The Gate Lord's gaze shifted from Kari to the tiny Guardian hurtling toward it. Then, to everyone's surprise, the monster flinched. The arms coiled inward, shielding the eye from the onslaught of Light.

Jayesh swung his sword. Molten Light exploded from the blade and sliced into the wrist of the hand holding Kari. The hand slumped, the claws loosening. Jayesh cut the claw holding Neko, too. Neko immediately phased back into Kari. Glancing at them only long enough to make sure they were free, Jayesh landed on the Gate Lord's nearest arm and leaped again, heading for that eye it had concealed.

Trailing Light like a comet, Jayesh dropped down among the curled arms and landed on the Gate Lord's polished metal head. The hands reached for him, but he slashed them to pieces with his sword. Then he leaped onto a shoulder, aimed the fire-wreathed Drang into the huge red eye, and fired as fast as he could work the trigger.

The eye cracked, then shattered, the red light dying away. White Vex milk splattered through the broken glass. The Gate Lord screamed.

Jayesh hurled himself off the giant as it fell backward onto its own troops, crushing dozens of Vex beneath its massive frame. The whole room shook, the grinding and crashing of falling metal echoing and re-echoing until it stunned the ear.

Jayesh's fire faded as he floated to the floor. Kari was half-running, looking over her shoulder for him. He landed and nearly stumbled, his Light-given strength giving out. But he pulled himself up and ran with Kari to the triangular exit doorway.

On the other side was a hallway a few meters long leading to a white, flickering Vex gate. The Guardians halted outside it. Jayesh was too spent to even form words, let alone speak them. Kari said instead, "Failsafe! Where does this gate lead?"

"At present, it leads to Io," Failsafe said cheerfully. "Wait one moment while I reroute it to the Exodus Black."

Jayesh fought to keep his legs stiff, but his knees wobbled. He started to fall, but Kari caught him. She looped one of his arms over her shoulders. "Stay with me, Guardian."

He leaned on her, trying to stay upright, barely able to lift his head.

"Why doesn't your ghost heal you?" Kari demanded, an edge of fear in her voice.

"He's not hurt," Ghost replied over the radio. "He's very tired, which I can't heal."

Jayesh wanted to say that he would be fine, if he could rest for a while. There'd been so much running. But he couldn't force the words from his brain to his mouth.

"The gate is rerouted," Failsafe said cheerfully.

Kari helped Jayesh stumble forward, through the gate. They warped in blinding light and dragging pressure, emerging in the valley of the crashed space ship.

"Resetting the gate's original settings," Failsafe said cheerily. Her personality flipped. "You killed a Gate Lord. They'll be so mad at you."

"Great," Kari panted, struggling to hold Jayesh up. "Come on, Jayesh, move your legs."

She half-carried her partner to the tail section of the Exodus Black, where Failsafe's core resided. Once inside, Kari let Jayesh slump to the floor. He lay in the same position she dropped him, already unconscious.

Ghost phased out of him and scanned his Guardian. To Kari's surprise, Neko materialized and did the same.

"Not hurt," Neko said, quietly, studying Jayesh's head through the helmet. "But I'm detecting trauma. Lots of residual trauma and stress."

Ghost joined him, scanning to see for himself. "I can't fix that, Neko. It would require tampering with his brain, which I won't do."

"We'll let him rest," Kari said, sitting beside him and leaning against the wall with her rifle across her lap. "By the Light, you two. You're the ones who did this to him."

The ghosts exchanged a shamed look.

"We made up," Neko offered.

Kari pointed a finger in his eye. "If you hadn't been such a brat, we wouldn't have been caught in that gate trap."

Neko drooped. "I know. I'm sorry."

Ghost said, "I'm at fault, too, and I have no excuse." His voice dropped as he looked tenderly at Jayesh. "He's my Guardian. I should have taken better care of him."

The four of them were quiet for a while. Neko phased from sight, but Ghost remained active, flying back and forth above Jayesh, standing guard.

"Ghost," Kari said very quietly.

He looked at her.

"Why doesn't he have any weapons?"

Ghost looked down at his Guardian, reluctant to answer. "He did. He lost them in the cave-in."

"He had a rifle and a sidearm," Kari said. "Why didn't he bring a heavy weapon?"

Ghost paced back and forth in the air, his movements agitated. Finally he said, "He doesn't have one."

"Doesn't have one," Kari repeated, pondering this. "Did he just graduate Vanguard training, by any chance?"

"Two weeks ago," Ghost said, so quietly she barely heard him.

Kari had formed a picture of Jayesh in her mind - a Guardian with the courage to do what nobody had ever done. He had mentioned passing his classes, but she hadn't realized it was so recently. Her mental picture shifted from a mature Guardian to a younger one. He was green, untried ... and he had destroyed a Gate Lord single-handedly, while already exhausted from a bad resurrection. All to save her.

A lump formed in her throat for no reason. She angrily swallowed, forcing it away. "He can't afford a heavy weapon, can he?"

Ghost mimicked shaking his head.

Kari clenched her fists and gazed at her gauntlets. Eight thousand glimmer each, and it hadn't seemed like much at the time.

"Ghost," she said shakily, "your Guardian is amazing."

"I've always thought so," Ghost said mildly.

Jayesh awoke on his ship, traveling through hyperspace. He gasped and gripped the armrests of the chair, then his flight harness. "Ghost! Where are we? We're flying!"

"Calm down," Ghost said, floated into view. "I'm driving. We're headed back to Earth."

"But ... how did we get here? The last thing I remember was taking that Vex gate back to Failsafe's ship!"

"Kari brought you back here on her sparrow," Ghost said. "She wrestled you into your seat and everything. You've been out for eighteen hours."

Jayesh groaned and unbuckled his helmet, pulling it off so he could rub his eyes. He was sore all over - his legs ached from the rocks, his arms ached from swinging the sword, and his head ached from Kari's electrical punch.

"Ghost, are all Vanguard missions going to be like this?"

"I don't think so," Ghost replied. "Some are even worse."

Jayesh groaned and leaned back in his seat. As he did, something poked his hip. He reached down and touched the grip of the pistol Drang. He pulled it out and looked at its gleaming gold finish in the light of the instrument panel. "Dammit, I forgot to return this."

"Kari said you could keep it," Ghost said.

Jayesh stared at the pistol and suddenly his eyes burned. "Why?"

"She didn't say," Ghost said, "but I think it's because you saved her life."

Jayesh sat there, gazing at the pistol, feeling small and unworthy. "Well ... she saved mine by digging me out of the rocks. I wasn't trying to prove anything."

Ghost said, "I don't think she is, either."

When Jayesh's eyes grew dangerously moist, Ghost said, "Here, you haven't eaten in over a day. The rations are in this compartment."

Jayesh helped himself to a box of Vanguard rations, which were rather better than most meals he made himself. The wobbly, distraught feeling inside him faded away, and he felt more normal.

"When we drop out of hyperspace," he told Ghost, "I need to radio Kari and thank her."

Ghost nodded. "She wanted to thank you, but you were asleep. Failsafe sent you a reward for helping her, too." He shone his beam at a box on the floor beside the pilot's seat.

Jayesh picked it up and opened it. Inside was a glowing, glass-like energy engram, shaped like a playing dice with eight sides. It was deep blue, and was labeled with the icon for a brand new armored robe. They had the technology at the Tower to convert the matter within the engram to another form - in this case, better gear.

He held the box for a long time, running his fingers over the engram and thinking about the mission. "Ghost, how did I destroy that Gate Lord like that?"

"The Vex can't predict the Light," Ghost replied. "It's the only thing they fear. I suspect it's why they wanted to capture us - for study. The Gate Lord, for all its power, feared you. And for good reason."

The whole fight seemed dream-like now, something impossible that had happened to someone else. Jayesh set the engram back on the floor. "I've used my super charge before, in training. But ... this time, it was different. I felt the Traveler notice me."

Ghost blinked at him, curious. "You did?"

Jayesh nodded. "He recognized me, and he gave me his Light personally. Maybe that's why I was so powerful." He trailed off, thinking of the things people had written about him, laughing at him and scoffing at his story.

Ghost seemed to be thinking the same thing. "All those scholars were wrong, Jay. We really did meet the Traveler. He ... he called me his child." Ghost paused a moment, overcome at the memory. "He treated us with the utmost kindness. Like family. No amount of scientific debunking or philosophical debate can change that. If he acknowledged you as you drew on the Light ... well, let the Traveler be true and every man a liar."

Comforted, Jayesh settled back in his seat. "It makes me feel a lot better. I had started to think ... well, maybe I really was a mistake. But now I see I'm not. I really am supposed to be a Guardian." He hesitated a moment, then added, "Kari believes me. The Traveler healed her, himself."

"Neko told me about that," Ghost replied. "She may be a senior Guardian, but she had never spoken to the Traveler before, either."

"It's a relief, actually," Jayesh said. "Knowing that somebody else has had a similar experience. It'll make the media flogging easier to ignore."

He settled back in his seat. Ghost returned to navigating.

After a while, Jayesh pulled out his personal tablet and flicked through his various accounts. Hyperspace didn't allow for much connection, but they were nearing Earth, and the signal was just strong enough for him to have access to the City networks.

He checked his glimmer account, wondering about a particular bill that hadn't arrived yet. He stared at his balance.

"Uh, Ghost, I have ten thousand glimmer sitting here."

Ghost focused on the instruments and said nothing.

"Ghost!" Jayesh exclaimed. "Is it a mistake? Where did this come from? You didn't rob any banks, did you?"

"It wasn't me," Ghost said.

Jayesh bristled. "Did you tell Kari I don't have any glimmer? I'm not a charity case, Ghost!"

The little robot faced him, twirling his segments in a fierce way. "When you collapsed, she started asking questions about you. Like why you didn't have a heavy weapon."

Jayesh pressed a hand to his forehead. "So you told her about our pathetic finances?"

"Barely," Ghost said defensively. "She guessed more than I said. She transferred the glimmer when we reached our ships on Nessus. All she said was that she expected you to use some of it to take her out for a victory dinner."

Jayesh sat there, sorting through layers of humiliation, trying to decide how to feel about this. That much glimmer would plug a lot of holes in his bills, with enough left over for a new rifle. And he hadn't even received payment for completing this mission, yet.

"All right, I'll keep it," he muttered.

"I think," Ghost said, "and don't quote me, but I think it was a gift for saving Neko."

That made sense. Jayesh relaxed a little, thinking of the tiny ghost in the claws of the giant Gate Lord. Maybe spending a little more time with Kari wouldn't be so bad. He'd never even seen her face.

"Well," he said, "I guess it's a date, then."