[u]Chapter Seven: Down to Earth[/u] Part One My Ghost said this place was called the Cosmodrome. It was a section of the world in a land that used to be something called Old Russia, and it was surrounded by a massive wall that had apparently been meant to hold back the Darkness in the beginning of the Collapse. The Cosmodrome Wall had been built to defend colony ships inside the Cosmodrome that transported civilians; it clearly didn't hold out as hoped. It was much like the place I had been brought back to life in, but it wasn't a city area. Many old, destroyed, and rusting cars covered the few roads that could be seen, and totaled planes lay in scattered pieces in several locations that we could see as we flew down. I also managed to spot an area holding grounded ships, as rusty and broken as the cars and planes. Several large building were perched on areas with higher ground, made of concrete and rusting metal with gigantic satellite dishes on top of them. Our ships came down and hovered above a little, flat outcrop, dropping is off and then flying away with directions from our Ghosts. My feet hit the ground, knocking up a low cloud of dirt with the impact, and I thought about this ground; about the home I had to defend. There was so much destruction, every manmade object in sight was decimated and once grand displays of technology sat, rusting and being corroded by the elements. Skeletons and bones could be seen in the cars, and I knew that they could be found in almost any corner I decided to peek into; everything was marked by the shadow of death. But there was still life. Plants grew over everything, insects and other small animals crawled on the ground and flew low above the ground, and birds glided through the sky. This life laughed death and the Darkness in the face, ignored and flourishing while war waged on between more advanced beings. Then there was the City, a final safe haven of the Light, shining brilliantly in the dark. The last of humanity lived peacefully within its borders while the Guardians venture out to keep them safe. We fought for them, for all the life that surrounded me now, to survive against the Darkness and prove that life will triumph death. "Hey William, get your head out of the clouds so we can kill some stuff!," Sierra's voice broke through my thoughts. [i]Well, soldiers embody death, no matter which side they're on. But at least the Guardians fight to spread life while the Darkness revolves around death[/i], I thought to myself. "Coming!" I called, then jogged up the hill that Sierra had started walking up. She was standing at its crest now, looking down the scope of her sniper rifle. I came to her side and I followed her gaze until my eyes came to rest on a group of Fallen. They were prowling around some old ventilation units that were located outside the building that their pipes led to. A couple of the Dreg were scavenging for parts, but the other Dreg just milled around with the few Vandals and the couple Shanks that were there. "Are they listed in one of your bounties?" I inquired. "No, although I do have a bounty on knocking off some Fallen near this area; they've been extra active lately," she replied. "Let's not mess with these ones, we wouldn't want to let the more active bunch know we're coming," I suggested. She looked at me, probably giving me a confused look under her helmet, then uncertainly said, "Okaaaay..." "Which way are the ones we're after?" I asked, beginning to walk down the hill so the Fallen wouldn't see us. "Over at Skywatch," she told me, coming down the Hillary well, "Don't ask, you'll find out what it is. Follow me." Her Sparrow appeared next to her and she climbed on. "Uh, Ghost?" I asked. My Sparrow appeared next to me just as Sierra's did and I got on it. "Thanks." Sierra began moving forward, her Sparrow's engine flaring and boosting her along. I tested the peddle that my left foot rested and my Sparrow began drifting sideways, then after a moment I took the pressure off of it and pushed the peddle my right foot was on, gliding back to the right. [i]So the peddles clearly aren't the "go" option[/i], I thought. Then I looked down at the handles and twisted them towards me with my hands, and the ends of the handles began turning with my hands, as expected. My Sparrow started forward and I slowly twisted further, causing my Sparrow to speed up. I came to a soft right turn and leaned to the right on my Sparrow, applying pressure to the right peddle to turn. I came around the corner and leveled out, then cranked out the handles, shooting forward with a burst of speed. I began catching up with Sierra, curving left and right around obstacles, a huge smile splitting my face. I shot past her, letting out a whoop of enjoyment, then began slowing back down after a moment. She caught up with me and I matched pace, following closely behind now. Her voice broke through on my coms. "Having fun?" She asked. "Of course," I replied happily. "Good, wouldn't want you having a bad time on your first trip back to the wilds," she said. We went under an archway that had been hallowed out of a rocky slope by the elements. At the other end we came to the crest of a slope and headed down, then up again at the other end of it. Going over a couple of small hills, I noticed a flicker at the bottom left hand corner of my visor display. I saw the words "The Steppes" fade and be replaced with "Mothyards". "Ghost, are those words in the corner of my visor the names of the areas we're in?" I asked. "Yes, we are almost to Skywatch now," he told me. As we came over the small hills, which were practically just big bumps in the ground, I saw the wreckage of planes I had spotted earlier. The large vehicles sat across the field before us, each one broken into two or three pieces that were coated in rust and dirt. We sped past, but I spotted groups of Fallen wandering among the debris, a few looking up and watching us go by cautiously. We reached the opposite end of the field and began ascending a road that wound up a steep cliff. At the top of this cliff lay one of the massive buildings I had seen, sporting a rather large satellite array. We came up close to the building and dismounted, our Sparrows disappearing moments after. Our guns were raised and our fingers on the triggers as we reached the entranceway, but we encountered no Fallen. No living Fallen, at least. There were bodies scattered all over the hallways we walked through, the bodies of Fallen that someone had blown through. "What happened?" I asked in concern. "It looks like a Guardian came through here," my Ghost said, "At least judging by the lack of enemy bodies." "Something on the channels," John piped in, "A guardian just entered the building a few minutes ago, he's helping clear the Fallen as well." "That jerk!" Sierra growled, "I registered for this bounty, I need the Glimmer!" She began jogging forward, hoping to catch up to the Guardian and get her share of kills. I followed quickly, keeping my gun ready. We ran through a couple hallways before entering a small room holding old electricity boxes. "Hold on," my Ghost said, "There's an engram in here." "An engram?" I asked, looking around. There were a couple of dead Dreg in the room, which was very dark with only a couple of weak lights on, but an odd green light shine from underneath one of the Dreg. "It's basically Glimmer in a concentrated mass. Glimmer is programmable matter, which can be turned into pretty much anything you want to make out of it with the proper energy source. We use it as a trade currency because of its usefulness, and it is rather abundant. Killing an enemy you run into or finding an old machine will usually lead to getting some Glimmer. An engram is a unit of Glimmer that was once a specific item but was converted into its current form, and can only be changed back into the item it once was," my Ghost finished. I walked up to the Dreg and rolled it to the side, causing the engram's glow to further illuminate the room. Crouching down, I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. It had several faces, all pentagonal, and could be held easily in two hands. My Ghost appeared above the engram and scanned it, the blue beam from his eye barely visible compared to the green glow. "I can convert this back," he said, "It's a rather simple one for me to handle, but most engrams are harder to decode than this one, which means you would have to see the Tower Cryptarch." In a flash the engram became a gun in my hands, the glow disappearing and the room becoming darker again. But I could still see the gun in the weak bulbs' light. It was a shotgun; a sturdy looking weapon with a long and wide barrel, its grip and handle simply made and not decorated, but I felt the cold metal in my hands was made for effectiveness rather than design and that it would serve its purpose. ___________________________________ Link to ToC:https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/212710816/0/0 Link to Chapter 6 Part 2: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/211674445/0/0 Link to Chapter 7 Part 2:https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/211904317/0/0