Eyes Up, Guardian

Chapter 6

      "Guardian."

For the next few weeks, Cayde, Ikora and I trained vigorously. It took some convincing for me, but eventually we actually started fighting, almost all day. Daily training started at seven in the morning and ended at four in the afternoon, then I'd shower and head into the city to meet up with my friends. I got Sunday off, the day on which I spent with my friends or working on the inside of my ship. When I wasn't training or with my friends I'd do odd tasks for people around the Tower to earn some money, as I wasn't really going on missions yet. With the money I was able to start saving for the bedroom I was making out of one of the storage rooms in my ship.

     Three weeks went by before Cayde took me on another mission to the Cosmodrome, but this time he was just there to watch, which was okay, as I was more prepared this time– and we didn't run into any dead Guardians. We patrolled all day and even headed back the next day until Cayde deemed that he didn't need to be there and that I could start doing missions on my own.

     I knew it was good news, but it also meant I had to be a bit more careful. That was okay, though. Echo and I were starting to function together, as Guardians and Ghosts should. It was a bit like he was studying me, but I didn't mind that, he was learning my favorite foods, my favorite spots in my little apartment, my favorite spots to sit in the dining hall, he even picked up on where I liked to walk in certain places, things I'd never even realized.

     It was a few days after Cayde had deemed me able to go on my missions by myself. Raf, Herc and Aria were all busy with school, so I was in my apartment, reading a book I'd snagged from one of the warlock libraries- it had taken forever to find the fiction section. Echo was perched on my shoulder, nestled against my neck reminding me a bit of a kitten and a baby bird at the same time as he read along. As I read, I wondered vaguely if I would ever come to miss these moments, the calmness of it. I hadn't felt true calm in years, it was a foreign feeling, but good. The only thing that could have made it better was if my friends were with us.

     "The Speaker is asking Guardians to look into something at the Cosmodrome, something about Hive threats. Guardians are already looking into it, but there are a lot of enemies on the list, so I think an extra pair of hands would be appreciated." Echo said after a while, "So what do you say? Do you want to look into it?"

     "Sure, but what are Hive threats doing at the Cosmodrome? And how could there be so many? Are the Fallen no longer a threat to them?" I worried, as Echo projected a long list of enemies onto my book. The list was covered in names and species, some with lines crossing them out. Defeated enemies, I assumed.

     "I'm not sure," he admitted, "They're being traced back to the moon. The Speaker wants these enemies defeated then he wants us to go to the moon to look into their progress and numbers." I grimaced, but he spoke up again, "We don't have to go to the moon unless your ready."

     "Let's just see how it goes. If we think we can do it after we face the Hive threats then we will." I said, glancing at Echo, who nodded in agreement.

                             ❂

     I rose early the next morning, dressing in my strongest armor and taking my best guns before heading to the hanger with Echo. It didn't take long to get the ship ready, and soon we were headed off, to the Cosmodrome. Even with the new warp drive, traveling there took a matter of hours, because we couldn't go at warp speed in risk of crashing into things, but soon we were hopping out of the ship, onto the hard dirt.

     I took a deep breath, listening to the filters in my helmet hiss as I scanned the surroundings. I watched as Echo loaded up the tracker and objective into the corners of the screen in my helmet. The helmet was another Guardian thing that awed me, in order to stop bullets and keep the Guardian air tight for life on other planets, the helmet encompassed the whole head and sealed around the neck, under the chest plate. It had a screen so that the Guardian could see. With the screen it was easy to forget the helmet was even there, because it looked like the Guardian was seeing through their own eyes. The only thing that wasn't right was the tracker in the top left corner of the screen and the objective just below. The helmet also had built in filters so that the Guardian didn't have to carry an oxygen tank around and could still breathe easy.