’s got to be something we can fly out here,” Ghost says, popping out momentarily to do a scan.
She looks around, taking in the scenery. Something feels familiar about it, but nothing indicates that it should be.
Maybe something in her old life.
A flare goes off ahead of her, accompanied by howls and hoots, then a great boom goes off in the sky.
“Incoming!”
She begins running, following the tracker on her radar. It says to go forwards, so forwards she goes.
“Fallen ships, this close to the surface?” Ghost muses, and her eyes look up to the ships flying over her head. Her pace slows as she watches, but then one hovers incredibly close to the ground where she treads..
“Move!”
So she runs faster. The Fallen fire at her, but she dodges and weaves. She was brought back to life, and she is not about to die again.
Finally, after what felt like ages, she enters a building, and the Fallen don’t follow.
“I’m picking up signs of an old jumpship. Could be out ticket out of here.”
Well at least they’re getting somewhere, and she does want to see this City the Ghost mentioned earlier.
She pauses for breath, doubling over a bit and getting her bearings. This building is also old, and she's beginning to suspect that there's nothing new out here, just a graveyard for infrastructure...and for her not too long ago. They continue through the building, and at least this one has lighting on, letting her see the debris and avoid falling on her face.
Shelves still holding boxes line the walls, though none look to be in a good condition, and a few weeds grow through the ground, determined to survive even with all odds against them.
What happened to this place?
They round a corner and instantly are under fire. She ducks for safety, then sticks her head out and aims her rifle around the corner. With each shot, they drop, heads blown from their shoulders.
Careful not to dirty her boots, she steps around the corpses and heads into the next room, where a ship is suspended by wires.
A team of Fallen patrol the area, and none of them have noticed her yet. But, they’re in her way, and she wants them removed.
Turning around, she picks up a shotgun that one of the Fallen dropped, and cocks it.
Fallen give screeches as she runs out, and she fires at them as they pass.
Click.
Time to reload. She hides behind a pillar and pulls out the extra bullets.
A Fallen jumps out at her while she’s still reloading, and she draws her right arm up in panic.
The burst of light throws it backwards, and it’s clearly sustained injuries from the hit, but it still stands.
Gun now reloaded, she cocks it and takes a shot at the weakened enemy. It staggers back, and gives a pained howl.
Another shot.
With a final anguished cry, it drops to the ground. The rest of the Fallen flee, giving final shots in a pathetic attempt to keep her away.
Ghost pops out once the area is clear.
“Alright, let me see if I can get us out of here.”
He floats up to the ship and begins scanning it, hovering around it.
“Its been here a while. Hasn’t made a jump in centuries. We’re lucky the fallen haven’t completely picked it clean.”
Will it fly? It's all she needs confirmed.
Ghost looks at her confidently. Apparently he can read her mind. “I can make it work.”
He fizzles out of sight, and instantly the ship’s engines are whirring to life. It sounds broken, but the longer the engines run, the better it sounds. The metal cables holding it up detach one-by-one, until it’s hovering all on its own.
“Okay…it’s not going to break orbit, but It might just get us to the city,” Ghost says, sounding like he’s inside the ship. He probably is.
“Now about that transmat…” as he speaks, a deep rumble comes from behind her. She turns, and sees glowing orange eyes getting closer and closer from the hole in the wall. She backs up.
An enormous Fallen emerges, and roars at her.
“Bringing you in,” Ghost says in a panic, and the next thing she knows, she’s inside the cockpit.
The ship ascends on its own, probably Ghost’s piloting, and emerges from the old building.
“We can come back for them when you’re ready. Let’s get you home.”