Peace disrupted

The next few weeks were uneventful. You spent your time doing simple jobs for the guardians who stumbled into your office, fixing or upgrading their weapons.

You wake up and find there is a sticky spot in your briefs. You sigh as you stand. It has been a while since you had been with a partner. Athena has been busy with the crucible, and you never quite found yourself horny enough to do anything with Failsafe. You change your clothes and enter Flora's quarters, feeling extra enticed this morning. You signal the servitor to stay quiet, though you weren't sure it would understand or listen, you did tell it to exclusively follow Flora. You walk to the bed of the sleeping Eliksni and remove the covers.

You find that Flora wears a single piece of loose fitting yellow garb and a matching yellow piece to act as a pair of panties, though they aren't quite undies. The piece covers her upper body and barely goes to her upper thighs.

You slowly rub your hand up the soft inner thigh the sleeping Eliksni. You use your other hand to hook her undergarments, but stop right before removing them. You think about how you didn't want to handle the innocent Eliksni. Not now, not like this. Despite your raging erection, you remove your hands and leave.

You enter the hangar and notice that Athena's ship is still there. You make your way to it and use the password she gave you to open the door.

You see Athena drop her helmet and turn around, startled. She puffs a sigh of relief. "Oh, it's just you." She brings a hand to her chest. "Scared the light out of me." She laughs and picks up her helmet before turning back to you. "So, what's up."

You and Athena talk for a while about how things have been going recently. You talk about the work you've been doing for guardians, and she talks about the crucible and how the vanguard has been been assigning her more missions to do.

Athena's ghost appears and interrupts the conversation. "Athena, Commander Zavala is requesting to see your fireteam. It's urgent."

You raise a hand as if to greet Athena's ghost.

The ghost doesn't respond to you and instead vanishes.

"Sorry, John." Athena puts her helmet on. "I'll tune into your feed when I get back." She jogs out of her ship and through the hangar.

You head to your office where you will wait and attempt to recover memories of your past, as you often did. You sometimes think about the possibility that you were brought back by a ghost who died before it could introduce itself to you. It was far fetched, but that idea of guardians not remembering their first life stuck with you, it made your theory more believable every time you gave it some thought.

You look out the window of your office and yawn. You observe the quiet courtyard as it empties. Gauging the time and lack of activity, you decide to return to your ship and sleep.

As you enter your quarters and prepare to sleep static fills your ear. You assume it is Athena, but the static doesn't fade. In fact, you couldn't even make out a voice.

You attempt to talk to the signal, perhaps someone tuned in and wasn't speaking. You never received an answer. You strain yourself to try to tune yourself to the signal. You knew it wouldn't work, but you wanted to know who was trying to talk to you. More so, you needed the static to stop, it felt like your brain itself was being attacked.

You roll out of your bed and fumble in physical pain as the static gets louder.

"John, are you unharmed?" You barely make out Failsafe's voice through the static.

You struggle to pull yourself to your feet, groaning as you use your workbench for support. You drag yourself, fumbling through your ship. You hoped that outside you could get an answer, or help... Mostly help.

Flora notices your struggles and does her best to help. Without asking questions, she lends you her shoulder to lean on. Assisting you through the ship.

She apologizes as you get close to the exit, she wasn't aloud in the tower.

As you stop relying on her shoulder and attempt to open the door, the static stops.

You gasp and lean on the wall. Rapidly recovering from what you assume was a mechanical failure in the communication device implanted in your ear.

You open the door and watch as the ramp descends. Still yearning to find the connected signal.

As you take a step onto the ramp you see Lilly, dragging herself onto the ramp. The visor on her mask is cracked, her cloak, in tatters.

You stumble to her side and lift her into a bridal carry.

Flora looks in shock as you, who were previously struggling to stand, now carries an injured guardian through your ship.

You take her into you quarters and lock the door.

You hush Failsafe, who has yet to even start speaking. You place Lilly on your bed and clear your workspace.

You place your hands on your desk and gasp in a panic, attempting to recover your composure. The situation with the static certainly didn't leave you with much composure left before this.

You turn and walk your way to the side of your bed. You lower yourself onto your knee. You wanted to ask what happened, but you didn't even know if she was responsive at this point, from the second you lifted her it seemed as though all of her functions stopped.

You carefully remove her helmet. Her bright glowing eyes flicker as they dart around the room before meeting yours. The light from the plating over her mouth also flickers.

The plating slides away, exposing her real mouth. Her lips part and close several times, each time a small sound escapes.

"What is it?" You ask as calmly as you can.

Her eyes drift down to her hand. It has been cradled close to her body this whole time.

You follow her gaze and grab her hand. You turn it over to find that in her hand was her ghost. It's lense was cracked, the light of its eye, flickering. It's platings were scorched.

"You're the smartest guy I know..." Her body spasms. Her head twitching a few extra times. Her voice is buzzing much more than usual, a crackling sound in also present. "If anyone can save her..." Her head twitches again, interrupting her. "It's you."

You frantically take her ghost from her hand and carefully place it on your workbench.

You return to her side. "Shouldn't I help you first?" You ask. "It doesn't look like you have a whole lot left in you."

"That's fine." Lilly cracks. "If I die-" Her body spasms. "My ghost can bring me back..."

You turn and then turn back. Lilly puts a twitchy finger in front of your lips.

"You'll fix her..." Her hand stiffens, then drops. "She has less left in her than me, and you said it yourself... I don't have much."

You drag your hands over your face in a fit of stress, attempting to calm yourself as you approach the table.

You inspect the shell of the ghost and fail to find a clear spot to open. Panicked, you use the same logic you did with the servitor. You pry the lense from the ghost and watch as the plating separates to expose the intricate interior of the ghost. You look for any damage to the interior aspects and can't find anything apart from a burned nerve processor. You didn't quite understand how this could affect the ghost this much. The machinery is fine, so why? Could it be that the damage to the shell is all it took?

It seems you still have much to learn about ghosts.

You do your best to repair the nerve processor, then mend the damages to the shell.

You carefully reattach the lense and watch the plating fold back into the regular shape of the shell.

You observe for a few seconds before almost dropping to your knees when nothing changes.

You frantically fall back to the side of your bed. "I couldn't do it." You gasp. "I'm going to try and help you."

You didn't even get to start when Lilly's body spasms and the light in her eyes turns off.

You drop onto your knees and bring your hands to your head. You almost couldn't comprehend what had just happened. You stand and look at Failsafe. Sensing that she was about to say something, you shush her again.