No Guardian, I

Part 8

Grass-covered hills stretched as far as the eye could see, the almost ruined highway marked only by a line of concrete pillars snaking amidst the gentle slopes. The wasteland proper was a hundred and twenty kilometers behind, its barren land slowly giving way to more fertile ground and rapidly growing spring vegetation. It was already mid-April, by the City-kept calendar.

Jas stopped for a moment on an elevation, both to stretch his legs and to munch on a handful of dried fruit. It was positively delicious.

The trade with the caravan was good, in his mind. He gave away four of his fully stocked medkits, receiving, in turn, a few weeks' worth of provisions and water. The desiccated fruits and nuts were particularly welcome, breaking the monotony of Jasker's meals. He also changed his gear, switching the softshell jacket for an all-weather synth-weave parka with removable armour-lining, and replacing the racing goggles with an old, but serviceable scout-pattern lightweight helmet with an integrated rebreather and nav-system.

Khasim, the leader and technician of the caravan, helped Jas hack his communicator and connect it to the helm. He now had a basic, but decent radio-scanning system and a helm-generated map of his surroundings displayed at all times. The nav-system lacked any geopositioning features, of course, but Jasker's app kept logging his movement and he had a rough idea of where he was based on that. Besides, he finally found the highway. At any moment, he should happen upon the first landmark of the Volgan Plains: the Ural river and - strewn along its banks - the Orenburg Ruins.

He had passed the shallow mountains that marked the border of the wasteland two days ago through a series of nearly decayed trails. The region did not seem to be inhabited at all. He could understand why - there was nothing here, not yet. The resource-rich regions were further north, if he had done his homework properly. The fabled Ural mining complexes, material research facilities and - to call things by their name - military factories were tightly clustered along the great mountain range that he could now, very faintly, see on the horizon.

That place was likely to be crawling with Fallen. Dralixis, the old Eliksni tinkerer traveling with the caravan, had told him that everything between the Cosmodrome's southern reaches and the Perm Ketch-yard has been claimed by the House of Devils. They were famous scavengers even amongst the other Fallen, utterly ruthless in their drive to pillage and hoard items of power.

And Jasker was headed into the heart of their not-so-small kingdom. Kell-dom?

He was ready to move on when the speakers in his helmet clicked to life and beeped urgently. An emergency signal, picked up by the helmet's ancient operating system, was broadcast nearby. He blinked a "Yes" into the prompt asking him, in an outdated Russian dialect, if he wanted to set a waypoint to the signal. A translucent white symbol popped up at the edge of his vision, marking a position a few kilometers to the north-east. Jasker jumped on his Sparrow and rode, placing the marker dead in front of him.

Three hundred meters away from the marker, hidden from the site by a range of hillocks, Jasker dismounted and tucked the Sparrow between the side of a hill and a large rock. Unpacking his rifle, he sneaked, keeping below the crest of the hills, the rest of the way.

The wreckage was ancient, rusted to the point of being almost unrecognizable. It looked like an aircraft of one sort or another, possibly a troop carrier, given its size. Its rear ramp was open. Jasker battled for a minute with his curiosity, and gave up. Rifle held at the ready, as he has seen Guardians do on stream, he edged towards the entrance. He peered quickly inside and retracted his head. His helmet has managed to get a capture of the interior and displayed a small picture of it, to be reviewed at leisure.

Which Jasker did. He had a lot of time to fiddle with the helmet on the road, and while some of its functions seemed gimmicky, he suddenly appreciated the functionality of the headpiece.

The interior was clearly picked clean by someone long ago - not even troop seats remained inside. The cabin, as displayed by the helm, was also stripped bare. It was also populated by a lithe shaven-headed woman in her mid-twenties, with a tattoo of a heraldic double-headed eagle on the right side of her neck, wearing some sort of ancient combat gear.

Jasker focused and enlarged the part of the picture showing the woman. Her gear lacked any insignia, and looked mint-new. Something was not right. No way this was natural. His own clothes were covered with dust, and he had a vehicle. She was here, in the middle of nowhere, with no transport in sight, in the wreckage of a long-lost warplane, in new, clean, tailored gear.

The voice of caution told him to get as far away as quickly as he could. He stepped forward. The rifle's sling snagged on a jutting piece of metal and yanked the weapon from his grip.

The whole hull resonated.

He fumbled, trying to pick up the weapon. He was better off running.

The woman came on him in a flurry of kicks and punches, fluid motions that left him reeling, then winded, then on the ground with his helm knocked off and his neck in a firm chokehold, kept just short of actually squeezing his blood vessels shut. He was sure he could not escape from that. He went completely still.

"Kto ty?" hissed the woman into his ear. "Otvechai."

She was speaking an archaic, now classical Russian resembling the language taught in schools as part of the City's multi-cultural heritage. Jas only knew the basics, being much more used to the amalgamation of languages that became the City's - and then humanity's - official speech over the centuries. She was asking... who is he?

"Ya... drewg? No, dammit... Droog. Ya droog," he croaked. Friend, he said. He hoped she'd believe him. He was so not ready to die.

She snorted.

"Uzhasnyi aktsent. Ty Imperets?"

Imperets? Imperiya? Empire? Was he from an empire? The only empire Jas could remember was the North-American Empire that predated the Collapse.

"No... Nyet. Nyet Imperiyi. Yest Gorod. Ya iz Gorod," he said.

"Tut kucha gorodov, droog. Ty ne iz nih. Kolis'. Pochemu ty zdes'?" You're not from any of the cities around here, the woman said. He wondered if the maps were wrong. They only showed ruins.

And then it dawned on him.

This was a Guardian. A fresh-born Guardian, picked up by a Ghost here, in the wreckage of an aircraft that was likely full of ancient warriors when it crashed. Holy Light. He suddenly wished he had a camera to capture this encounter. He did not care that his position was so undignified. This was a historical moment.

Then, a dull green Ghost flew out of the hull and hovered in front of Jasker, staring him in the eyes.

"Hello, Jasker," it said. "I'm glad you came."

***

++Dispetcher, eto sorok chetyre dvadtsat. Polet notmalniy.++

//Dispatch, this is 44-20. Flight at nominal.//

++Vas slyshu, sorok chetyre dvadtsat. Horoshego puti.++

//Roger that, 44-20. Godspeed.//

++Dispetcher, vy tozhe eto vidite? Yugo-vostok, pochti na chetvert' gorizonta. Vyglyadit kak... chernila v vode++

//Dispatch, do you see that too? South-east, almost a quarter of the horizon. Looks like... ink in the water.//

++Sorok chetyre-dvadtsat, vidim. Ono priblizhaetsya so skorost'yu 3000... Nyet, 9000... Sorok chetyre-dvadtsat, uhodite! Uhodite! Sorok chetyre?.. Nyet, nyet, nyeee++

//44-20, we see it. It approaches at a speed of 3000... no, 9000... 44-20, evade! Evade! 44-20?.. No, no, nooo//

++Transcript and translation of Collapse log 00-2000674++