- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Killed him, shoved his soul in a gun, and wore his ass as a hat
Empyrean [Elden Ring/Destiny]
- Thread starter Lithos Maitreya
- Start date
- Crossover
Killed him, shoved his soul in a gun, and wore his ass as a hat
robopanda
My avatar is the original Avatar!
- Location
- The Northern Air Temple
- Pronouns
- He/Him
LATER:
Alabaster Lord: HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN ON THIS PLANET?!?
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It was a very hectic ten years.
mackhaon
Blame it on my misspent youth
- Location
- Kyiv
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- America
Calling it now, there's a group of Eliksni that got here a while ago and have been going under everyone's radar for that entire time, found Barret's ship, and jacked the thing.
Can't have shit in the Lands Between.
35. Interlude - Parvati-9
Lithos Maitreya
Character Witness
- Location
- United States
Many thanks to @BinaryApotheosis for betareading.
"…"
"…"
"…Torrent?"
"Dropping out of warp in sixty seconds," Vishnu reports.
Parvati leans back into the cushioned pilot's seat of the Finite Samsara with a sigh. "Thermidor should already be in the target system, yes?" she asks.
"Assuming he's following the charts Pluvius is giving him, yes."
"Good. Hail them as soon as we return to real space. Whatever put Barrett out of contact may still be in the system."
"Understood. Leaving warp in five, four, three, two, one…"
The blue maelstrom visible through the windows dissipates into the starry night sky. The Finite Samsara is still on the outer edge of the system, for now—at these distances, she can't even differentiate the individual planets in the system from the scintillating curtain of night behind them. The system's star is a young G-class, perhaps a little less red than Sol. But from here, she's far enough away that even it is just a slightly larger ball of light in the distance.
"Contact established with Pluvius," Vishnu announces. "Projecting quantum link with Thermidor."
Thermidor's head appears hovering over the terminal at Parvati's right, flickering into existence from the bottom up in the typical way for QEC holograms. "Thermidor," she greets. "Good to see you well."
"Yeah, you too," he says. "Pluvius and I have been skirting the system since we got here, keeping our cloak up and taking long-range scans of the major celestial bodies. Just in case."
Parvati catches herself smiling. "I should have known you would be prudent."
"After all the times you and Blackwall yelled at me for going off on my own when I was still learning the ropes? Of course."
"So, what have you found?"
"Small system, not too many planets. Two gas giants in the outer system, one terrestrial giant, and two conventional terrestrial planets in the inner system. There's a small asteroid belt between those two.
"Any obvious signs of habitation?"
"Nothing I could see from a distance. But I didn't want to get too close to anything without backup. Not when we know Barrett's already gone missing around here."
"Good. Well, I'm here now. Send me a set of coordinates for a rendezvous, and we can approach one of the planets together."
"Sure." Thermidor glances away from her, looking towards where Pluvius is probably hovering in the cockpit of the Daybreak. "How about somewhere about a tenth of an AU from the terrestrial giant? We can start with the rocky worlds."
"Very well. Send over the coordinates."
A moment later, Vishnu speaks up beside her. "Coordinates received. Plotting course."
"Enter NLS once that's done," she tells her Ghost, then leans back. "See you in… two hours, I suppose?"
"Just about," Thermidor says. "I'll check in with Crow by ansible, tell him you've arrived in the system."
Two hours, forty-three minutes, and twenty-seven seconds later, the Finite Samsara drops out of NLS warp. Immediately, Parvati can see the terrestrial giant Thermidor mentioned, although at this distance it's still only a small pebble being flagged as a massive body by her cockpit's HUD.
"QEC request incoming from Pluvius," Vishnu says.
"Patch him through."
"There you are," Thermidor says, appearing beside her once again. "I've got visual on you. Nice jump, Vishnu—barely any drift."
"Where are you?" Parvati asks, looking through the window—but she sees nothing without knowing what to look for.
"Theta seventy-four, phi twenty-seven," Vishnu says. "I've found them, cloaked. Marking on IFF."
The outline of the Daybreak appears on her HUD as a green outline. "Ah," she says. "Good. Vishnu, cloak us as well."
"Already done."
"Thank you. Thermidor, have you done any scanning yet?" She narrows her red eyes at the planet in the distance. It's pale green, not entirely unlike Earth from space.
"Not too much at this range," Thermidor says. "Long-range spectroscopy suggests it might be capable of sustaining life—looks like it might have liquid water on the surface—but it's hard to tell anything conclusive."
"Then let's approach, and see what we can find. Short NLS burst to HALO range?"
"You got it."
After a minute more of coordination, the NLS warp consumes them once again—for all of half a second, before they emerge again. And now the planet blooms large beneath them.
At this distance, Parvati can see that it very clearly does have liquid water on the surface—or at least, something that looks very like liquid water. Indeed, the entire surface is a massive ocean. She can see frosted tips at the planet's poles where ice caps solidify, but other than that, the entire massive world seems covered in a blue-green fluid not entirely unlike that of Earth's own seas. "Visnhu," she says as Thermidor reappears by her arm, "begin spectroscopic scans. I want to know what that ocean is made of, and whether there are signs of life."
"Beginning scan."
"Huh." Thermidor's brow is furrowed, and he isn't looking at her—although in her cockpit his head is aimed at a bulkhead, he's probably looking at the world through his own window. "This planet's outside the usual goldilocks zone. Must be either a greenhouse atmosphere or heavy geothermal activity keeping the place warm."
"Or that isn't water," Parvati points out.
"It is," Vishnu confirms. "And I'm detecting non-trivial carbon as well. Life is likely. Can't comment on whether it's anything more than microbes, though."
"Well, I don't see anything that might cause Barrett to fall out of contact here," says Thermidor. "We'll flag it—it's worth investigating, which means Barrett might have gone into atmo and had something break down there—but we should see if there's anything obvious at the other terrestrial worlds before we commit to this one. It's too big to search quickly, not if we want to be thorough."
"Agreed," Parvati says. "You said we were outside the star's goldilocks zone. Is the second planet within it?"
"Right in the middle," Thermidor says. "I didn't get close, but if it has a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere and water hydrosphere it could be really earthlike."
"I see. Let's give that one a cursory look, then, before we get too caught up on this world. You already have that planet's position in your charts, I assume?"
"Yep. Pluvius, send them a trajectory. We'll meet you there, Parvati."
About an hour later, they emerge from NLS. Parvati is immediately glad they decided to visit this second world.
"What is that?" Thermidor asks.
"It appears," Parvati says, "to be a very large tree."
The massive megaflora's trunk and leaves glow an iridescent gold. Its branches arch over an entire continent, bathing the barren landmass in its glow. The planet has three other landmasses of significant size, all of them dry, barren things—oddly so, given the apparently water ocean separating them.
"The landmasses look empty of flora besides the anomaly," Parvati says, thinking aloud. "High salinity in the water, perhaps?"
"But then how does the big guy survive?" Thermidor asks. "Pluvius, can you confirm whether that ocean is water?"
"What the…?" Vishnu mumbles by Parvati's ear.
"What is it?" she asks him.
"I'm getting some odd interference in my scans," he says. "Electromagnetic. The planet might have an unusually active magnetic field?"
"I'm seeing the same," Pluvius says, his higher-pitched voice audible over the QEC. "But—that tree is five kilometers high, give or take a couple hundred meters. An electromagnetic field strong enough to give this kind of interference would damage the soft tissue of its leaves, wouldn't it? At least the higher ones?"
"Hard to say," Vishnu says. "We don't know what those leaves are made of. For all we know, that might be a massive rock that just happens to look like a tree."
"Not just any tree," Pluvius says. "Magnify the bark and leaves. That's an ash tree, Vish."
There's a brief silence. "…What is an earth tree doing here?" Vishnu murmurs. "And how did it grow that large?"
"I think we found the anomaly Barrett went to investigate," Thermidor says slowly. "Now we just need to figure out what knocked him out of contact."
Parvati frowns. "…Vishnu, that electromagnetic interference. What bands of the EM spectrum does it affect?"
"…All of them," Vishnu says blankly after a pause. "The whole spectrum, as far into the radio and gamma spectra as I can scan without specialized equipment."
"That is definitely not a normal magnetic field," Pluvius says. "Let me see if there's any pattern to the waveform…"
"There is," says Vishnu slowly. "Tell me if you're seeing what I'm seeing, Pluvius."
"…I think I might be, Vish."
"What is it?" Thermidor asks. "Sounds ominous."
"That electromagnetic interference appears to be engram encoding," Vishnu says. "Suspended in photons rather than glimmer."
"Engram encoding?" Parvati asks. "Do you mean to say that the entire planet is, what, a giant engram?"
"Not the planet," Pluvius says. "There is a real planet there, in real space. But what we're seeing is a digital artifact. An illusion."
"A cloak," Thermidor murmurs. "But hiding what?"
"Don't know," Pluvius says.
"It's not possible for something like this to occur naturally," Parvati says slowly. "Engrams themselves are only barely possible with causal technology, even theoretically. They bend thermodynamics too far to arise on their own."
"Right," Vishnu says. "So something intelligent placed this here. But who? Or what?"
"Well," Thermidor says. "Who do we know who likes to impose different states on reality sometimes? Such as, for example, forcing a night that lasted almost two months on a single city?"
"You think the Vex did this?" Pluvius asks.
"It fits the facts," Vishnu says. "And if they're still active in the area, it could explain what happened to Barrett."
"It is the Vex," Parvati says, looking at the planet's horizon to her left—and the shapes which are emerging from a lattice of blue light as if breaking through an invisible net hovering over this planet. "Theta 270—our nine o'clock."
There are half a dozen of the small vessels. Luminous white radiolaria flow through tubes all over their chassis. They don't have a conventional cockpit—instead, a glaring red light is embedded just below each fighter's nose.
"Vishnu," she says. "Begin charging weapon systems." She leans forward and puts her hands on the ship's control sticks. "Preparing to take evasive maneuvers."
The Vex close quickly, and bolts of Solar energy shoot past the Finite Samsara as Parvati rolls and engages her sublight drives to fall back. A few shots ping off her shields, sending flashing indicators across her HUD. No serious damage, yet—but too many hits from those things and her starfighter won't be able to protect her.
She turns about to face the Vex again. They haven't pursued, but more fighters are joining them one by one. There are eight now, forming a lattice formation between her and the planet. As she watches, another vessel blooms out of a suddenly visible patch of glowing blue net around the planet and joins the formation.
The Daybreak pulls up beside her. "Shit," Thermidor says. "They're trying to repel us."
"I think we've found Barrett," Parvati says.
"Yeah," Thermidor agrees. "We can't leave him down there. He might be in danger."
"He most assuredly is," Parvati says. "But we can't risk losing contact with Crow and the others as well."
"So we'll report now," Thermidor says. "You contact Crow, send him a quick report. Make it snappy—they're reinforcing fast. No telling how many they have inside the engram field."
Parvati feels her mouth twitch. "I assume you'll be giving someone else a call?"
"Eido will kill me if I don't at least leave a message," Thermidor says dryly. "Sixty second messages, then we go in together. See you planetside, Parvati."
"Be brave, Guardian," she says softly, and hangs up. "Vishnu, start a sixty second timer and then prepare to send a recording back to Sol."
"Understood. I'm recording."
Parvati looks directly at the lens on the right side of her cockpit. "Crow. Thermidor and I have found a world which we suspect Barrett went down while investigating. Second planet from the sun in this system. There's a megaflora visible from space, and a Vex network projecting an illusion above the atmosphere. Vex fighters are trying to keep us from descending. We intend to break through the blockade to try and retrieve Barrett, but we're outnumbered and potentially outgunned. They may shoot us down—if they do, please send assistance as soon as possible. We'll survive until then."
"Ten seconds left," Vishnu says.
"Send the package and prepare to engage," she tells him, then leans forward in her seat, red eyes glaring out at the Vex. "We dealt with Atheon and the Sanctified Mind. They have upset the wrong fireteam."
She pushes her accelerator forward, charging at the Vex formation. Then she dodges to the side, anticipating their fire aiming at where she was. Vex predictive algorithms tend to be predictable, at least for paracausal combatants who can't be modeled conventionally—
The Vex Solar bursts strike her shields dead on. An alarm blares in her ears, warning her that her shields have dropped to ten percent. "What?" she exclaims. "How did they—"
They fire again, but this time she manages to evade. But she has to react to the actual shots—not what she expects the Vex algorithm to throw at her. Something is wrong. These Vex are too smart, too capable. Their formation breaks in a way she isn't used to, the ships moving in a more chaotic way that she expects. Still visibly in formation, but without the geometric perfection she's come to expect of Vex. They swarm both the Finite Samsara and the Daybreak, and she loses sight of Thermidor's ship as she dives between two of the Vex ships. A few shots go between the enemy vessels, and she sees the friendly fire strike true with grim satisfaction.
But several of the shots hit the Finite Samsara, too. Her shields break, and a round catches her warp drive. The explosion rocks her forward, sending her careening towards a few Vex fighters still between her and the planet. She barely manages to turn with her sublight thrusters in time to avoid colliding with one of them.
As she watches, several more of the ships swarm around those she nearly hit, turning to face her like a territorial pack of animals, and she realizes that they don't want to shoot her down. They want to shoot her away. They want her ship destroyed and her dead, certainly—but they do not want her to crash on the planet.
…Which means she knows exactly what she has to do.
With grim determination, she drives forward with her thrusters. She does her best to dodge the incoming Vex fire, but she takes several brutal hits. One of them hits a fuel cell, and the Finite Samsara pitches to the side, sputtering and sparking silently in the void. But the other fuel cell is still pumping power into the thruster, and she keeps driving forward. The ship's hull scrapes against that of a Vex fighter trying to block her path, and then she's through.
She knows the moment she passes through the outer perimeter of the Vex simulation, because what was a barren, rocky continent is suddenly flourishing with life. The south and west of the crescent-shaped continent are lush and green, while the north is frozen and some sort of red biome dominates the southeast. And all around the base of the massive ash tree, she can see a large city contained within a ring of stone walls. It's not the only settlement she can see on the surface—but it is the biggest.
"Radio communications established," Vishnu reports.
"Parvati," Thermidor pants. "I see you below me. My engines are shot, I'm going down."
"I have enough control to decide roughly where I crash," Parvati says, jerking her controls. "Where are you going to hit?"
"Near that lake north of the southern peninsula," Thermidor says.
"I'll join you there."
"No—we don't know where Barrett is or what state he's in, but you notice the Vex aren't following us down?"
She blinks and looks at her radar. He's right—there's no sign of the Vex fighters from inside the simulation. Not even whatever manufactory or fleet must have been sending more fighters their way.
"We should try to search for Barrett at the major landmarks," Thermidor says. "If nothing else, it's a starting point."
"You're suggesting we split up," Parvati says. "On a hostile world."
"I'm saying that the Vex don't build cities. People do. And whoever built that big one might know something about Barrett, or be willing to help us search. I'll come find you there once I can—but we should make contact there immediately. And you're gonna have to be the one to do it."
Parvati grits her teeth, glaring down at the continent rapidly growing below her. "You had better survive, Thermidor," she growls. "I don't want to have to explain how a small group of Vex killed you."
"Same to you," he says with a strained chuckle.
Parvati pulls back on her controls, and slowly, her ship tilts in its descent towards the city at the base of the megaflora. "Be brave, Young Wolf," she says.
"Be brave, Parvati-9. See you soon…" Thermidor's voice trails away into static.
"We've fallen out of range for short range radio," Vishnu says quietly.
Parvati nods. "Understood. Calculate our current trajectory—I'd rather not hit any buildings when we go down."
She hated splitting up on fireteam operations. She wasn't a Hunter, like Lex and Barrett, always ready to go out into the wilds alone. She preferred working with others, when it was an option. She enjoyed having a fireteam she could trust and rely on, a group of Guardians she knew were capable enough to watch her back.
But that didn't mean she couldn't work alone when she needed to. She was Parvati-9, Warlady of the New Delhi fief. Solitude might not be a friend, but it was at least an old, old colleague.
-x-x-x-
Interlude – Parvati-9
-x-x-x-
Interlude – Parvati-9
-x-x-x-
"…"
"…"
"…Torrent?"
-x-x-x-
"Dropping out of warp in sixty seconds," Vishnu reports.
Parvati leans back into the cushioned pilot's seat of the Finite Samsara with a sigh. "Thermidor should already be in the target system, yes?" she asks.
"Assuming he's following the charts Pluvius is giving him, yes."
"Good. Hail them as soon as we return to real space. Whatever put Barrett out of contact may still be in the system."
"Understood. Leaving warp in five, four, three, two, one…"
The blue maelstrom visible through the windows dissipates into the starry night sky. The Finite Samsara is still on the outer edge of the system, for now—at these distances, she can't even differentiate the individual planets in the system from the scintillating curtain of night behind them. The system's star is a young G-class, perhaps a little less red than Sol. But from here, she's far enough away that even it is just a slightly larger ball of light in the distance.
"Contact established with Pluvius," Vishnu announces. "Projecting quantum link with Thermidor."
Thermidor's head appears hovering over the terminal at Parvati's right, flickering into existence from the bottom up in the typical way for QEC holograms. "Thermidor," she greets. "Good to see you well."
"Yeah, you too," he says. "Pluvius and I have been skirting the system since we got here, keeping our cloak up and taking long-range scans of the major celestial bodies. Just in case."
Parvati catches herself smiling. "I should have known you would be prudent."
"After all the times you and Blackwall yelled at me for going off on my own when I was still learning the ropes? Of course."
"So, what have you found?"
"Small system, not too many planets. Two gas giants in the outer system, one terrestrial giant, and two conventional terrestrial planets in the inner system. There's a small asteroid belt between those two.
"Any obvious signs of habitation?"
"Nothing I could see from a distance. But I didn't want to get too close to anything without backup. Not when we know Barrett's already gone missing around here."
"Good. Well, I'm here now. Send me a set of coordinates for a rendezvous, and we can approach one of the planets together."
"Sure." Thermidor glances away from her, looking towards where Pluvius is probably hovering in the cockpit of the Daybreak. "How about somewhere about a tenth of an AU from the terrestrial giant? We can start with the rocky worlds."
"Very well. Send over the coordinates."
A moment later, Vishnu speaks up beside her. "Coordinates received. Plotting course."
"Enter NLS once that's done," she tells her Ghost, then leans back. "See you in… two hours, I suppose?"
"Just about," Thermidor says. "I'll check in with Crow by ansible, tell him you've arrived in the system."
-x-x-x-
Two hours, forty-three minutes, and twenty-seven seconds later, the Finite Samsara drops out of NLS warp. Immediately, Parvati can see the terrestrial giant Thermidor mentioned, although at this distance it's still only a small pebble being flagged as a massive body by her cockpit's HUD.
"QEC request incoming from Pluvius," Vishnu says.
"Patch him through."
"There you are," Thermidor says, appearing beside her once again. "I've got visual on you. Nice jump, Vishnu—barely any drift."
"Where are you?" Parvati asks, looking through the window—but she sees nothing without knowing what to look for.
"Theta seventy-four, phi twenty-seven," Vishnu says. "I've found them, cloaked. Marking on IFF."
The outline of the Daybreak appears on her HUD as a green outline. "Ah," she says. "Good. Vishnu, cloak us as well."
"Already done."
"Thank you. Thermidor, have you done any scanning yet?" She narrows her red eyes at the planet in the distance. It's pale green, not entirely unlike Earth from space.
"Not too much at this range," Thermidor says. "Long-range spectroscopy suggests it might be capable of sustaining life—looks like it might have liquid water on the surface—but it's hard to tell anything conclusive."
"Then let's approach, and see what we can find. Short NLS burst to HALO range?"
"You got it."
After a minute more of coordination, the NLS warp consumes them once again—for all of half a second, before they emerge again. And now the planet blooms large beneath them.
At this distance, Parvati can see that it very clearly does have liquid water on the surface—or at least, something that looks very like liquid water. Indeed, the entire surface is a massive ocean. She can see frosted tips at the planet's poles where ice caps solidify, but other than that, the entire massive world seems covered in a blue-green fluid not entirely unlike that of Earth's own seas. "Visnhu," she says as Thermidor reappears by her arm, "begin spectroscopic scans. I want to know what that ocean is made of, and whether there are signs of life."
"Beginning scan."
"Huh." Thermidor's brow is furrowed, and he isn't looking at her—although in her cockpit his head is aimed at a bulkhead, he's probably looking at the world through his own window. "This planet's outside the usual goldilocks zone. Must be either a greenhouse atmosphere or heavy geothermal activity keeping the place warm."
"Or that isn't water," Parvati points out.
"It is," Vishnu confirms. "And I'm detecting non-trivial carbon as well. Life is likely. Can't comment on whether it's anything more than microbes, though."
"Well, I don't see anything that might cause Barrett to fall out of contact here," says Thermidor. "We'll flag it—it's worth investigating, which means Barrett might have gone into atmo and had something break down there—but we should see if there's anything obvious at the other terrestrial worlds before we commit to this one. It's too big to search quickly, not if we want to be thorough."
"Agreed," Parvati says. "You said we were outside the star's goldilocks zone. Is the second planet within it?"
"Right in the middle," Thermidor says. "I didn't get close, but if it has a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere and water hydrosphere it could be really earthlike."
"I see. Let's give that one a cursory look, then, before we get too caught up on this world. You already have that planet's position in your charts, I assume?"
"Yep. Pluvius, send them a trajectory. We'll meet you there, Parvati."
About an hour later, they emerge from NLS. Parvati is immediately glad they decided to visit this second world.
"What is that?" Thermidor asks.
"It appears," Parvati says, "to be a very large tree."
The massive megaflora's trunk and leaves glow an iridescent gold. Its branches arch over an entire continent, bathing the barren landmass in its glow. The planet has three other landmasses of significant size, all of them dry, barren things—oddly so, given the apparently water ocean separating them.
"The landmasses look empty of flora besides the anomaly," Parvati says, thinking aloud. "High salinity in the water, perhaps?"
"But then how does the big guy survive?" Thermidor asks. "Pluvius, can you confirm whether that ocean is water?"
"What the…?" Vishnu mumbles by Parvati's ear.
"What is it?" she asks him.
"I'm getting some odd interference in my scans," he says. "Electromagnetic. The planet might have an unusually active magnetic field?"
"I'm seeing the same," Pluvius says, his higher-pitched voice audible over the QEC. "But—that tree is five kilometers high, give or take a couple hundred meters. An electromagnetic field strong enough to give this kind of interference would damage the soft tissue of its leaves, wouldn't it? At least the higher ones?"
"Hard to say," Vishnu says. "We don't know what those leaves are made of. For all we know, that might be a massive rock that just happens to look like a tree."
"Not just any tree," Pluvius says. "Magnify the bark and leaves. That's an ash tree, Vish."
There's a brief silence. "…What is an earth tree doing here?" Vishnu murmurs. "And how did it grow that large?"
"I think we found the anomaly Barrett went to investigate," Thermidor says slowly. "Now we just need to figure out what knocked him out of contact."
Parvati frowns. "…Vishnu, that electromagnetic interference. What bands of the EM spectrum does it affect?"
"…All of them," Vishnu says blankly after a pause. "The whole spectrum, as far into the radio and gamma spectra as I can scan without specialized equipment."
"That is definitely not a normal magnetic field," Pluvius says. "Let me see if there's any pattern to the waveform…"
"There is," says Vishnu slowly. "Tell me if you're seeing what I'm seeing, Pluvius."
"…I think I might be, Vish."
"What is it?" Thermidor asks. "Sounds ominous."
"That electromagnetic interference appears to be engram encoding," Vishnu says. "Suspended in photons rather than glimmer."
"Engram encoding?" Parvati asks. "Do you mean to say that the entire planet is, what, a giant engram?"
"Not the planet," Pluvius says. "There is a real planet there, in real space. But what we're seeing is a digital artifact. An illusion."
"A cloak," Thermidor murmurs. "But hiding what?"
"Don't know," Pluvius says.
"It's not possible for something like this to occur naturally," Parvati says slowly. "Engrams themselves are only barely possible with causal technology, even theoretically. They bend thermodynamics too far to arise on their own."
"Right," Vishnu says. "So something intelligent placed this here. But who? Or what?"
"Well," Thermidor says. "Who do we know who likes to impose different states on reality sometimes? Such as, for example, forcing a night that lasted almost two months on a single city?"
"You think the Vex did this?" Pluvius asks.
"It fits the facts," Vishnu says. "And if they're still active in the area, it could explain what happened to Barrett."
"It is the Vex," Parvati says, looking at the planet's horizon to her left—and the shapes which are emerging from a lattice of blue light as if breaking through an invisible net hovering over this planet. "Theta 270—our nine o'clock."
There are half a dozen of the small vessels. Luminous white radiolaria flow through tubes all over their chassis. They don't have a conventional cockpit—instead, a glaring red light is embedded just below each fighter's nose.
"Vishnu," she says. "Begin charging weapon systems." She leans forward and puts her hands on the ship's control sticks. "Preparing to take evasive maneuvers."
The Vex close quickly, and bolts of Solar energy shoot past the Finite Samsara as Parvati rolls and engages her sublight drives to fall back. A few shots ping off her shields, sending flashing indicators across her HUD. No serious damage, yet—but too many hits from those things and her starfighter won't be able to protect her.
She turns about to face the Vex again. They haven't pursued, but more fighters are joining them one by one. There are eight now, forming a lattice formation between her and the planet. As she watches, another vessel blooms out of a suddenly visible patch of glowing blue net around the planet and joins the formation.
The Daybreak pulls up beside her. "Shit," Thermidor says. "They're trying to repel us."
"I think we've found Barrett," Parvati says.
"Yeah," Thermidor agrees. "We can't leave him down there. He might be in danger."
"He most assuredly is," Parvati says. "But we can't risk losing contact with Crow and the others as well."
"So we'll report now," Thermidor says. "You contact Crow, send him a quick report. Make it snappy—they're reinforcing fast. No telling how many they have inside the engram field."
Parvati feels her mouth twitch. "I assume you'll be giving someone else a call?"
"Eido will kill me if I don't at least leave a message," Thermidor says dryly. "Sixty second messages, then we go in together. See you planetside, Parvati."
"Be brave, Guardian," she says softly, and hangs up. "Vishnu, start a sixty second timer and then prepare to send a recording back to Sol."
"Understood. I'm recording."
Parvati looks directly at the lens on the right side of her cockpit. "Crow. Thermidor and I have found a world which we suspect Barrett went down while investigating. Second planet from the sun in this system. There's a megaflora visible from space, and a Vex network projecting an illusion above the atmosphere. Vex fighters are trying to keep us from descending. We intend to break through the blockade to try and retrieve Barrett, but we're outnumbered and potentially outgunned. They may shoot us down—if they do, please send assistance as soon as possible. We'll survive until then."
"Ten seconds left," Vishnu says.
"Send the package and prepare to engage," she tells him, then leans forward in her seat, red eyes glaring out at the Vex. "We dealt with Atheon and the Sanctified Mind. They have upset the wrong fireteam."
She pushes her accelerator forward, charging at the Vex formation. Then she dodges to the side, anticipating their fire aiming at where she was. Vex predictive algorithms tend to be predictable, at least for paracausal combatants who can't be modeled conventionally—
The Vex Solar bursts strike her shields dead on. An alarm blares in her ears, warning her that her shields have dropped to ten percent. "What?" she exclaims. "How did they—"
They fire again, but this time she manages to evade. But she has to react to the actual shots—not what she expects the Vex algorithm to throw at her. Something is wrong. These Vex are too smart, too capable. Their formation breaks in a way she isn't used to, the ships moving in a more chaotic way that she expects. Still visibly in formation, but without the geometric perfection she's come to expect of Vex. They swarm both the Finite Samsara and the Daybreak, and she loses sight of Thermidor's ship as she dives between two of the Vex ships. A few shots go between the enemy vessels, and she sees the friendly fire strike true with grim satisfaction.
But several of the shots hit the Finite Samsara, too. Her shields break, and a round catches her warp drive. The explosion rocks her forward, sending her careening towards a few Vex fighters still between her and the planet. She barely manages to turn with her sublight thrusters in time to avoid colliding with one of them.
As she watches, several more of the ships swarm around those she nearly hit, turning to face her like a territorial pack of animals, and she realizes that they don't want to shoot her down. They want to shoot her away. They want her ship destroyed and her dead, certainly—but they do not want her to crash on the planet.
…Which means she knows exactly what she has to do.
With grim determination, she drives forward with her thrusters. She does her best to dodge the incoming Vex fire, but she takes several brutal hits. One of them hits a fuel cell, and the Finite Samsara pitches to the side, sputtering and sparking silently in the void. But the other fuel cell is still pumping power into the thruster, and she keeps driving forward. The ship's hull scrapes against that of a Vex fighter trying to block her path, and then she's through.
She knows the moment she passes through the outer perimeter of the Vex simulation, because what was a barren, rocky continent is suddenly flourishing with life. The south and west of the crescent-shaped continent are lush and green, while the north is frozen and some sort of red biome dominates the southeast. And all around the base of the massive ash tree, she can see a large city contained within a ring of stone walls. It's not the only settlement she can see on the surface—but it is the biggest.
"Radio communications established," Vishnu reports.
"Parvati," Thermidor pants. "I see you below me. My engines are shot, I'm going down."
"I have enough control to decide roughly where I crash," Parvati says, jerking her controls. "Where are you going to hit?"
"Near that lake north of the southern peninsula," Thermidor says.
"I'll join you there."
"No—we don't know where Barrett is or what state he's in, but you notice the Vex aren't following us down?"
She blinks and looks at her radar. He's right—there's no sign of the Vex fighters from inside the simulation. Not even whatever manufactory or fleet must have been sending more fighters their way.
"We should try to search for Barrett at the major landmarks," Thermidor says. "If nothing else, it's a starting point."
"You're suggesting we split up," Parvati says. "On a hostile world."
"I'm saying that the Vex don't build cities. People do. And whoever built that big one might know something about Barrett, or be willing to help us search. I'll come find you there once I can—but we should make contact there immediately. And you're gonna have to be the one to do it."
Parvati grits her teeth, glaring down at the continent rapidly growing below her. "You had better survive, Thermidor," she growls. "I don't want to have to explain how a small group of Vex killed you."
"Same to you," he says with a strained chuckle.
Parvati pulls back on her controls, and slowly, her ship tilts in its descent towards the city at the base of the megaflora. "Be brave, Young Wolf," she says.
"Be brave, Parvati-9. See you soon…" Thermidor's voice trails away into static.
"We've fallen out of range for short range radio," Vishnu says quietly.
Parvati nods. "Understood. Calculate our current trajectory—I'd rather not hit any buildings when we go down."
She hated splitting up on fireteam operations. She wasn't a Hunter, like Lex and Barrett, always ready to go out into the wilds alone. She preferred working with others, when it was an option. She enjoyed having a fireteam she could trust and rely on, a group of Guardians she knew were capable enough to watch her back.
But that didn't mean she couldn't work alone when she needed to. She was Parvati-9, Warlady of the New Delhi fief. Solitude might not be a friend, but it was at least an old, old colleague.
Lithos Maitreya
Character Witness
- Location
- United States
Unfortunately, with the holiday, @BinaryApotheosis and I weren't able to get the next chapter edited by today. Expect it next week instead!
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I do think it's really funny how different my worldview is on Godwyn between this story and the other Elden Ring one I follow
Me there: "No, Godwyn, hang in there and don't die!"
Me here: "I hope it hurt you gilded turd."
Me there: "No, Godwyn, hang in there and don't die!"
Me here: "I hope it hurt you gilded turd."
36. Daybreak
Lithos Maitreya
Character Witness
- Location
- United States
Many thanks to @BinaryApotheosis for betareading and fact-checking.
"Ah, good. You're awake. Easy there, no need to panic. We're safe for now."
"Where—? Who—?"
"I'd be surprised if you weren't confused. You've been, well, dead for at least a few months. Probably more like several years."
"Dead?"
"Yes. I'm a Ghost, you see. Or, at least, that's what I'm given to understand. This is rather new to all of us."
"And what… does a Ghost do?"
"Well, this. I suppose. Find the dead, scan them, and determine if they're compatible with us. If they are, we fill them with the Traveler's Light, which resurrects them. Tell me—do you have any memories before waking up a few moments ago? The other Ghosts I've encountered tell me most new Lightbearers don't."
"I… remember my name, I think."
"Oh? And what is it?"
"Parvati. Parvati-9."
"Good news?" the stone-skinned man asks hesitantly.
"Yeah," I say. "Oryx is dead."
He stares at me, his sunken eyes wide and glittering like exposed onyx in a rock wall. "What."
"Oryx," I say. "You know, the Taken King, the First Navigator, the—"
"I know who the King of Shapes is!" the stone man snaps. "What do you mean, he is dead?"
"That. He's dead. I was there, I should know." Silver may have fired the last bullet, but my Arc Blade was between a Knight's sword and her back while she did it.
"You lie."
I consider him for a moment. "You're an Alabaster Lord, right?"
"I am," he says warily.
"One of you guys taught Radahn his 'gravitation sorceries,'" I say. "Fellow named Taxarys, right?"
"I know Taxarys," says the Alabaster Lord. "Though I've not seen him since Raya Lucaria shut its gates. I believe he remains cloistered there."
"Great," I say. "You use that 'gravitation sorcery' too?"
He considers me. "You know it by another name."
I raise my hand and summon a stable Vortex Grenade in my palm. It spins there like a tiny singularity, complete with a miniature accretion disk. "Let me guess," I say, as the Alabaster Lord's beady eyes fix on the manifested Void Light with something like wonder. "The Traveler came to your people, too. Big white sphere, bringing with it the Light. It raised your people up, and then when Oryx and his boss came calling it left."
"Yes," the Alabaster Lord whispers, staring at the sphere of Void Light.
"It came to us too. And I guess it got tired of running. It stood its ground, planted its flag—and we won, in the end."
His eyes turn to mine. "You wield the Sky," he whispers. "I… it is difficult to believe that you could speak truth. But it is equally difficult to believe that a servant of the King of Shapes could wield the Sky and not be burned by it."
I decide not to bring up Savathûn, or the Radial Mast, or any of the other cases I could point to of the way that Light and Dark aren't quite as clear-cut as that. There'll be time later to discuss orthodoxy. "One of my best friends killed Oryx on the bridge of the Dreadnought, and we threw his body out into the black. It turned up later, but that's another story. Oryx is dead. The Hive's crusade is just about over. Xivu Arath is still mostly around, but even she's a lot weaker now than she was a few years ago."
"And the third sister?" the Alabaster Lord asks. "Savathûn, the Deciever?"
"She…" I hesitate. "She's returned to her people's ancestral homeworld as part of a ceasefire. We're keeping an eye on her. She knows she can't beat us now, and we had things to do besides chase her across the universe."
"It is… difficult to even imagine," he murmurs. "A universe where the will of Oryx is no longer the only law that matters. But—no Hive would tell this lie. Even Savathûn could not conceive of it, I think. And you wield the Sky as if born to it. Can it be? Are we… free, at last?"
"If you want to be," I say. I close my fist, banishing the Vortex Grenade. "But I have to figure out who just crashed, and if they need my help. You're welcome to come with if you want to keep chatting, but I have to go."
"Yes." He nods rapidly. "Yes, I will join you. I am Uvyxes, son of Laxryvar, of the line of Pasarys."
"Barrett-12. Guardian of the Last City."
"And I am Melina," Melina says softly.
Uvyxes starts, staring at her on Torrent's back. "Melina? Princess Melina, daughter of Marika the Eternal?"
"Yes," Melina says evenly. "Barrett, if we intend to take the Spiritspring…"
"Right." I climb onto Torrent's back behind her. "Can you take those?" I ask Uvyxes.
"Yes," he says. "I shall meet you atop the cliff."
"Then you are something of an emissary for the Celestial Sphere?" Uvyxes asks as we jog along.
"Something like that," I say. "I mean, it doesn't speak to us, doesn't tell us what it wants or anything. That's sort of the point, as I understand it. The whole reason it does what it does is because it believes we have the right to choose what we do with its gifts. Or something like that. But I exist because of it, because it sent out my Ghost and he chose me."
"Fascinating," he murmurs. "And… the Sphere, does it yet survive?"
"Mostly," I hedge. "It's taken some hard knocks, but it's still on Earth."
"Do you think I might… be able to see it, one day?"
"Don't see why not," I say. "Hopefully whoever crashed still has their ansible working, and we can call home for transportation back to Earth. This place is a bit hostile to people, I'm thinking about trying to organize a large-scale evacuation once we…"
We crest a hill and I trail off. Because I've just gotten my first good view of Lake Agheel—and what's currently going not far from the shore. Because that appears to be a dragon trying to tear open the wreck of a Guardian jumpship. A jumpship I recognize. It's seen better days, but that beaten-up old hull always looks like it's seen better days.
Thermidor salvaged the Daybreak in the early days of the Red War after losing his original ship, the D'Artagnan, in Ghaul's attack. That barely-functioning disaster of a ship carried him from Earth all over the system, ducking between Cabal patrol routes all the way. He never looked back, even once we reclaimed the city, and the Daybreak's been his ship ever since.
She's been retrofitted more than once, obviously. Thermidor spared no expense turning her into a proper ship-o'-the-line in Guardian terms after Holliday moved back into the hangar. He got her upgraded again when the Black Fleet showed up in the system, when we were all pulling double shifts as blockade runners getting supplies and people out of our remote outposts. Then he refitted her a third time when he was using her as a landing craft to capture raider ketches during the brief stint he, Grant, and I had working as privateers for Drifter and Eido.
But through it all, even though she's gotten a few new coats of paint and a few new bells and whistles strapped to the hull, she's still the same hunk of junk that I saw touching down on Io more than half a decade ago. I'd know that ship anywhere.
And I take exception to that dragon trying to tear open her hull like she's an aluminum can with dinner inside.
"Winchester," I growl. "Give me Ascendancy."
With pleasure, he says, the same anger in his voice. I've already synthesized some fresh heavy ammo. Go wild.
I bare my nickel-alloy teeth and lift the rocket launcher onto my shoulder. The RPG blasts forward, detonating against the dragon's side. It roars out in pain and fury, its head snaking around to glare at me—
And that's when the cockpit snaps open, and an avenging Thundercrash clocks it right across the chin, knocking its head clean off.
That's our boy, Chester says proudly over our private channel.
Ping Pluvius, I tell him. See if we can get a fireteam call back up.
Already on it.
I holster my Ascendancy and start jogging forward, boots sinking into the downy grass as I descend to the waterline. Torrent trots beside me, Uvyxes on our heels. "Hey there!" I call. "How'd you know I asked for a Guardian for Dawning?"
"Barrett!" A familiar voice calls as Thermidor straightens, leftover Arc energy flickering between plates of his armor. He reaches up and pulls off his helmet. Even a hundred yards away, I can see the wide grin on his pale blue face. "Didn't expect to find you this quickly!"
"Didn't expect to have you literally drop on my head," I counter as we close the distance. Once I reach him, I throw my arms around him—not an easy task, with how broad the pauldrons of his armor are. He returns the favor, squeezing me just tight enough to be pleasantly uncomfortable without using the power armor's strength enhancement enough to snap my ribs like toothpicks.
"Good to see you, you old bastard," he says.
"Same to you, kid."
We part, though he keeps a hand on one of my shoulders as he looks down into my face, his eyes darting here and there as if expecting to find some injury. Kid's always been like this, from the day Silver and Lex introduced me to him before the assault on the Vault of Glass. Three weeks old and he was already the team mom.
His smile suddenly sharpens into an amused grin. "So…" he says. "What was that I said about exploration patterns? And following the plan?"
"Oh, go dive in a bucket of oil and whip out a Burning Maul."
"I'm just saying!" He laughs. "Not to be that guy, but I did tell you so."
"Yeah, yeah, get over yourself." I shake my head, stepping away, unable to hide my own grin. "How's Eido? How's Riis?"
"Doing well!" His grin goes slightly dopey. Traveler, I hope I don't look like that when I think about Melina. "They were starting to work out crop rotation patterns when I left. Eido promised to send a ketch our way if we need backup."
"Well," I say, shooting a look at what's left of the Daybreak behind him. "Seems like we might need that eventually."
He grimaced. "Yeah. Pluvius, what's the status on our ansible?"
"Salvageable," says the Ghost, appearing over Thermidor's shoulder. "I'm already encoding some glimmer for it."
"Your engram decoder still works, then?" I ask. "Mine got busted up when the Lonestar crashed."
"Yes," Pluvius says. "But if yours isn't working, how have you managed on your own this long? You've been here for weeks!"
"Just been conserving my ammo," I say. "Kept careful enough not to crash my sparrow, except that one time. I was trying to get a hold of some gold and iridium to do repairs, but by the time I did…" I trail off. In the excitement of coming out here to find Thermidor, it almost slipped by mind. "Someone stole the Lonestar, Thermidor."
"You think it might've been the Vex?" Thermidor asks.
"…What Vex?"
He blinks at me. "What do you mean, what Vex? The ones maintaining this simulation!"
I don't think I've ever had five words terrify me as much as those ones. "What simulation!?"
"…I think we have a lot to catch up on," Thermidor says. "How did you crash, if it wasn't the Vex?"
"There was a debris field in low geosync orbit," I say. "The rocks weren't visible until… until I got close."
How did that not raise a hundred different red flags for me at the time? Well, I guess it did. It just never seemed like as much of a priority as the problem in front of me. But a Vex simulation could do that. Could do that easily.
"That debris field wasn't there when we arrived," Thermidor says.
"I know. I dealt with it on this end. Found a guy."
"You found a guy to deal with a micrometeor death field?" Thermidor asks blankly. "From planetside?"
"Yeah. Long story. So I guess the Vex knocked you down directly?"
"Tried to keep us from getting into the sim," Thermidor says. "They didn't follow us in, so I guess they're trying to keep the locals from finding out about them?"
I sigh. "That checks out. I haven't seen anything that looks like a Vex frame. But if this is a Vex sim… there's a lot of paracausal stuff flying around on this world, Thermidor. A dangerous amount."
"You think the Vex are studying paracausality?"
"It makes sense. They've got to be getting tired of having their chrome asses disassembled and handed back to them."
Thermidor shakes his head. "Hopefully they're not too far along in that research, then." He looks past me. "You think they're the ones who seeded this world with humans, too?"
I glance back at where Melina and Uvyxes are watching us. "Could be. It didn't make sense—the locals have history going back millennia, but they speak English, in a dialect that's not even two millennia old—but if the Vex have been altering how time flows here…"
"That could explain the contradiction," Thermidor says. "So. You gonna introduce me?"
"Right, right. Thermidor, this is Uvyxes—I just met him a few minutes ago. Apparently his people were a previous Traveler uplift, before the Eliksni, and they came here to hide from Oryx and the Hive."
"Oh, hey." Thermidor gives Uvyxes a wave. "Good news for you, if Barrett hasn't mentioned it."
"He has," Uvyxes says, his voice a little strained with lingering disbelief.
"And this," I say, meeting Melina's liquid gold gaze, "is Melina. She's the first person I met after the crash. We've been traveling together ever since. Melina, this is Thermidor, a member of my fireteam and one of the best damn Guardians I've ever known."
"Barrett has mentioned you," Melina says to Thermidor, a small smile on her lips. "It is an honor."
"Honor's all mine," Thermidor says. "Thanks for looking after this idiot."
"Hey," I grumble with a grin. "Oh, I saw two ships come down. Did one of the others come with?"
"Yeah, Parvati wasn't too far from this system," Thermidor says. "She still had control when we went down, so I had her try to head up towards the big city up north. Didn't expect to find you in the middle of nowhere, so I thought we should try and make contact with the locals."
"What a coincidence," I say. "Melina and I were planning on heading up to Leyndell before too long. Although," I glance back at her. "We owe your sister a visit first, don't we? At Caria Manor?"
"We need not keep your fellows waiting," she says.
"Hey," Thermidor says. "I'm not planning on abandoning the Daybreak, especially not if one jumpship has already gone missing. Pluvius, how long until we can get the ship capable of in-atmo flight, even if it's not spaceworthy?"
"Probably a day or two?" Pluvius says. "I'm still running diagnostics, but the damage doesn't look too bad. The ground is pretty soft here. As crash landings go, this wasn't a bad one."
"So how about this," Thermidor says. "I'll get the Daybreak fixed, and then we can use her to go visit this sister of yours, and then after that we'll head to—what did you call it? Lendall?"
"Leyndell," I say.
"Right. Sound like a plan?"
I look at Melina. "It works for me."
"Then I have no complaints," she says. Her lips twitch. "In fact… I confess, the idea of flying through the sky on such a vessel is rather intriguing, even if I doubt I will be corporeal to enjoy it. Torrent is unlikely to have room to stand."
"Sorry," Thermidor says. "Corporeal?"
"Yeah," I say. "We have a lot to catch up on."
-x-x-x-
Daybreak
-x-x-x-
Daybreak
-x-x-x-
"Ah, good. You're awake. Easy there, no need to panic. We're safe for now."
"Where—? Who—?"
"I'd be surprised if you weren't confused. You've been, well, dead for at least a few months. Probably more like several years."
"Dead?"
"Yes. I'm a Ghost, you see. Or, at least, that's what I'm given to understand. This is rather new to all of us."
"And what… does a Ghost do?"
"Well, this. I suppose. Find the dead, scan them, and determine if they're compatible with us. If they are, we fill them with the Traveler's Light, which resurrects them. Tell me—do you have any memories before waking up a few moments ago? The other Ghosts I've encountered tell me most new Lightbearers don't."
"I… remember my name, I think."
"Oh? And what is it?"
"Parvati. Parvati-9."
-x-x-x-
"Good news?" the stone-skinned man asks hesitantly.
"Yeah," I say. "Oryx is dead."
He stares at me, his sunken eyes wide and glittering like exposed onyx in a rock wall. "What."
"Oryx," I say. "You know, the Taken King, the First Navigator, the—"
"I know who the King of Shapes is!" the stone man snaps. "What do you mean, he is dead?"
"That. He's dead. I was there, I should know." Silver may have fired the last bullet, but my Arc Blade was between a Knight's sword and her back while she did it.
"You lie."
I consider him for a moment. "You're an Alabaster Lord, right?"
"I am," he says warily.
"One of you guys taught Radahn his 'gravitation sorceries,'" I say. "Fellow named Taxarys, right?"
"I know Taxarys," says the Alabaster Lord. "Though I've not seen him since Raya Lucaria shut its gates. I believe he remains cloistered there."
"Great," I say. "You use that 'gravitation sorcery' too?"
He considers me. "You know it by another name."
I raise my hand and summon a stable Vortex Grenade in my palm. It spins there like a tiny singularity, complete with a miniature accretion disk. "Let me guess," I say, as the Alabaster Lord's beady eyes fix on the manifested Void Light with something like wonder. "The Traveler came to your people, too. Big white sphere, bringing with it the Light. It raised your people up, and then when Oryx and his boss came calling it left."
"Yes," the Alabaster Lord whispers, staring at the sphere of Void Light.
"It came to us too. And I guess it got tired of running. It stood its ground, planted its flag—and we won, in the end."
His eyes turn to mine. "You wield the Sky," he whispers. "I… it is difficult to believe that you could speak truth. But it is equally difficult to believe that a servant of the King of Shapes could wield the Sky and not be burned by it."
I decide not to bring up Savathûn, or the Radial Mast, or any of the other cases I could point to of the way that Light and Dark aren't quite as clear-cut as that. There'll be time later to discuss orthodoxy. "One of my best friends killed Oryx on the bridge of the Dreadnought, and we threw his body out into the black. It turned up later, but that's another story. Oryx is dead. The Hive's crusade is just about over. Xivu Arath is still mostly around, but even she's a lot weaker now than she was a few years ago."
"And the third sister?" the Alabaster Lord asks. "Savathûn, the Deciever?"
"She…" I hesitate. "She's returned to her people's ancestral homeworld as part of a ceasefire. We're keeping an eye on her. She knows she can't beat us now, and we had things to do besides chase her across the universe."
"It is… difficult to even imagine," he murmurs. "A universe where the will of Oryx is no longer the only law that matters. But—no Hive would tell this lie. Even Savathûn could not conceive of it, I think. And you wield the Sky as if born to it. Can it be? Are we… free, at last?"
"If you want to be," I say. I close my fist, banishing the Vortex Grenade. "But I have to figure out who just crashed, and if they need my help. You're welcome to come with if you want to keep chatting, but I have to go."
"Yes." He nods rapidly. "Yes, I will join you. I am Uvyxes, son of Laxryvar, of the line of Pasarys."
"Barrett-12. Guardian of the Last City."
"And I am Melina," Melina says softly.
Uvyxes starts, staring at her on Torrent's back. "Melina? Princess Melina, daughter of Marika the Eternal?"
"Yes," Melina says evenly. "Barrett, if we intend to take the Spiritspring…"
"Right." I climb onto Torrent's back behind her. "Can you take those?" I ask Uvyxes.
"Yes," he says. "I shall meet you atop the cliff."
-x-x-x-
"Then you are something of an emissary for the Celestial Sphere?" Uvyxes asks as we jog along.
"Something like that," I say. "I mean, it doesn't speak to us, doesn't tell us what it wants or anything. That's sort of the point, as I understand it. The whole reason it does what it does is because it believes we have the right to choose what we do with its gifts. Or something like that. But I exist because of it, because it sent out my Ghost and he chose me."
"Fascinating," he murmurs. "And… the Sphere, does it yet survive?"
"Mostly," I hedge. "It's taken some hard knocks, but it's still on Earth."
"Do you think I might… be able to see it, one day?"
"Don't see why not," I say. "Hopefully whoever crashed still has their ansible working, and we can call home for transportation back to Earth. This place is a bit hostile to people, I'm thinking about trying to organize a large-scale evacuation once we…"
We crest a hill and I trail off. Because I've just gotten my first good view of Lake Agheel—and what's currently going not far from the shore. Because that appears to be a dragon trying to tear open the wreck of a Guardian jumpship. A jumpship I recognize. It's seen better days, but that beaten-up old hull always looks like it's seen better days.
Thermidor salvaged the Daybreak in the early days of the Red War after losing his original ship, the D'Artagnan, in Ghaul's attack. That barely-functioning disaster of a ship carried him from Earth all over the system, ducking between Cabal patrol routes all the way. He never looked back, even once we reclaimed the city, and the Daybreak's been his ship ever since.
She's been retrofitted more than once, obviously. Thermidor spared no expense turning her into a proper ship-o'-the-line in Guardian terms after Holliday moved back into the hangar. He got her upgraded again when the Black Fleet showed up in the system, when we were all pulling double shifts as blockade runners getting supplies and people out of our remote outposts. Then he refitted her a third time when he was using her as a landing craft to capture raider ketches during the brief stint he, Grant, and I had working as privateers for Drifter and Eido.
But through it all, even though she's gotten a few new coats of paint and a few new bells and whistles strapped to the hull, she's still the same hunk of junk that I saw touching down on Io more than half a decade ago. I'd know that ship anywhere.
And I take exception to that dragon trying to tear open her hull like she's an aluminum can with dinner inside.
"Winchester," I growl. "Give me Ascendancy."
With pleasure, he says, the same anger in his voice. I've already synthesized some fresh heavy ammo. Go wild.
I bare my nickel-alloy teeth and lift the rocket launcher onto my shoulder. The RPG blasts forward, detonating against the dragon's side. It roars out in pain and fury, its head snaking around to glare at me—
And that's when the cockpit snaps open, and an avenging Thundercrash clocks it right across the chin, knocking its head clean off.
That's our boy, Chester says proudly over our private channel.
Ping Pluvius, I tell him. See if we can get a fireteam call back up.
Already on it.
I holster my Ascendancy and start jogging forward, boots sinking into the downy grass as I descend to the waterline. Torrent trots beside me, Uvyxes on our heels. "Hey there!" I call. "How'd you know I asked for a Guardian for Dawning?"
"Barrett!" A familiar voice calls as Thermidor straightens, leftover Arc energy flickering between plates of his armor. He reaches up and pulls off his helmet. Even a hundred yards away, I can see the wide grin on his pale blue face. "Didn't expect to find you this quickly!"
"Didn't expect to have you literally drop on my head," I counter as we close the distance. Once I reach him, I throw my arms around him—not an easy task, with how broad the pauldrons of his armor are. He returns the favor, squeezing me just tight enough to be pleasantly uncomfortable without using the power armor's strength enhancement enough to snap my ribs like toothpicks.
"Good to see you, you old bastard," he says.
"Same to you, kid."
We part, though he keeps a hand on one of my shoulders as he looks down into my face, his eyes darting here and there as if expecting to find some injury. Kid's always been like this, from the day Silver and Lex introduced me to him before the assault on the Vault of Glass. Three weeks old and he was already the team mom.
His smile suddenly sharpens into an amused grin. "So…" he says. "What was that I said about exploration patterns? And following the plan?"
"Oh, go dive in a bucket of oil and whip out a Burning Maul."
"I'm just saying!" He laughs. "Not to be that guy, but I did tell you so."
"Yeah, yeah, get over yourself." I shake my head, stepping away, unable to hide my own grin. "How's Eido? How's Riis?"
"Doing well!" His grin goes slightly dopey. Traveler, I hope I don't look like that when I think about Melina. "They were starting to work out crop rotation patterns when I left. Eido promised to send a ketch our way if we need backup."
"Well," I say, shooting a look at what's left of the Daybreak behind him. "Seems like we might need that eventually."
He grimaced. "Yeah. Pluvius, what's the status on our ansible?"
"Salvageable," says the Ghost, appearing over Thermidor's shoulder. "I'm already encoding some glimmer for it."
"Your engram decoder still works, then?" I ask. "Mine got busted up when the Lonestar crashed."
"Yes," Pluvius says. "But if yours isn't working, how have you managed on your own this long? You've been here for weeks!"
"Just been conserving my ammo," I say. "Kept careful enough not to crash my sparrow, except that one time. I was trying to get a hold of some gold and iridium to do repairs, but by the time I did…" I trail off. In the excitement of coming out here to find Thermidor, it almost slipped by mind. "Someone stole the Lonestar, Thermidor."
"You think it might've been the Vex?" Thermidor asks.
"…What Vex?"
He blinks at me. "What do you mean, what Vex? The ones maintaining this simulation!"
I don't think I've ever had five words terrify me as much as those ones. "What simulation!?"
"…I think we have a lot to catch up on," Thermidor says. "How did you crash, if it wasn't the Vex?"
"There was a debris field in low geosync orbit," I say. "The rocks weren't visible until… until I got close."
How did that not raise a hundred different red flags for me at the time? Well, I guess it did. It just never seemed like as much of a priority as the problem in front of me. But a Vex simulation could do that. Could do that easily.
"That debris field wasn't there when we arrived," Thermidor says.
"I know. I dealt with it on this end. Found a guy."
"You found a guy to deal with a micrometeor death field?" Thermidor asks blankly. "From planetside?"
"Yeah. Long story. So I guess the Vex knocked you down directly?"
"Tried to keep us from getting into the sim," Thermidor says. "They didn't follow us in, so I guess they're trying to keep the locals from finding out about them?"
I sigh. "That checks out. I haven't seen anything that looks like a Vex frame. But if this is a Vex sim… there's a lot of paracausal stuff flying around on this world, Thermidor. A dangerous amount."
"You think the Vex are studying paracausality?"
"It makes sense. They've got to be getting tired of having their chrome asses disassembled and handed back to them."
Thermidor shakes his head. "Hopefully they're not too far along in that research, then." He looks past me. "You think they're the ones who seeded this world with humans, too?"
I glance back at where Melina and Uvyxes are watching us. "Could be. It didn't make sense—the locals have history going back millennia, but they speak English, in a dialect that's not even two millennia old—but if the Vex have been altering how time flows here…"
"That could explain the contradiction," Thermidor says. "So. You gonna introduce me?"
"Right, right. Thermidor, this is Uvyxes—I just met him a few minutes ago. Apparently his people were a previous Traveler uplift, before the Eliksni, and they came here to hide from Oryx and the Hive."
"Oh, hey." Thermidor gives Uvyxes a wave. "Good news for you, if Barrett hasn't mentioned it."
"He has," Uvyxes says, his voice a little strained with lingering disbelief.
"And this," I say, meeting Melina's liquid gold gaze, "is Melina. She's the first person I met after the crash. We've been traveling together ever since. Melina, this is Thermidor, a member of my fireteam and one of the best damn Guardians I've ever known."
"Barrett has mentioned you," Melina says to Thermidor, a small smile on her lips. "It is an honor."
"Honor's all mine," Thermidor says. "Thanks for looking after this idiot."
"Hey," I grumble with a grin. "Oh, I saw two ships come down. Did one of the others come with?"
"Yeah, Parvati wasn't too far from this system," Thermidor says. "She still had control when we went down, so I had her try to head up towards the big city up north. Didn't expect to find you in the middle of nowhere, so I thought we should try and make contact with the locals."
"What a coincidence," I say. "Melina and I were planning on heading up to Leyndell before too long. Although," I glance back at her. "We owe your sister a visit first, don't we? At Caria Manor?"
"We need not keep your fellows waiting," she says.
"Hey," Thermidor says. "I'm not planning on abandoning the Daybreak, especially not if one jumpship has already gone missing. Pluvius, how long until we can get the ship capable of in-atmo flight, even if it's not spaceworthy?"
"Probably a day or two?" Pluvius says. "I'm still running diagnostics, but the damage doesn't look too bad. The ground is pretty soft here. As crash landings go, this wasn't a bad one."
"So how about this," Thermidor says. "I'll get the Daybreak fixed, and then we can use her to go visit this sister of yours, and then after that we'll head to—what did you call it? Lendall?"
"Leyndell," I say.
"Right. Sound like a plan?"
I look at Melina. "It works for me."
"Then I have no complaints," she says. Her lips twitch. "In fact… I confess, the idea of flying through the sky on such a vessel is rather intriguing, even if I doubt I will be corporeal to enjoy it. Torrent is unlikely to have room to stand."
"Sorry," Thermidor says. "Corporeal?"
"Yeah," I say. "We have a lot to catch up on."
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Imagine running and hiding for so long, sure that the horror that chased your people and destroyed everything you'd ever known would one day find you and finish the job. Then a stranger who you know can't be lying tells you that the danger is over, that your people are safe at last. You've been running for so long that to remain still seems like a death sentence, to allow yourself the luxury of hope a quick path to disappointment and disillusionment. After being afraid in the dark for so long, how can you bear to face the light again?
- Location
- Manila, Philippines
Is this like a The Matrix?
Lithos Maitreya
Character Witness
- Location
- United States
The Vex are a machine race that have three major traits that fairly well encapsulate their vibe.
First, they are a hivemind. Each Vex unit contains a core of a charged liquid which is a suspension of nanomachines called radiolaria which are the actual seat of the Vex consciousness.
Second, they can (arguably) time-travel. It's not clear exactly what the limits on their ability to travel through time are, but I've recently had it made very clear to me (in the SpaceBattles thread) that it's basically incontrovertible that they can time travel to at least some extent. This mostly involves altering details of the present by retroactively rewriting the past.
Third, they are incredibly adept at simulating future events based on observations of the past and present. This prediction starts to break down when they are exposed to paracausality, because it is the nature of paracausality to defy clearly-defined principles of cause and effect.
But the Vex have built several massive simulation facilities to test the limits of their own abilities and develop new countermeasures to their paracausal enemies. These include the Vault of Glass, where the Vex experimented with more advanced forms of time travel which allowed them to literally write their enemies within the Vault out of ever having existed, and the Infinite Forest, where the Vex maintained a massive infrastructure of simulated variations on both the past and the future.
These Vex simulations are essentially digital spaces made physical—spaces entirely under the control of the Vex, where they can shape and reshape even the rules of reality to facilitate their experiments. These simulations can be entered by physical people, and interacted with like real spaces, but within them the local Vex Axis Mind can be incredibly, terrifyingly powerful.
This is what frightens Barrett. He has fought in Vex simulations before. The Vex superimposed a simulation over reality at one point to prevent the Sun from rising over the Last City for almost three months. But every time in the past, he has been aware that he was in a Vex simulation. Either he has been the instigator of the interaction—going down into the Vault of Glass with his friends, or walking through the gate into the Infinite Forest—or it has been so overt, like with the Endless Night, that it took little to no time to identify the Vex as the culprits.
This is different. The Lands Between are inhabited. There are people here--people he's come to respect, like, and cherish. We'll go into more detail about the implied existential crisis, and how he deals with it, in the coming chapters. But suffice to say that within a Vex simulation is their home turf. They are far, far more dangerous within an established simulation than outside of one. And he's just found out that, supposedly, he's been in one of those simulations for weeks without even noticing.
- Location
- United States
That was a very dump downed explanation btw. Vex are very weird and creepy. Also to clarify Vex simulations are 100% real people with free will and its actually possible for them to straight up leave the simulation as living beings. There was a strike in destiny 2 were we were worried simulated cabal with superweapons was going to escape the infinite forest into reality.
Lithos Maitreya
Character Witness
- Location
- United States
Of course it's a simplified explanation. It was supposed to be. I'm not going to try an explain every detail about the Vex in out-of-story commentary. The goal is to explain enough within the story that a reader can follow without prior knowledge, and to elaborate enough within the thread for the reader who is reading the comments to feel like they understand the details of why the characters say and think the specific things they do, and to feel like they understand some of the stakes without having them spelled out.
Also, Vex simulations aren't always completely accurate to real people. They can be. The simulated Captain Jacobson seemed to be genuinely emulating emotion and identity in a way we hadn't really seen before or since. But he was very much the exception, not the rule—and in particular, while we have seen simulated Hive within the Infinite Forest, we know the Vex cannot simulate their rituals or, most likely, the Sword Logic.
- Location
- United States
Sorry i meant that for the guy you were answering not for you.
mackhaon
Blame it on my misspent youth
- Location
- Kyiv
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh, hey Quria! Is that you hiding there?
Lithos Maitreya
Character Witness
- Location
- United States
No chapter coming tomorrow, unfortunately. I've spent the past few days alternately with family and dealing with a setback on Of Many Colors, as well as rediscovering my love of Destiny 2 after a hiatus for most of Season of the Witch. I should be back next week.