Hunter's Retreat

   Servitors. How should I describe them? They are above Kells in Fallen hierarchy - they are like both the priests and deities all at once. I don't suppose that is all that unlike a number of ancient Earth societies - the clergy often became the gods of their villages after all - the clergy, the scholars, the scientists; whatever magician of the given age was the power-that-was. Servitors are bio-mechanical floating orbs of onyx, emitting a strange purple field around themselves and their minions, and possessing a single concave circle eye which doubles as weapon and trebles as communication device. They float, shoot, command, and sometimes gloat. They are nasty, irritating globes of annoyance and burning plasma. I despise them, but they often carry precious materials. So I hunt them whenever I can.    Sepiks Prime was an especially nasty servitor. As the Prime of the House of Devils, he essentially ruled the Earth sphere. Though there were other Fallen Houses that occupied terr

   "Ghost, how many times have you had to re-integrate my body?" Patrols had netted us weapon upgrades, new vehicles, and even new skills, but it had come with a price as well.    "One hundred forty six times." Somehow this wasn't surprising, just a little depressing.    "What about how many times other guardians have saved us from the dark?"    "Forty seven."     Since the Speaker had called for an all out assault on Sepiks Prime's stronghold in the Cosmodrome, the Devil's Lair, guardians had been going out in larger and larger groups. Our patrols had been skirmishing against their patrols for years, but now things had escalated. Where we had been running three and four man fire teams, now we were running platoons. The area known as the Rocket Yard was crawling with Fallen. Redoubts and entrenchments had been constructed and were reinforced constantly by air and orbital drop. Aside from the large drop ships, even a gi

   What does a new guardian do with a newly repaired ship, fresh riches, loads of ammunition, and updated gear? He goes patrolling. He does patrols till glimmer is dropping from his pockets and he is so loaded down with engrams that he has to go back to the tower to store some items and sell others. Oh, what are glimmer and engrams? Yeah, I guess I really didn't explain glimmer before, I just mentioned it as being a currency. Glimmer is programmable matter. Essentially, engrams are as well - they just typically have already been encoded or programmed with an item or items. Old earth physicists had long told people that matter and energy were simply different states of one another - glimmer and engrams are a brilliant application of the principle.    So, although I could travel to the ends of the galaxy and back in moments, I was tasked with patrolling the Cosmodrome. That ugly, near-barren patch of permafrost, over-laden with the remnants and reminders of a dead society, would

   Guardianship, what is it? Why would one being be a guardian of others, why be responsible for others? What makes it necessary, what makes it right? Why does being chosen by some alien, some invader suddenly make an individual responsible for others? Where does a moral obligation begin and why? Perhaps these are valid questions, I would suppose if we were students in a philosophy class in some lyceum of old we would have time to indulge ourselves in such reflection and reverie. But the truth is, we inherently know and feel this obligation from the moment we are aware of our own abundance of talent and other people's lack. From a practical sense, we can see and understand the need for society - individuals have need of other individuals at the basest level to propagate the species, but also for higher needs, psychological, production of food, water, and shelter. And on top of everything, defense of self and species is reliant upon having the numbers to defend with.    Those tha