"I dont know…" the artificial but far from monotone voice responded from the geometric frame. Floating aimlessly about but always within proximity of its guardian, the diminutive Shell meandered in its own orbital ring.
"You never really know much do you, Arch?" the Warlock sighed through his helm. The breathing apparatus inside created a robotic resonance; very ironically, it toned more artificial than his own inorganic companion. The settings could be adjusted for a more authentic tonal range, but he preferred it this way. ‘The enemy doesn’t need to know more about me than my weapons tell them’ he argued.
"I knew to find and tap into your guardianship… ungrateful excuse for a Voidwalker…" the ends of the Ghost’s Shell contracted and returned to form with each syllable, inching forward until they were face to frame before orbiting once more.
"Yet you can’t triangulate an energy signature you somehow managed to notice from off planet, while currently on it…" replied Aidren, shouldering his custom pulse rifle behind him. The view from his helmet was clear, but still it could not substitute for ‘true vision’ as he called it. Slowly he reached for the clasps behind his head, “safe, yeah?” he called without waiting.
"One day you’re going to do that and make the mistake of thinking you’re right…" muttered the machine, “but yes… carbon oxygen nitrogen hydrogen levels normal, sulfur content negligible.” responded Archie.
“…And when that day comes and I suffocate or my face explodes into the wind, it’ll be fortunate I have you reviving me.” Adrian finished. The smirk was nearly palpable through his voice as the olive green Aramkhara skull de-materialized, starting with its glowing purple eyes and ending with its ivory draconic jaw. Aidrens long jade curls gusted upwards during exposure. His snowy pale complexion betrayed the glowing runes across his cheek bones, the chill of the cold, the half-ice half-gaseous body they’d landed on blew hard. The world exuded a mild shiver in the warlock’s spine.
"Brisk?" inquired the Ghost.
"Winter worlds have that effect on the living… you know, homeothermia and the like…" Aidren jested with easy sarcasm.
"I DO have detailed files on anatomy, physiology and medicine…" the tiny voice echoed through its shell.
"You’re welcome…" Aidren finished. Never taking his eyes off the horizon, he knelt gently onto the frozen tundra as the ice soaked into the drab camo of his robes, designs growing darker from the moisture.
"You never did tell me why you consented to my free-roam access to ‘out of regulation’ databases…"
"Knowledge is power, little one. I’m not your master, you have the right to know what you want and seek as you will. Besides, it might serve our interests if you could walk me through stitching up people we encounter." Aidren mused, shifting his weight from his knees to his backside as he crossed his legs and sat upright.
"Don’t let anyone else hear you say that aloud, your reputation for apathy might be tarnished" poked the automaton, twirling the spires of its Shell in tight then loose circles.
"No one wastes their day discussing me but you, Tiny Tin…" the warlock waved his hand in his associate’s direction, as if to swat a fly moving in slow motion.
The Shell paused and used itself to bump into the shoulder of the Voidwalker. "I hate being called that! You know I do!"
"That’s why it’s humorous…" Aidren released a soft chuckle to himself as he broke his gaze to grin at the Ghost. "I wonder if a female-voiced Ghost would be less annoying…"
"You wouldn’t know what to do without me, we both know it." the automaton answered with calm certainty…
"I’d die. Again. For good most likely…”
“That doesn’t terrify you?”
“I’ve been there before.” the guardian began to kneel again.
“How glib.” Archie answered flatly. The guardian shrugged in silence. He continued to stare at the white-out as it flowed and howled in every direction.
"You’re sure at least? " Aidren stared one last time with his Awoken eyes into the expanse of clear blankness of the snow.
"Yes… I felt that signature was right in this area…" nodding, the Warlock stood from a kneeling position. He reached out into the nothingness of air and his dragon bone head armour appeared in his palm, fastening it as he slung his weapon back into his chest.
"But you’re not sure what it is…"
"Power signature. Short. Explosive. Then nothing. Dead world again…"
The ship hadn’t encountered any residual communication nor energy signatures from orbit; if there’s something here, it hasn’t left. And no one has come nearby since… The deeper he walked down the boreal path, the less he bothered looking behind him. He long since shifted his optical scanners from biometric mirroring to infrared, in hopes of determining anything in the seemingly continental blizzard.
"That way!" the Ghost shouted, augmenting it’s volume levels to be heard through the distorting winds.
Aidren motioned his firearm to his north west direction, his companion responded by expanding and contracting in a burst of green light.
In two hours time they traversed barely a kilometers distance, the unsure footing making an otherwise easy trek to a perilous ordeal.
"How… far…." Aidren gasped. The deeper the pair voyaged, the more cumbersome his otherwise light armour felt. His hard leather with reinforced titanium weave joints and hardened ceramic plates traded defense for mobility and yet he felt as over burdened as he would in a Titan battle suit.
"Close enough I think…" his guide was barely audible
"Think?!" the gusts barraged into the Voidwalker like physical shoves, and before long he felt himself pushing through nature itself with deliberate effort.
"Be-st gu-ss! that’s all th-" Archimedes was even harder to hear than before, regardless of the aural augmentation of his Helm.
One misstep and the guardian felt the gravity and safety of the ground give way with an unheard but somehow deafening CR-CRCH, tumbling into the abyss of a snow cavern buried deep within the ice.
The Guardian was not sure how much time passed before he regained consciousness. But it was the overly expressive tone of his Ghost running scans while trying to shake Aidren awake that finally knocked him back into reality. His eyes opened to nothing, he blinked and realized there was nothing to see. The vastness of the hole they’d mistakenly vaulted into was so abysmal, nothing could be seen using traditional optics.
"You ok? "
"I’ll live. Or you’ll bring me back." he retorted with a groan. Resurrection did nothing to curb the pain, though.
"Not down here I can’t… not much further than here at least…"
"That deep? " if the Ghost’s connection to the light was too brittle, it made revival impossible.
It chimed in agreement.
’Carefully then. ’ he thought to himself. That thought was quickly overshadowed by an eldritch, ominous rumble. It reverberated lightly, a subtle shake in the air that barely was heard and more felt than anything else.
"Organic?" the voidwalker inquired, lifting his pulse rifle in the direction of the disturbance.
"Unclear. It could’ve been the planet, or someone… or…"
’Or something… something worse.’ Aidren resigned to himself completing the unfinished phrase that hung in the air.
"We came this far…" the machine advised
The guardian nodded. In the direction of the voice, the dark but crystalline cavern that was barely illuminated by the glow and colors of the Shell and its Mechano-Torch function.
"Just what I was thinking. "
"Ok…" sighed the Ghost in defeated resignation as he followed the advancing Awoken. " eyes forward Guardian…."
