The ruins of the cosmodrome shimmered in the August heat. The grass quivered as a breeze swept through Skywatch, turning the land into an ocean of ruined automobiles and gleaming spinmetal bushes. The silence that adorned this place seemed reverent, and calm, in a time and place where it was hard to find anything slightly resembling calm and reverence. The whole clearing seemed to be stuck in a space and time separate from the present. Then, three figures broke the calm. Three guardians entered the clearing, riding sparrows whose monotonous him reverberated around them, replacing the silence with a dim noise. The three dismounted, causing their sparrow to disintegrate back into programmable matter. One of the guardians, a warlock whose talent and experience were almost as great as his age, stepped over to an object partially buried in the ground. His age was given away by a scraggly grey beard and purple eyes that had seen things that no man should have to see. He had been ordered by the Vanguard Ikora Rey to investigate a terminal located in Skywatch, a last mission before retirement. "Hey, old man!" Another guardian called from atop his sparrow. "Is this it? Or have your heavenly senses mistaken you?". The Warlock turned around. "My senses have not mistaken me, Dantth. This is the terminal we are here for." The Warlock sifted through a pouch on his hip. "And I have a name, too, you whelp. I'm Sanzar the Gleamed, and don't you forget it." "I know, Sanz." Dantth scoffed. He adjusted his heavy Titan armor, making sure his ammo pouch was full. "I just don't think that hunk of junk is what we were sent here for. You Awoken may have good intuition, but I have something you don't." "Hubris?" The third and final guardian asked. He stepped out from behind the pillar he was observing. "Or your overzealous Human emotions?" "Shut up, Ky." Dantth glared at the Hunter, his scar above his lip curling with his snarl. "You Exos aren't any better: you can't even truly feel emotions." A flash of light appeared over Ky's head, and a ghost winked into existence. "Actually, sir, this unit's name is Kyper-4786. And it has over 24,569 available emotions in its emotion simulator and a processor speed of 12,630 gigabytes per..." "Whoa, Spark, no need to interfere." Ky glanced at the ghost sheepishly. I was just having a bit of fun. There was no malcontent in Dantth's words." "All of you better be quiet and get a glimpse of this." Sanzar had pulled up a hologram with the help of his ghost. "We got the data we came for. And it isn't good." The two Guardians gathered next to Sanzar as the old man pulled up a line of text. "This terminal was a database on a fallen dropship shot down by an unknown force. The data on here says that the ship was carrying a very nasty cargo: a Gatelord that had been separated from the hive-mind most Vex connect to and its power source, which was also on the ship in a separate area. The ship was brought down two miles east of here on the Forgotten Shore, and that Gatelord is still there." Sanzar opened a map and pointed out the location. "But something is trying to reconnect the Gatelord's power source to its master. We need to destroy whatever is doing this, before a Vex invasion starts in the City's backyard." "Sounds easy enough." Ky said, checking his Scout Rifle's scope adjustments, "what do we need to worry about?" "Well," Sanzar said as a looming black shape began to take form above them, "a Fallen dropship has picked up our signal and is teleporting here right now." Thank you all for reading! Part 2 to come soon!