Rassus heard Donovan’s death cry just as he scrabbled over the loose rocks and tumbled through the opening into the darkness of the cave. He landed on his back and lost his breath, but he remembered his training and found his way to his feet. After the blinding Venus sun, all he could see in the darkness of the cave were some jutting rocks in front of them, and he limped his way amongst them for concealment, his sniper rifle, the last of his weapons, clutched in his shaking hand. About thirty feet in he leaned wheezing against a large rock and looked to the cave entrance, a patch of blue sky in the volcanic rock. Then it appeared. The Fallen captain’s armor was desiccated and he was covered in blood, most of it not his own. His shield pack had blown out from the fighting, like Rassus’s own, and the captain had a mad gleam in its eyes. They had been ambushed in a canyon on a routine patrol. They had wiped out most of the pack, then the captain went berserk and charged them. They had taken some hard hits as well and they just weren’t ready for it. Della missed with her shotgun and Rassus had watched the captain break her back with his bare hands. Donovan had been firing like wild with his hand cannon, but his hands always shook when things got bad and Rassus saw him drop more than a few shells while reloading before both he and Donovan saw it was time to run. The captain was terrible. He was huge and his battle roars rang with rage and hatred. After a mile or so, Donovan managed to finish loading and he waved to Rassus and they stopped behind a boulder. One last stand and they would bring it down. Only they didn’t. Donovan got a couple rounds into the thing but it acted like it didn’t care, marched right up to Donovan with a monster’s version of a smile, grabbed him with its upper arms and headbutted him into a stupor. It was all the time Rassus needed, though, and he raised his sniper at point blanc and pulled the slider. The damn thing jammed. It was about then that Rassus realized he was going to die. He had no other weapons left and he was worthless in melee. Hunter X-11 always told him he was better off keeping things at a safe distance. Well, there were no safe distances left, and attacking without a weapon would be a death wish. So that’s when he turned and ran into the first cave he found. Now he was staring right at the monster blocking the light at the cave’s mouth. Far as he was into the darkness, the thing couldn’t see him. But he knew, from the way it stood with animal majesty, its breathy growls while its own blood dripped from its limbs, that this thing wasn’t going to stop until it found him. Best never find him, then. The cave had no exits but the one, and with the light and open space it was a no-go with the captain hunting him. Rassus hoped it would succumb to its wounds but it proved that first day that it wouldn’t. It just kept going, hour after hour. It prowled through the rocks, growling with an occasional roar of defiance. Its clumsy movements are all that allowed Rassus to avoid it amongst the maze of jutting rocks. Rassus was silent, of course. He was also unhurt, but he was no match for the thing and he knew it. “Hit when they can’t hit back.” Cayde always told him that was rule number one. That’s why Rassus never drew his knife until the dreg was ready to run. That’s why he carried his sniper. The sniper that let Donovan die. Or maybe it didn’t. Banshee got on him all the time about oiling the thing. Maybe that’s what made it jam. Hell, he didn’t know. What he did know is he had exactly one round left. His last bullet was the one that caught in the slider. It was still stuck there. He’d take the shot if he could get it, but the natural labyrinth didn’t allow for more than five meters LOS. Not enough time to clear the slider and shoot. Not to mention unjamming his rifle would make noise, and noise was lethal. So he waited. For escape, or for that moment when the captain couldn’t hit back hard. The last of Rassus’s thoughts on making a run for it were quashed on the second day. A lonely little red-tailed bird, looking for refuse for a nest maybe, landed in the mouth of the cave. Less than a second later all that was there was a smoking pit of burnt rocks. The captain still had its shrapnel cannon, apparently. Of all things, Rassus had plenty of field rations. Removing them from their plastic wrapping without making any noise was an exercise in extreme patience, but if Rassus’s repertoire included anything, it was patience. He had had no idea how long a Fallen could go without ether. A long time, apparently, or this captain really was crazed enough to starve itself if that’s what it took to see Rassus dead. Rassus wondered if Fallen had best friends, and if they had killed the captain’s, just like the captain went and killed Della and Donovan. He slept, a couple times. Not out of choice, but because the sleepless dementia and fitful micro-naps finally built up and overwhelmed him. He woke once to the throaty breaths of the captain standing three feet in front of him. He was in the pitch-dark hollow under a jutting rock and the captain handn’t seen him. Rassus held his breath for half of a minute. The captain moved on. Rassus always thought himself a level hunter, but the darkness and the fear began to bow his sanity like an overloaded laundry line. He started dreaming while he was awake, about the cave, that he was weaponless and dying, sprinting with the captain on his heels. Those dreams always ended the same way, and it wasn’t with his glorious victory. On the eighth day, he prayed to the Speaker, the Traveler, his dead parents and whoever the hell else would listen just to let him stand under the sun again, one time before he died. There was a sick and swelling temptation to go out like that bird, just to feel the warm touch of the light again. On the ninth day, it ended like it should have started. The captain climbed up on one of the rocks. His eyes wandered as if he was looking for Rassus, but there was a mélange to his movements. He was tired, probably. Starving, maybe. He’d gone nine days without ether, and Rassus hadn’t used the last of his rations until the day before. Maybe the captain was insane and didn’t know what it was doing anymore. Maybe it was thinking about its home. It’s mate, even. The last thing it heard was Rassus clearing the slider. Less than a second later, finding that skill Rassus almost forgot he had, the captain’s stunned face was crowning Rassus’s sights and there was a blinding boom. And it was over. It was a lot less pleasant than Rassus had thought it would be when he climbed into the light at the mouth of the cave. He couldn’t see anything in the white glare and his eyes teared up bad. When they started to clear he looked down at his gun and thought about everything that happened. He couldn’t blame the gun. If it hadn’t jammed Donovan would still be alive and the whole nightmare never would have begun, and it probably was his fault. He was gonna buy a hell of a lot of gun oil when he got back to the Tower. He ran his hand over the machined titanium, its paint chipped and battered from use. In the end, the gun had saved his life, and avenged Della and Donovan. And for that, it had his thanks. So he gave it a name.