March 15th, 3040

Despite Murray's pessimism, the Oseram were skilled and quickly had a simple enough hitch of a pair of arms from the cart leading to a yoke that sat on the neck of the Striders. The rest of the day was spent something between a trot and a walk as the Striders pulled the cannon without complaint over the somewhat rough trail that Petra assured them was the fastest path to Meridian. While they'd made decent enough time, even under load, no one was surprised they didn't reach the city that afternoon.

Still, they'd camped in sight of the canyons and, after the supper was eaten and cleaned up from, there was a glow on the horizon to the south that had the Travis, Doc and Buck thinking of city glows from long ago. In the dark, the electric blue glow of machines could be picked out in the desert, but nothing came close to even make the grazing Striders whinny a challenge. The dangers, to Travis' thoughts were in the camp, but the Oseram had gone to sleep after dinner without any argument about who would watch.

The morning of the fifteenth dawned over cast as a front come down the Wasatch, bringing cooler temperatures and gray skies with it. Travis was a bit loath to leave the warmth of his bed roll and the lithe young Nora brave that was sharing it with him. Buck smiled knowingly at his boss and went back to building the fire a bit before he would turn in for a cat nap until breakfast. “Big day,” Nakoa managed around her yawn and stretch. “I have often wondered if Meridian lives up to the stories told of it.”

Travis helped her to her feet then set about rolling up the bedroll. “I used to think the same about Big Cities,” he told her as he worked. “I was country boy myself. Then I had a brief stint as a staff officer to a general with Force Command. He worked out of New York as it was easy to catch the train down to D.C.”

“D.C.?” she asked as she poured water into their canteen cups to start to heat by the fire.

“The District of Columbia,” he added. “It was the capital of the United States. Army Headquarters was there, among the rest of the administration of our nation.” He got the retention straps around the bedroll and buckled them. “It was actually a pretty small town compared to New York.”

“Where is this New York?”

Travis stood, the bedroll under one arm as he walked over to Black Jack to secure it to the Strider. “Far east of here,” he told her as he came back. He touched his Focus and flipped through the menus to get a map of the United States. “We're about here, and New York was here, at the mouth of the Hudson and East Rivers. Fifteen million people living on an island just thirteen miles long.”

She took the packet of coffee he gave her and judiciously added the powder to both canteen cups. “How could so many people live in so small a space?” she wanted to know. He grinned and flipped through the menus for a holographic picture of the city. “By the goddess,” she swore softly. “How tall are these towers?”

“Hundreds of feet,” he told her, making the picture a bit larger so the detail at their bases could be made out. “Those are people.”

The Brave looked for a long moment, then her face hardened. “I like this Ted Faro less and less,” she muttered darkly as she picked up both cups and offered him his.

“You're in good company there,” he assured her as he dismissed the image and took his first, welcome sip. “In my time, the news outlets took to calling the Swarm the 'Faro Plague', but nobody ever actually said why. I figured it was someone being clever with puns, not that the asshole was literally responsible for the end of the world.”

“Puns?” she asked him with a raised eyebrow. “What pun?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “That's not so easy to explain. Uh, the short version is that in the Bible, the uh, the documented history of my faith, there were a people called Egyptians, who lived thousands of miles from here, across the ocean.” He tapped at his Focus and called up a globe to point on the Nile river. “Here. Long ago, they were ruled by kings who called themselves Pharaohs. In my faith, Pharaoh held God's people hostage and as punishment, God sent plagues against Pharaoh and his people, until he relented and let God's People go.”

She took a sip of her coffee and nodded. “I see.”

He sighed and dismissed the globe from his Focus and let his gaze go up the Milky Way over head and the staggering field of diamonds in black velvet. “Still, there are upsides to the end of the world. This view, I swear, it won't ever get old.” His eyes dropped to hers and he winked at her. “The view down here on Earth is pretty nice, too.” She smiled at him and he couldn't tell if she was blushing or it was just the light from the coals of the fire that turned her face red.

She opened the food satchel and began to lay out the makings of breakfast. “I hope you are well rested and of good appetite,” she told him as she worked. “Tonight we sleep in Meridian and I will have what I've been denied these past days.”

“So determined!” he teased her. “In my day, most women would never be so direct...”

“Yes,” she mused as she dropped a piece of fat from the wild pig that was yesterday's lunch and rolled it about near the fire so it would grease the pan. “But we are not in your day,” she continued thoughtfully. “We are in my day. And I couldn't care less what other women do or say. I've walked the war path for three years. Now I have discovered the delight of womanhood and I mean to enjoy it. I have grieved and avenged my father, now it is time to make him a grandfather.”

She looked up again as she laid the bacon strips from the satchel into the pan and they began to hiss. “With your help, of course.”

Travis smirked and winked at her. “Madam, your obedient servant.”

Breakfast eaten, the Striders hitched to the wagons again, and the party was off, rumbling down the track. By mid-morning signs of human habitation began to appear. The dirt track under them became an actual road of brick pavers placed over a way widened, leveled and properly drained. The land greened considerably and wild sage grasses and cotton wood trees gave way actual crops, in tended rows with irrigation from the San Rafael river. Without cities diverting it, the river was considerably higher and stronger than anything the Ancients found familiar. In addition, there were patrols of armed men wearing the same uniform they had seen at Daytower and Lone Light.

Even so, everywhere they went, work stopped, patrols came to a halt and every human stared in disbelief as they rode by.

The road began to follow the river and, finally they came around a bend and Meridian came into sight. Now it was the Ancients turn to marvel at what their descendants had accomplished. The city was sprawled across the tops of three mesas, linked, not with rope bridges as the Amsci had expected, but stone arches that leapt from the high desert on one side with gate houses and fortifications to a city of towers and stone fortresses that were likely the envy of the current world.

On the third Mesa, somewhat separate from the other sat a palace in every sense of the word. Copper sheathing on it's roofs gleaming in the mid-morning sun. And below the heights, a second city as august and regal as the one above had been constructed around the foot of the mesas with grand villas and cool gardens sectioned off by stone walls and sturdy gates. Then from these more farm lands followed the foot of the mesa down to the San Rafael River.

There, beyond the other side of the river valley, on top of it's own mesa, a gleaming black tower rose from the desert. It's various panels in triangles as black as midnight totally at odds with the ruddy and gleaming city of the Carja. “Multi-band transmission tower,” Buck muttered as Travis shielded his eyes from the sun to gaze at it.

“Station Minerva, I presume,” he said softly.

“Look!” cried Doc, pointing at the bridges above them. Travis followed her finger to see sturdy wood and metal towers had been erected from this bottom floor up to the bridges and in side these towers, cars could be seen rising or lowering inside them. “Christ almighty, they're elevators!”

Petra's voice was smug in the silence. “The work of my hands,” she boasted. “Mine and my tribe. Nice to see these fuddle fingered Carja haven't gummed up the works.”

“You built those?” demanded Buck. The swarthy Oseram woman was coy.

“I was on the gang that built them,” she clarified. “Not the head engineer, but it was my tweaks to the counter weights that got the cars moving easy.”

Further conversation was impeded by the white glove of a Carja guardsman, with two dozen other soldiers at his back, blocking the road. His voice, a clear and unwavering tenor, rang out his command of, “Halt! State your business.”

Petra hopped off the gun carriage she'd been riding on and managed to cow a guard head and shoulders taller than she was. “Petra Forgewoman, Soldier boy! I'm here with the Sun King's guns so you better get whoever you need to down here with my shards!”

“Wait,” the guard commanded, then withdrew to converse with his cohort which had the effect of the youngest looking guard with the least braid on his uniform being sent off at the run.

“Some things never change,” chuckled Travis to himself. A half of an hour passed and the young guard returned with a tall, lean man whose clothing was immaculate and suggested someone close to, but not the King himself. He was a swarthy fellow with amber eyes that peered out of a clean shaven face. His dark hair was short and going gray at the temples, but the serious expression on his face gave little doubt he was a man of considerable influence. Like just about everyone the Ancients had met, he wore some machine parts as part of his clothing, though in his case it was limited to a white metal plate he wore on his forehead by string around his head like a metallic third eye. He was wearing a white linen shirt under a blue and gold silk bolero style jacket over billowed pants that matched the jacket. The dyes were dark, bold and uniform in color, unlike the Nora's clothing, and even better than those of the Oseram. His outfit was completed by comfortable looking shoes that were not in any way up to the task of protecting his feet anywhere beyond a city street. Or a palace floor.

“Thank you, Captain,” he greeted in a well modulated baritone, the amber eyes sweeping the group seeing much and missing nothing. A ready and practiced smile lightened his swarthy face as he took out a small purse from an inner pocket of the jacket and presented it to Petra. “Under budget and ahead of schedule, you out do your self, Honorable Forgewoman. His Radiance will be very pleased indeed.”

“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Marad,” Petra enthused, as she opened the pouch and began to count her shards; triangular pieces of metal that had something stamped or embossed on them.

Marad glided by her and came to an appraising stop in front of Travis. “My, what interesting company you keep of late, Honorable Forgewoman,” he declared with great weight as if looking to provoke a reaction. “A handful of Nora!” he purred. “We seem to be swimming with the fierce tribe of the east, how fortunate to have such worthy friends in our hour of need. But, you are not Nora, sir,” he said to Travis, raising his head as if the change in angle would give him insight. “Nor are you Oseram, and you ride machines like our deadly foe. I am Blameless Marad,” he said with a curt and practiced bow. “May I have the honor of your name, sir?”

Travis threw his leg over Black Jack and dismounted the Strider, to offer a hand to the new comer. “Travis Murray of the Amsci tribe,” Murray informed him. Marad took the hand and shook it slowly.

“I am not familiar with your tribe, Travis Murray. Where do you hail from?”

“Our people have settled between the Nora Sacred Lands and your outpost Day Tower,” the colonel replied. “We come from a land called Texas, but we were driven out by dangerous machines.”

The amber eyes narrowed slightly. “Yet you ride these? Interesting.”

“Not as interesting as having 'Blameless' as a title.” Marad's smile appeared again, a bit more sincere as he gestured broadly.

“Interesting? Perhaps, but in my line of work, it does come in handy.” He looked beyond Travis, making a point to bow from the neck to the females of the party. “For tonight, you are all to be guests of His Radiance. Your assistance in transport of the Kings cannon must be rewarded.”

“We wouldn't want to get anyone in trouble,” Travis countered, not sure if he wanted to be a guest of the King, either in his palace or his jail. “Or put out at short notice.”

“Not to worry,” Marad assured him. “I am Blameless, after all.” He turned back to address the soldiers. “Captain, have some of your men create a pen where Travis Murray's machines may be kept.” He turned back to ask, “Will they stay docile if ordered?”

Travis nodded. “Unless provoked, yes.”

“Excellent. See to my orders, Captain.” He paused and added, “Also, I want you to post a guard. No one is to go near the Striders. Except, of course, Travis Murray and his party.”

“At once, my lord.”

“And get these cannon secure in the armory.” He turned back to the party, all smiles again. “Right this way, if you please.” Travis shared a glance with his team and they all dismounted and began to strip the Striders of their saddlebags and gear. The Guard Captain led them to a large pen with a pasture that had held goats and pigs that were quickly moved to other quarters. The Striders ordered to remain within the pen and graze, they joined the Oseram at the base of one of the elevator shafts with Blameless Marad.

With a wary look, the Amsci boarded the elevator car and once the scissor gates of the car and shaft were closed, it began to groan it's way up the shaft. In spite of the Ancients apprehension, the car rose steadily to the gatehouse of the bridge and they were able to disembark without incident. From there, Marad led the group across the impressive stone arch bridge to the central Mesa into a red sandstone city that had Travis thinking of medieval Spanish fortifications on the Mediterranean.

There was true artistry to the construction of these buildings. Lines were straight and true, but simple exactness was not where the Carja had stopped. Everywhere there were decorative touches to the wood and stone, metal details and ornamentation that were made with a regularity that was as at odds with everything Travis had seen to this point. The streets themselves were full of carts and merchant stalls, hawking everything from fish to wine. The crowds quickly parted for the soldiers and the oddly named Blameless Marad, some with fearful looks at the man as he passed. In Travis's ear, Buck whispered, “What do you suppose his job is?”

Murray chuckled and looked up at his large friend. “Whatever the king needs, I imagine. Spymaster? Chief Torturer? He doesn't strike me as a soldier, but every one of the Kings' men defer to him.”

“Guess I should brush out my Sunday Manners then.”

Marad walked on, taking no notice of the hushed tones if he did over hear them, leading the troupe across the city to the bridge to the third Mesa. This bridge had a gate house to defend from those on the city side of it and a large compliment of soldiers to defend it. Then, beyond, what could only be the Palace of the Sun King awaited. If the city behind them had been opulent, then the palace they were led to was the crowned jewel of the Sundom.

Past the fortifications of the bridge, they were led though a shaded, sweet smelling garden of fruiting trees and vines whose focus was a gurgling fountain of pure looking water. Then up a flight of wide, broad stairs where a line actually was formed, filled with great and small alike based on their clothing. Guards were here to keep the integrity of the waiting que while the Carja waited their turn to seek audience with their Sun King and there was rumbling from those of nicer clothing that Travis and his party were being allowed to cut in line. The rumbling stopped at single glance from Blameless Marad.

Then, at the top tier of the steps, beyond the gardens was a little balcony of perhaps twenty square feet that overlooked the transmission tower upon which stood a metal gazebo of silver and gold. In the shade of the gazebo was an elaborate, red velvet throne, and seated on it was the Sun King himself.

He was cooled by two young, scantily clad women with intricately made fans of metal feathers that looked like they had come from a Storm Bird. As a man, Avad looked to be in his middle twenties, with a scant mustache and van dyke beard on his chin. He was as tanned as Marad was, with black hair and brown eyes around which, a geometric design had been drawn on his face that wasn't clear if it was some kind of cosmetic or facial tattoos.

He was shirtless, but wearing a stiff, sleeveless silk scarf or robe over his shoulders that fell to his knees. It was embroidered with gold thread in geometric designs. Under the odd robe that left his chest and stomach bare, he wore a scarlet silk cummerbund over golden metallized silk pants that Travis would have sworn to be beyond the capabilities of these people. On his head was a metal headpiece of a pair of squares, offset from each other by forty five degrees, making for a halo like effect, that covered his entire head save for his face, that was intricately made from bits of machines all in white and red and accented with gold.

He was just in the process of listening to a complaint from an older man, who was obviously wearing the best clothing he owned, but was a working man of humble means. The King's eyes came over to glance at his minister and widened slightly at the group with him. A hand casually rose and the workman stopped, mid-sentence. “Your petition is granted,” he declared without taking his eyes from Marad. The hand waved dismissal and the man stammered his gratitude as a functionary guided him away from the King.

Marad bowed deeply from the waist. “Your Radiance, I present Petra Forgewoman who has proven herself better than her word and delivered your cannon ahead of schedule.”

The king dipped his head as the Oseram engineer bowed without half of the grace of Blameless Marad. “We are indebted to your skill yet again, Forgewoman,” Avad declared in a pleasant baritone with a surprisingly casual inflection. “We fear they shall be put to work very soon if the news that has reached our ears proves truthful.”

“Always a pleasure, Your Radiance,” Petra assured him.

Marad gestured to Travis and his group. “This speed was aided by these brave Nora, Your Radiance, and members of a new tribe that has yet to reach our awareness. I present Travis Murray of the Amsci. Who have also tamed the machines and harnessed them to bring your cannon with such speed.”

The brown eyes locked with Travis as he was just a moment slow to bow and he saw real cunning in them as he completed his genuflect. “We're deeply honored, Your Radiance.” Travis assured the younger man.

As he stood up, the King's eyes were still on him, appraising very carefully. “You wear Focuses?” he asked softly. “Do you also travel with the Seeker Aloy?”

“We have been trying to catch up with her for some time,” Travis allowed. “Is Aloy here? Is Your Radiance is familiar with the Focus?”

“We have seen the Seeker use hers, and it fascinates us,” the King replied, choosing to ignore the former of his questions. “Tell me, Travis Murray,” he went on, dropping the third person, “is it the Focus that allows you to tame Machines?”

“No, Your Radiance,” Travis was quick to correct him. “It allows communication with a machine already tamed, but it is not the method, to my understanding. How exactly, I have no knowledge of myself. My...chief...has men of learning who tame the machines. These were given to us to accomplish our mission.”

The crown lifted a bit as Avad looked down his nose at Travis as if weighing the truth of the statement. “And what is your mission, Travis Murray?”

“Sir, my mission is to assist both your people and the Seeker Aloy in the defense of this city and the destruction of the Metal Devil she warned us of.”

The King stood from his throne and walked out from the gazebo, offering his hand that Travis carefully took. “Then you are most welcome, Travis Murray,” Avad assured him and behind Travis he heard muted astonishment from those in line at the King's action. “You and your party shall be my guests here in the palace. Marad?”

“It will be seen to, Your Radiance.”

“You must be tired,” Avad declared, turning back to Travis who wasn't sure if he should be worried he and the King were the same height. “Marad will see you to your rooms to refresh yourselves. Tonight, we will speak more.”

Travis bowed again. “We're deeply honored, Your Radiance.”

From the presence of the 14th Sun King, Travis and his group were led away, deeper into the palace which was remarkably cool and eased by a gentle breeze that seemed to be in constant motion through the corridors. They were hardly introduced to an opulent set of rooms before incongruously scantily clad women in harem pants and silk tube tops and veiled heads and faces collected the women of the party and led them away while young men in vests and breeches took the men to a bath complex that would have a Roman smiling.

The room was cloaked in a haze of steam that drifted up from a circular pool twenty feet in diameter. While a complete bathing service, like something out of a Turkish bath was offered, Travis declined, choosing to sit on a little wooden stool near a waterfall that flowed down into the pool with a bucket of the hot water from it so his gray water wouldn't pollute the pool. He scrubbed himself clean, finally rid of days of road dust and sweat, then carefully shaved his face with a straight razor he'd bought and taught himself to use in preparation of the coming Doomsday he'd survived.

The Carja themselves either had some genetic abnormality that made beards rare, or shaving was a cultural norm among them. Either way, half a week of stubble was removed and he was cleaner and lighter for it.

Clean in body and shaven face, he eased into the pool with a sigh of relief of relaxing muscles as the other men joined him in the pool. “It's good to be the king,” chuckled Buck as he took the goblet of wine a young man had given him and held it up in toast to Travis. Yan took a chalice himself and sniffed at the wine before tasting it.

“If there is any tribe more in tune with pleasures of the body than the Carja, I don't know of them,” he said, but the expression on his face gave away his liking of the wine.

“Nothing wrong with enjoying yourself after a hard day,” Buck responded.

Travis waited until the attendants were out of earshot before he softly commented, “I'm not happy the girls are off somewhere by themselves. Especially not after what Nakoa said about these people.”

Yan snorted around his savoring of the wine. “You need have no fear there,” he boasted. “It would take more than Carja slave girls to give Nakoa trouble.”

“We don't know slave girls are all they're with,” Buck noted, his distaste at the word written on his face.

“Didn't Nakoa say Avad had outlawed Slavery?” Travis asked out loud.

Buck snorted and took another sip of his wine. “She also said there was a wide gulf between outlawing something and having that law obeyed.” Yan finished his cup and held it aloft to be refilled.

“Aloy started her journey after The Proving,” he declared as he waited for the attendant to pour the wine. “The Sun King sent envoys to our village, at the celebration, specifically to offer an apology for the Red Raids. That's not the kind of man who would allow traitors close to him.”

“You make a good point,” Travis allowed. “But then, being in disguise is a life preserving skill to a traitor.”

For a long period, the men sat in silence, lost in their own thoughts, to enjoy the wine and the hot water they soaked in. Finally, Travis had enough of the bath, and once he was dry, found a set of Carja silks awaiting him to change into. The pantaloons came down to his knees and buttoned onto the knee socks by a cleaver arrangement. With this was a red vest that matched the shade of the pants and a shirt he decided to forgo due to the heat. His boots clashed somewhat with the finery, but the slippers with the pants were a no go from the start as far as he was concerned.

His LBE with it's pistol went over the silks regardless.

Still, the 'suit' if the word could be applied, was surprisingly comfortable as he walked back to the rooms they had been presented with. There, he was relieved to find the gear exactly as he had mentally marked them when they'd left. Either they hadn't been searched, or the searcher was a master of his craft. Not that it mattered, neither of Travis' firearms had left arms reach, let alone his sight during his time at the bath.

“Travis?” He turned at the sound of Nakoa's voice, but the greeting died in his throat at the sight of her. She was wearing a finely woven top of silk that had been died the color of a cloudless sky at noon that wrapped around and supported her breasts, but had a plunging neckline to draw the eye and left her flat, taunt stomach bare. Over this was a leather Bolero style jacket that had been stiffened with expertly fashioned metal plates from a machine. It was dyed in red with a bold, lemon yellow accents around the edges and while the sleeves stopped at her elbows, a matching set of bracers completed the journey from elbow to wrist.

A matching set of leather pants rode low on her hips to accentuate them, with a red sash to cushion the belt of pouches and her quiver she wore over it at her right hip. From the sash, layered rigid plates of leather wrapped metal hung, front and back to each leg and finally her feet were wrapped in Tabi styled boots that had metal shin guards in them that made the ensemble armor as well as art.

Her hair had been loosed from it's braids, washed and hung about her head to her shoulders and the sun behind her made her beauty practically glow. She took a hesitant step forward, reaching out to touch his arm. “Are you alright?”

The movement finally pierced his awe and he managed a smile. “I have never been struck dumb by beauty before,” he told her as he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You are an absolute vision.” She stood up on her tip toes to reach his face and drew him into a real kiss as a reward for his compliment.

“You are a shameless flatterer,” she purred as she drew back from the kiss, grinning at him. “And I am completely here for it.”

He chuckled and gently stroked her cheek with a finger tip. “I never thought I'd say this, but the last thousand years have been the best week of my life.”

She reached her hands up and pressed against his chest to shove him backwards. His knees found the edge of the bed he'd been standing beside and tumbled backwards onto it. She grinned down at him for a moment as she reached up and pulled off the jacket before crawling up onto the bed over him. “It gets better,” she promised him.

It did, in fact get better. Much, much, better.

From some of the best sleep Travis had known recently, he was rudely awakened by a massive explosion. The shock wave blew the insect screens from the window and the light sheet from him and Nakoa even as their brains rapidly began to realize the danger they were in. Each snatched up discarded clothing and dressed in a rush. By the time he'd gotten pants and boots and his web gear on, Buck was already at his door, Olara with him and both were dressed for battle.

“There's been a massive explosion on the west side of the city,” he declared tersely as Travis charged his rifle and the foursome set off at a run. “There are overridden terraforming machines being led by a dozen Khopesh and Scarab Chariot-Class FAS Battle Drones.”

“I guess it was too much to hope that Gaia's machines would be immune to Faro's hacking droids,” Travis groused on the run. Suddenly, over the chaotic screams of terrified civilians, the distinctive roar of twenty millimeter cannon fire was heard.

“Petra's guns!” Nakoa shouted as the group wheeled and bolted down the corridors of the palace towards the sounds of the battle. They found the zaftig smith on the bridge between the palace and the city proper, bending the cannon over the guard rail of the bridge and firing down into the valley below. Right as the quartet reached her, the guards at the gate were overwhelmed and rushed by a group of twenty to thirty men, all in black with wooden masks over their faces that, incongruously were painted with the international power on/off symbol.

Travis had only a moment to analyze the situation and boiled it down to it's simplest; armed, masked men had just overcome the Sun Kings' guards and were storming the palace. His choice became clear as he focused his mind to commit violence.

“Contact left!” Travis shouted as he and Buck dropped to one knee and brought the AR-15s up. The two soldiers fired quickly, raking their rounds across the group. The most eager in the charge died quickly, clutching their torsos and blood spattering behind the masks as their momentum pitched them forward.

Behind them, the others sought cover in the abutments of the bridge and began to shoot back with bows and arrows. There was no faulting the courage of the Shadow Carja that stood their ground against semi-automatic rifles with only bows, but their courage didn't avail them long. The bridge was at the edge of the range of their small bows, but still very much short range for the AR15. Buck and Travis were both combat veterans and they knew their craft well. Each was down a magazine, but the Carja were down for good.

Travis turned, seeing the King's guard behind them, fearfully eyeing the carnage the two had wrought. He pulled the empty magazine from the rifle and replaced it before pointing towards the gate. “Get that gate secure!” he shouted. The Lieutenant of the guard actually saluted before he led the dash across the bridge to re-secure the gate to the palace. Murray let the rifle fall on it's sling around his shoulders as his hand went to the pouch of reserve ammunition on stripper clips that he used to quickly refill the empty magazine.

“Water!” Petra's strident voice shouted. “Someone for the love of the forge bring me water!”

Travis turned to see the cannon she was standing at, it's barrel glowing softly a dull red. Travis dropped the magazine and half loaded stripper clip into the dump pouch he kept on his belt for just such a reason to retain what he had to clear from his hands quickly. He ran over, pulling his canteen out as he came. “I warned you it would over heat,” he teased her as he up ended the canteen over the barrel where the water from it promptly hissed and flashed to steam. “That's why it was a rotary system.”

“Every prototype has quirks,” she shot back. “Get that Deathbringer! Below us!”

Travis risked a quick peek over rail and beheld a tank-like Khopesh, stomping along on it's four squat, stubby legs. Trailing behind it was a massive processing orb, tied to it by stout looking ropes that it was pulling. It paused for a moment as it's turret turned to machine gun down a group of the King's Guard that was charging it. Then, in a ghastly display of technology, a black cloud of nanites gushed from the upper vent and flew over to the guards. From their screams, not all of them were dead before the miniature robots stripped them to their bones and returned to the robotic killing machine to turn it's former adversaries into fuel. “An AR isn't going to slow that down,” he muttered, then couldn't help pausing as it started up again and began to trudge, not towards the city, or the palace, but away from it, towards the black spire of Station Minerva. “What the...?” he asked himself.

Before he could process that, movement drew his eye as he saw a young woman dressed in Nora leathers with a mane of wild red hair charging after the Khopesh. “Aloy!” Nakoa shouted and the red head stopped and looked up. “We're coming!”

“No!” the red head shouted. “It's HADES! I have to stop it! Protect the Sun King!”

“But...!”

“Protect Avad!” she shouted again and took off running after the machine.

“HADES was the Deathbringer?” Nakoa asked, turning to Travis. “I thought, a Metal Devil...?”

“That processing orb it was towing,” Buck told her. “It's off a Horus, what you call a Metal Devil. HADES is in it.”

Suddenly, with the clarity of thought that only comes on a battlefield, Travis understood. “It was HADES who took control of the old Faro robots,” he declared with a sudden chill down his spine. “With that transmitter he could broadcast a wake up call that would be heard for miles!”

“We must have passed thousands of Chariot-Class battle bots on the way here,” Buck added, going pale. “It's going to restart the Faro Plague!”

“We have to...” Travis started, and was cut off by a massive explosion at the gate. His eyes whirled back to it, find the guards being cut down but a much larger mob of black clad Shadow Carja. He didn't think, he acted, grabbing a hold of Petra and shoving her towards the inner gate on their side of the bridge.

“The Cannon!” she shouted, but wasn't strong enough to resist his adrenaline fueled shove.

“Nakoa!” he shouted. “Grenade!”

The Nora brave understood him instantly, snatching a blaze bomb from her harness and loading it into the slingshot 'Blast Sling' she had been gifted by Petra. One of the smiths inventions destroyed the other as the bomb struck the cannon where it exploded with remarkable effect, blowing the device off it's pintle and enough into the air that it cleared the rail of the bridge and tumbled down the heights below. “Close the gate!” Travis commanded, despite standing in the way until Buck, Olara and Nakoa had gotten through. He gave a glance to see if the Lieutenant or any of his men where trying to withdraw, but they were all already done for. He stepped inside and the heavy iron clad doors where thrown shut and barred just as the Shadow Carja reached them.

“Hold the line here!” he commanded, drawing Carja soldiers back from the gate house that their enemy was already trying to bash open. “Everything you've got! No farther!” He dug the magazine and stripper clip out of his dump pouch and finished loading it before grimly taking up the rifle for the coming work.

It took the Shadow Carja thirty minutes to hack and blast their way through the gates, thirty minutes Travis and Buck used to insert ear plugs into their ears to save what was left of their hearing and to stand apart from and in front of the line they'd formed to protect their allies. Thirty minutes of work, only for the Shadow Carja to be met with a hail of arrows and M855 green tip improved penetration rounds from Travis and Buck. In the death funnel of the ruined gate, the rounds sometimes killed two or three as they tried to force their way through the breach. After what seemed like hours, Travis loaded his last magazine into the rifle and brought it back up to his shoulder. He worked his jaw to get his ears to pop which took a little bit of the ringing in them away.

“Last mag!” he warned Buck, who grunted he had heard and dropped his rifle on it's sling to draw his pistol.

“I'm out,” he called back, but for once, the rush seemed to have stopped. There were no more fanatics clawing their way over the pile of bodies to get at them. As it drug out, he quickly holstered the pistol and grabbed for a magazine for the rifle from the pile at his feet. “Cover me while I reload!”

“Covered,” he assured his second in command, then waited a tense few minutes until he had four magazines reloaded. “Moving up,” he whispered, tucking the two magazines Buck handed him into his carrier and the pair cautiously approached the gate. The dying were moaning in agony, some begging for mercy; though one proved he wasn't out of the fight and swung his sword weakly at Buck. Travis' rifle barked, causing the wounded Carja to cry out in pain while clutching their ears, but no one else proved to want to keep fighting. He looked cautiously through the blasted gate to find another pile of bodies beyond it, but no one up to charge once more unto the breech. One of the Carja was desperately attempting to make his shoulder stop bleeding and looked up, tears streaming down his face. He raised a bloody hand in surrender and went back to trying to staunch his wound to keep it from killing him. The wall had been closed up with the dead and dying.

Travis took an Israeli Bandage from his belt and tossed it to the boy, who, seeing what it was, immediately put it to work, pressing it into his wound. “Gatekeeper?” Travis called, and one of the guards, obviously exhausted made his way over. “Take the survivors prisoner and get some medics here. And shore up this breech in case they aren't finished.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard replied, gesturing at his men.

Then, a brilliant flash came from the direction of the tower, drawing all eyes fearfully to it. “Oh, God,” Doc whispered, having rushed up with the other medical personnel. “Is it...? Has it...?”

“Look!” someone shouted. The warriors looked down, to see the last of the moving Faro battle bots come to a sudden stop, shutter its weapons and hunch down in it's stand by posture. Travis got his binoculars from their keeper and focused them on the far ridge where he could now see, at the base of the transmitter tower, the red headed Nora warrior maiden and several others around her, holding up their weapons in triumph. They were a rag tag group, all obviously wounded, to include to his surprise the Nora War Chief Sona and her son, Varl. Despite their wounds, all the machines around them were destroyed and the processing orb was smoking.

A ragged cheer raised from one end of the canyon to the other as the Carja understood the Battle of the Alight had been won.

Meridian was saved.

March 16th, 3040

Avad was generous in his victory. While the leadership of the Shadow Carja had all been slain, an amnesty was offered for the foot soldiers and the peasants they had press ganged into their counter rebellion. Many took the amnesty, but some refused and were hauled off in irons to be dealt with later. On remarkably short notice, a magnificent celebration was put forward as wine and food flowed freely in the battle scarred city and palace. There would be much rebuilding to do, but the fires were out, and being alive was worth celebrating.

Travis made his way through the ecstatic Carja and the obviously uncomfortable Nora, to find the red head he had been chasing for a week in a corner, avoiding everyone's gaze, staring up at a map of the region that had been painted on the wall of the palace. He scooped up a glass of cider and cautiously presented it. “Is it Aloy, or would you prefer Doctor Sobeck?” he greeted. She spun in surprise and the resemblance was remarkable, though the young woman before him was easily twenty years junior to the scientist from Travis' era and the way her eyes widened it was clear it wasn't the first time she'd heard the name.

“You know who I am?” she asked, taking the cider after a moment of reflection.

“I do,” he assured her, then sketched a perfunctory bow. “Colonel Travis Murray, Inactive Ready Reserve, United States Army, at your service.”

“You fought in Operation Enduring Victory,” she whispered. “I...I didn't believe it, but you are an Old One, like Nakoa said. That you've been asleep, in a mountain for a thousand years.”

“No, and yes,” he corrected her. “I didn't see combat in Operation Enduring Victory. I was protecting the employees of American Scientific from the Faro Plague. But, yes, I was born over a thousand years ago, not terribly far from here, as luck would have it.” He paused and gave her a significant glance. “And you are a clone of Dr Elisabet Sobeck, created by her creation, the AI GAIA.”

She squared her shoulders and looked up at him, her gaze steely. “Yes, so I could rebuild the terraforming system. And it's just Aloy.”

“Then you have your work cut out for you,” he told her sadly. “I've been to King's Peak and there isn't much left.”

She shook her head. “It doesn't matter how hard it is,” she swore. “I have to. I'm the only one who can.”

Travis smiled at the grit he was coming to associate with the Nora. “Then we will help you,” he declared firmly. “I may not have approved, at the time, of Zero Dawn, but I can't argue with results. What's done is done, all that's left is picking up the pieces.”

“How can you not approve?” she demanded with an edge in her voice. “Elisabet Sobeck sacrificed everything to ensure this planet had a future.”

“Yes, she did,” he replied stiffly in outrage. “Sacrificed everything, and everyone. Everyone,” he stressed. “Every man, woman and child, only we didn't get a choice. We didn't get to know that we were all meant to be pawns, sacrificed to buy her time for...” He gestured again. “This.” Her eyes went hard and Travis realized he was judging the girl for the sins of another woman, more than a millennia dead. A woman, it was clear, was a heroine to this Nora girl in a way she was having difficulty understanding. Recalling Nakoa commenting on how much the Nora prized motherhood and the odd phrase of Aloy being 'motherless' he began to understand how the girl was processing her purpose and place in the world.

A place that was likely beyond her comprehension.

He sighed and mastered his outrage at a wound that, for him, was only a week old. He let the anger pass and set his face into a softer expression and tried to reconcile. “I met your...'mother'... once,” he told her softly, and the iron left her stance and she was a young woman again, shouldering an almost insurmountable burden. “At a robotics conference in Salt Lake City. You remind me of her in all the best ways.”

“You met Elisabet Sobeck?” she whispered, as if he had claimed to have met God.

“American Scientific is predominately an Aerospace Firm,” he told her. “Miriam Technologies, her company, partnered with us on a some Near Earth Object asteroid mining ventures. Even our corporate AI, ENID, is a core technology she helped invent. I suppose, in a way, you could say ENID is your 'aunt'.”

“I...” she paused and took a moment to process all she had heard. “Can this...ENID...help me reboot GAIA?”

Travis set the cider cup down and gestured at the map on the wall she'd been studying. “You'll need a back up copy of GAIA for that. My people can help you set up the hardware, but the software will need to be found.” He touched his focus and caused several spots on the map to light up. “Assuming one still exists. These are all of the Zero Dawn or related facilities I know of. We might be able to find a back up there.”

“Not 'we',” she corrected him, softly. “Me. This is my burden. I can't ask anyone else.”

“You didn't ask,” Travis told her. “I volunteered.”

Her eyes darted away and she shrugged. “We, we can talk about it in the morning before we leave. Where should we start?”

He pointed on the map. “Miriam Technologies had a major research and development facility in Salt Lake City. We should probably start there.” He shook his head and gestured at the map. “Though, if all else fails, we can try here.”

“What's there?” Aloy asked.

“Elisabet's ranch. She grew up there, just outside of Carson City, Nevada,” he replied. “They way she went on about you'd think it was Heaven on Earth.”

Aloy looked down and softly to herself, she whispered, “She said she wanted to go home.”

“Sorry?”

The green eyes shot back up and were cagey. “Nothing. Talking to myself. It's an old habit.”

With a gesture, Travis dismissed the overlay he'd put on the painted map and downloaded the holographic one to Aloy's focus. “I want to thank you for saving Nakoa,” he told her earnestly. “I understand you saved her from some hold out Carja slavers. I'm in your debt.”

“It was the right thing to do,” Aloy assured him. “And it was my pleasure. She seems very taken with you. I hope you're both very happy together.”

He smiled as he took up his cup again and raised it in toast. “Well, I'm sure we will be,” he remarked philosophically. “Once we finish helping you get GAIA up and running again. Of course there's the normal problems of getting crops in, having enough food to survive the winter and, of course, we'll have to set up some kind of university. With Ted Faro's purge of the APOLLO database, the amount of lost knowledge is staggering. That you've managed to rebuild this much, this quickly...” He trailed off with a vague gesture at the palace they stood in. “It is a testament to what all you and the other tribes have accomplished.”

“Barbarity?” she answered bitterly. “The Red Raids? Human sacrifice?”

“Man was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,” he quoted softly.

She frowned at him. “Is that an Oseram saying?” He shook his head with a smile.

“No, it's much older than that, but it's still true. Some men are little better than animals, but for all of that, there are many that aspire to higher callings. There is as much room for lenity in the human heart as there is for cruelty. Which we fill it with is a choice everyone must make.” She drained her own cup and returned it to the table, a thoughtful expression on her face.

“That's a very nice thought.”

He picked up her cup and favored her with a smile. “Old soldiers have many empty hours to fill with thoughts. I try to fill mine with nice ones. Speaking of filling, I'll get you a refill.” She nodded and turned back to the map as he began to make his way across the party to the kegs that lined the other side of the room. As he did, his focus chimed softly and ENID's voice whispered in his ear.

“Excuse me, Colonel, do you have a moment?”

“Always for you, ENID,” he told the program. “What can I do for you?”

“I have been going over the data you downloaded from the GAIA Prime facility in King's Peak and I came across a recording that may interest you. Are you somewhere you can view it? Discreetly?”

Travis immediately altered his course out onto one of the balconies, but the desert chill had already begun to set in and he found it deserted. Fortunately he'd traded the Carja silk suit for his now cleaned uniform and it's smart fabric that knew when to breathe and when to insulate so the chill in the air didn't bother him. “I am now, ENID. You can proceed.” Before him, a hologram appeared in miniature of a meeting table. Around it were five figures, frozen in a pause of the recording. Suddenly, below each, a name appeared along with a biography down one side of the interface as the AI summarized the information.

“This is a recording that took place on January 3rd, 2066. Present are Charles Ronson, the Alpha of the GAIA sub-routine ARETMIS...”

“Sub-routine?” he asked. “Alpha?”

The AI's voice gave no indication she might be annoyed by the interruption. “Major tasks of the AI GAIA were distributed in blocks of named Sub-Routines and given specific tasks. In keeping with the ancient Greek Pantheon Theme, Dr Ronson was the Alpha, or director, of ARTEMIS, which was responsible for the stored embryos of animal life and their method of artificial gestation to be re-introduced to the biosphere once stable. With him were Travis Tate, the Alpha of the HADES sub-routine which was meant as a check on GAIA to judge the efforts of the AI and reset the biosphere to initial state if the terraforming project was failing.”

“Hence why it tried to destroy the biosphere when awakened, leading to GAIA's suicide.”

“Exactly so,” ENID agreed. “Also present at the meeting were Patrick Brochard-Klein, the Alpha of the ELEUTHIA sub-routine which was similar to ARTEMIS, but specifically reserved for Homo-Sapiens. The two females are Samina Ebadgji the Alpha of the APOLLO Database and Margo Shĕn, the Alpha of HEPHAESTUS, which, based on the name and Dr Shĕn's expertise in robotics, I surmise governed GAIA's manufacturing and production tasks. There is a brief narration of this recording by Dr Ronson. I should warn you, the information contained in this recording can be upsetting to some humans. Shall I begin play back?”

“Go ahead, ENID.”

A male voice with a crisp, Received Pronunciation accent filled his ear, that he recognized as the man who had so annoyed Ted Faro in the recording of his murdering the Alphas of Project Zero Dawn. “This is Charles Ronson. I'm logging this six hours after final deployment of GAIA Prime. This morning... an access port seal malfunctioned. GAIA Prime's port seals were designed to close with a seam of less than 2 millimeters. But this one closed with a 10 millimeter gap. Enough for an energy signature to bleed through. Enough for the swarm to detect this facility. Enough for GAIA to be discovered and destroyed. Enough to end the future we worked so hard to make possible. Unless the hatch servos were manually re-engaged... from the outside. I'm now switching to a recording of the event.”

The hologram began to move, with the figure identified as Travis Tate raising his hands and declaring in a thick, Texas drawl, “Well I'm not going out there! Not what I signed up for!” Next to him, an older man, Brochard-Klein as he'd been labeled, gestured in obvious long annoyance of Tate.

“Either we send someone out there, or all of this was for nothing,” he snapped with a thick French accent.

Ronson separated the two men, evidently used to playing the peace maker between them. “It should be Lis's decision.”

“So when's she going to get here?” Brochard-Klein demanded angrily.

Samina looked around the room, confusion on her face. “She said five minutes. You don't think...?” Suddenly a new figure appeared, obviously holographically near the table. From the way the figure stood, even in the environmental suit she was wearing, everyone knew the person in it was a woman. Worse, they knew who the woman was.

“Oh, no...” Margo whispered.

The environmental suited figure spoke in the exact same voice Murray had just heard from Aloy. “Okay, everyone. I've repaired the seal. GAIA?”

“Seal closure at 1.4 millimeters, confirmed.” the voice of the AI declared. Ronson was beside himself, walking over to the hologram and actually trying to touch it.

“Elisabet, no. We'll find a way to bring you back in...” Sobeck turned to face him and held up a hand in consolation.

“Not going to happen. The swarm's too close. Really, it's all right. GAIA's complete. She'll take care of things from here on out. That's what she does.”

Charles shook his head, unbelieving what he was hearing and refusing to accept it. “Not like this! There's so much we...” Dr Sobeck took a step back, as if unsure of how to deal with her co-workers grief and emotion.

She tried to make her voice up beat, but it broke and fooled no one. “Guys; you know me. I'm no good at endings. At letting things end. So let's not.”

Silence settled on the group as Ronson clutched the table for support and, based on how his shoulders quivered, it seemed obvious he was inconsolable. Then, to the Colonel's immense surprise, Travis Tate stepped around him and offered a hand for a moment, before realizing the hologram couldn't shake it. “So... happy trails, Lis, and see ya around?”

Dr Sobeck's arm twitched, as if she had considered trying to shake Tate's hand. “Yeah. Take care of each other, all right?”

Ronson looked up from the table, his face wet. “Lis...?”

Elisabet raised her hands as if warding off the force of his emotions. “I'm okay with this. I want to go home. Goodbye.” The suit vanished and the recording paused again. Once more the somber voice voice of Ronson, still obviously deeply troubled by what he'd recorded spoke.

“That was the last transmission of Elisabet Sobeck. She gave everything for the hope of life on this planet. And we are all in her debt.”

The hologram disappeared and ENID's interface appeared in it's place. “That is the end of the recording.”

“Thank you, ENID,” Travis told her. “That...” he paused for a moment, mental gears grinding. “Shit!” he exclaimed.

“Colonel?” the AI asked, concerned, but promptly vanished as he turned and hurried back inside, fighting his way to where he could see the map, but the corner was empty. “Colonel, are you alright?”

“Boss?” asked Buck, wondering over with Olara and Nakoa. “Everything ok?”

“Aloy,” Travis snapped. “Did you see where she went?”

Nakoa pointed over her shoulder at the doorway, deeper into the place. “I passed her going out as I was coming in,” she told them. “She seemed like she was in a hurry.”

“She took off, didn't she?” Buck asked flatly. Travis nodded grimly, though the big man just laughed. “So, I guess we're back on the chase, right? What is she after this time?”

“GAIA,” Travis told them.

Olara frowned. “The goddess? I thought she didn't believe?”

“She doesn't,” Nakoa told her. “Travis means the...program...like ENID. She means to restore her, somehow?”

“Yes,” Murray replied, turning towards the exit and gesturing for his people to follow him. “We need...”

Suddenly the way was blocked by Blameless Marad. “Friends,” he greeted, all smiles. “The Sun King sends his gratitude and awaits you all up stairs in his private apartments, and is pleased to discuss the settlement of our mutual border. This way.”

Travis made a gesture of acknowledgment and tried to step around him. “Marad, we're grateful, really, but something's come up, and we have to leave, at once...” However, Blameless Marad was having none of it, raising both arms to block the way. And while he was still all smiles, there was an edge under the smile. This wasn't a request.

“Nonsense,” the Spymaster replied. “I'm sure whatever has come up will abide until the Sun King is able to properly thank the heroes of our defense. We don't want to keep His Radiance waiting. This way.”

Buck chuckled in Travi's ear as he leaned over to whisper as they followed Marad, “Come on, boss. It wouldn't be much of a chase if we didn't give her a head start, would it?”

Nakoa slipped her arm around his waist and squeezed him in a way that promised other closeness in the immediate future, once the Sun King had his audience. Travis sighed and shook his head. The group would need to return to Fort Carson to resupply, having expended nearly all of their ammunition in the battle, as well as other, needed supplies. There was also the test of the Storm Bird over ride that Ian wanted, and, if possible, that might speed up travel considerably. He shrugged his acceptance of the situation and draped his arm around her shoulders. “That's true,” he admitted finally. “After all, I know where she's going.”