Machine without purpose

by cameros82

A high priority mission on Venus goes awry for Antosa. While fighting for her life in deep in the long forgotten golden age territories of the Ishtar Sink, she finds her loyalty to the Vanguard tested to the limit and questions the very foundations of being a guardian.

Machine without purpose

Sulphuric rain lashed in sideways against the titan's helmet as she scanned the Rugged terrain of the outer edge of the Ishtar sink. Off to the south she could just pick out the blue glow of one of her fireteams members sparrow neatly picking its way to the other side of the sink. Her helmet crackled with static, followed by a bored sounding voice coming through.

'Antosa, you reading me?' The titan took a breath of the heavily filtered Venus atmosphere before answering.

'Yea I saw you just now. I'm not getting anything up this side so I'm going to try further north of the ridge.'

'Doesn't any of this seem a little off to you?' Antosa didn't answer and held her gauntleted hand out in front of herself with some considerable heft. It reminded her why she despised coming to this broken planet, Venus's higher gravity made everything feel heavier than anywhere else that she had been to in the charted solar system.

She thought for a nanosecond of her omnipresent companion and it materialised, a white and green patterned ghost with three spines hovered just inches above her open palm, it twitched its casing slightly and blinked at her.

"Ghost, do one final sweep of the area then we will go north. Zavala is not normally this inaccurate with his intel." The ghost blinked again and began to swivel on the spot occasionally opening and closing its casing with each burst of blue light it emitted whilst it scanned the terrain.

Once its sweep was done, the little light swivelled back to face her.

"Again. Nothing." The ghost sounded exasperated.

"Could something be obstructing the signal?"

"If we have learned anything about the Vex it's that anything is possible" The ghost turned and looked out across the sink.

"Creepy" It seemed to shudder if that was at all possible.

Antosa nodding in agreement found herself lost in thought as she followed a great Vex spire skywards as it emerged out of the gloom, she shook her head to try and scatter the rapidly souring memories.

"Ghost, call the sparrow. We're wasting time" The little light momentarily disappeared and Seconds later she felt the machine rise up beneath her, instinctively she threw herself forward, arms splayed out before her. The titan was lying almost completely horizontal when the control console materialized and she instantly hit the accelerator. There was a split-second where the sparrow seemed to rear up with pent up energy before the engine core exploded into life. The titan took off north around the ridge of the sink leaving a green ionized contrail in her wake. Her ghost was back and racing alongside her head, scanning the surroundings as it went.

"Cave system up ahead, goes on for miles" Undeterred, Antosa kicked back on the stabilizers and activated the sparrows boost control system. She hunkered down as her ride surged, trying to throw her off. Racing through thickets of drenched tropical trees, her ghost momentarily phased itself so it could pass through a particularly large and rotting tree trunk as Antosa rode a little too close.

"That wasn't funny"

"Just keeping you on your toes my little friend" A grin spread across her face although it was concealed by her helmet the little ghost could see it, and vanished in a spark of white light.

"Ah C'mon don't be like that, I need you out here"

The sparrow sped through the last of the trees and was closing in on the cave system, multiple caverns stretched out as if giant insects had created a vast honeycomb blockade to the northern ridge. She released the boost and tentatively rode the sparrow through the gaping mouth of the nearest entrance. Water dripped from the highest point of the cave roof echoing down the tunnels, rapidly the light diminished. She abandoned the sparrow which after a few moments dissolved it white light and again she appealed to her unseen companion.

"C'mon ghost we need to get this done or Zavala will have us on fallen clean up in central Africa again and I know how much you hate those sub-arctic conditions" She held her breath and waited motionless. Her particular ghost had always been strangely sensitive, for as long as she could remember up to when she was first resurrected 56 years ago, or was it 57?

Her comrade's ghosts all elicited their own hallmarks and personalities but were always loyal to the core and never showed any weakness. Only strength. This often made Antosa question her ghosts past, after all, she cannot ever recall the little light ever breaking its fourth spine on its shell and has always had that vivid green colour pattern too.

There was a small flash of light and her peculiar companion hovered a few feet away from her blinking with annoyance.

"Not another word. Let's go" The titan took a step back and held her hands up in mock submission. Her ghost turned and illuminated the way forward. The cave was at least one hundred and fifty feet to the ceiling, with a constant sound of trickling water and unintelligible sounds coming from deeper down within the cavernous maze. The titan took her first step further in and immediately fell into a deep pothole full of warm sulphurous water.

"You could have told me this place was full of goddamn holes!" She hoisted herself from the hole, yellow water escaping from her armour.

"You never asked" Her ghost still hovering in the same place and continued to look ahead into the cave. She pulled out her burnished hand cannon and flipped open the wheel emptying the rounds into her other hand along with the stinking water.

"Fine, now were even" She replaced the rounds, snapped the wheel shut and placed the weapon back into the leather holster strapped to her right leg and continued down into the cave.

"Ghost can you play back Zavala's briefing" The ghost looked at her momentarily and then back into the vast cavern before them without making a sound.

"Please?" The ghosts shell began to twitch and finally it opened up completely exposing the little lights tiny spherical body, the vanguards voice began withand with every syllable the ghost'd shell flickered and twitched. Zavala's voice was comforting in that dark cold place.

"Guardian. The warlock covenant on Venus has picked up an extremely high vex signature we have never come across before, we've pinpointed it to the inner ridge of the south western point of the Ishtar sink. We don't know if it is something new that the Vex has constructed or if it's remained hidden up until now. Investigate the signal and destroy target only if engaged, the warlocks want extensive scans first so we can figure out what we're dealing with. Be careful and come home alive." Zavala's voice evaporated with the ghosts shell settling back over its body leaving nothing but Antosa's watery footsteps for company.

"Wonder what the hell it could be?" They walked on in silence for another fifteen minutes when they came across a smaller cave leading off from the larger cavern they were in now.

"What do you think?" asked the ghost.

"We've been everywhere else. After you" Antosa motioned for the ghost to head into the smaller cave first. "Gee thanks".

"Ghost ever thought about changing that shell?"

"My shell? Why would I change it? It works perfectly well thank you very much"

"I was just thinking you know with that broken spine and all, I'm sure we could get you a new one." She waited for a reply which never came.

"A cool blue one with extra-long spines and.." The ghost cut her off.

"I don't need a new shell. I like this one this one just fine it still works, I can scan and most importantly I can revive! No need to thank me. This shell has been thr..."The little light stopped dead, prompting the titan to do the same.

"Getting something" It started scanning the cave ahead, waves of blue digitised light travelling up the tunnel and out of sight.

"What is it ghost? Our signal?" Without warning the ghost cut the light and plunged them into darkness.

"Up ahead. A faint vex signature and multiple life signs. Five maybe six….Look! Did you see that?" Flashes of artificial light indicated that the tunnel carved off to the right up ahead.

"Other guardians you think?" The titan attempted to contact her fire team. Muffled static gave way to some sketchy transmission from Defryn, the hunter in the group.

"Hey girl! Where have you been hidin?" The suave sweet talkin hunter who thought he was the travellers gift to women made her shudder but she wouldn't have swapped him for all the strange coins in the world. He was a mean marksman with his golden gun and had saved her ass in a pinch a few times, more than she would ever admit to him anyway.

"Shut your mouth or I will shut it for when we get back to the reef. What's your current position? The static replied.

"No need for curses girl we could ju…"

"DEFRYN"

"Alright, alright! I'm about three clicks south of you I think and Vandanoss is four clicks further south of me. Your signal is all messed up! Where you at?"

"Cave system and were going deeper, I think I have found the vex signature. Get your ass down here pronto and tell Vandanoss too, I can't reach her from inside this goddamn cave"

"Gotcha" The static died in her ears. In the darkness she motioned to her ghost to continue down into the cave to get closer to the source of flashing lights. She drew her hand cannon and cocked the hammer back ready to strike.

"Were getting closer" Whispered the ghost as they came to a sharp right hand bend in the cave. The titan pressed her back against the cave wall and peered around the corner. The blue light was coming from a stream of sparks at multiple sources from what looked like wreckage lying on the cave floor. Then she saw it, a bright shower of sparks illuminated a face near the wreckage and as she looked among the other spark fountains there were more. She counted eight faces altogether and turned to her ghost.

"Dregs. Eight of them"

"Why are the fallen in here?" The ghost whispered back.

"Doing what they do best, scavanging something by the looks of it. They are hacking that thing to pieces with plasma torches." She thought for a moment as she shifted her weight onto her other leg.

"We can take em. On my shout ghost I want maximum illumination" The little light twitched its response, notoriously nervous in combat situations. It watched her guardian creep around the corner as silently as death, fully aware now that the sparks were making her visible with every flash. She was relying on the dregs hunger for ether and salvage to keep them preoccupied as she slowly reached her belt and felt around for a grenade. Like a cat without taking her eyes off the unsuspecting fallen she held the smooth spherical grenade down by her side. The striker inside her conjured a blinding blue flash where the sphere was and she threw it straight at the wreckage.

"NOW!" Blinding white light erupted from her ghost as if being channelled by the traveller itself. The dregs staggered around shrieking and shielded their many eyes from the dazzling light, seconds later the grenade hit the wreckage. It sent out an electrical pulse which vaporised the five closest standing dregs, their disappearing figures floated off crackling with arc energy. Antosa then squeezed off three rapid and deafening shots. The remaining fallen still staggering around blind dropped like lead weights as each of their heads exploded in succession leaving behind a cloud of their noxious black ether. The crackling arc subsided and the cavern once again grew quiet, the titan stood motionless and signalled for her ghost to do the same. Nothing, the only sound was coming from her own heart beat amplified in her helmet. Antosa relaxed a little and walked over to see what the fallen had been hacking apart, she was shocked to find the remains of a massive vex hydra chassis. Her ghost floated over her shoulder spreading light across the tortured, broken hull.

"A Hydra? I've never seen one this size or this configuration before? Why is it still here? Records show that hydras explode on defeat." The little ghost spoke fast and with fear. The titan had never heard such raw emotion come from any ghost before, they were generally passive and at times even patronizing but never showed any fundamental traits of visceral emotion.

"Yeah, It's been theorized that they self-destruct right before they are 'killed' so to speak, but this one has'nt yet. I guess we found our signature though…..or at least what's left of it" Antosa slowly walked around the shattered hulk of the hydra, one of the dead dregs who had been standing atop of his trophy when the titan emancipated his head from body. It was lying wedged between two junctions in the main carapace-exoskeleton which the cryptarchs had collectively agreed was the 'head' of these great hovering vex machines. She reached up, grabbed the expired dreg by its insect-esqe ankle and watched it slide off and land in a heap with a sickening crunch at her feet. Antosa turned away in disgust and looked up at the hack-job that was the vex hydra.

Huge great chunks of the metallic body had been completely torn away leaving sharp serrated edges which were still glowing from the heat of the fallen scavenging equipment. Unfortunately for the Vex were designed for fast effective work in the hands of an insect with little care in the ways of finesse. In parts the armour was at least ten inches thick, the ragged edge and carbon scoring showed it had not been a clean cut. Piles of the armour were scattered around on the cavern floor presumably ready for the fallen to take away. The titan bent down to lift one up but was shocked at how light the alloy was as she lifted the plate over her head, nearly taking out her companion which quickly jinked to the right.

"Hey! Be careful with that!"

"Sorry ghost, this metal has almost no weight…..even here on Venus." She shook the plate over her head like a rag-doll to prove the point.

"Impressive, I can see why the fallen would prize a salvage like this"

"I can see why these things self-destruct" she said looking at the Hydra's two maul cannons lying neatly on the ground having no doubt been hacked off by the scavenging fallen, each one the size of a sparrow. Antosa on multiple occasions had been on the receiving end of these terrifying Vex weapons in past, blasting massive holes in sheer rock with swirling void energy. Many of her comrades and their ghosts had been lost thanks to vex hydras, and without a ghost there were no resurrections. She closed her eyes, their screams still echoed in her mind and as the bodies of guardians and ghost's alike lay broken and shattered on the ground the only thing that remained as the dust settled was that gleaming red eye.

Antosa shook her head and the dead guardians drifted away like feathers in a gentle wind. She discarded the metal plate to the ground which despite its lightness hit the cave floor with a solid thud that echoed down the tunnel network.

"Do you really want to wake the neighbours?" The little ghost was flitting around the titans head nervously.

"Hey ghost? What are these things?" Antosa said completely disregarding her companion's last statement and nodding towards dull and burnished metal spikes protruding from the underside of the hydras chassis. The ghost floated over to where she was looking and began scanning and finished quickly.

"Nothing in the database matches this technology but its design is consistent to fallen spike grenades. Maybe that's how they brought it down"

"No, Spike grenades are destroyed after a single use. These things are still intact. Are they still alive?" the ghost scanned a second time.

"There is power running through them into the hydra. That's odd?" The ghost buzzed from spike to spike.

"They are acting like some sort of arc loop interface; the hydras power system is powering them"

"What? That's all we need fallen powered Vex weaponry. Well not today my friend" The titan gripped the closest spike and pulled with some considerable force until it came away from the chassis. The spike remained inside the metal of the Vex like the mouth of a parasite being torn from flesh. Antosa inspected the broken end which sparked with arc energy for a little while until dying out. The titan grabbed another and another until a dozen of the devices lay strewn on the ground around her feet sparking and crackling before eventually extinguishing themselves. As she grabbed the next spike Antosa thought she felt the hydra move slightly as though a tremor had disturbed the machines final resting place, the hairs on her neck stood on end.

"Did you see that?" She asked her ghost.

"See what?" Must have been her imagination.

She vaguely remembered somebody a long long time ago who must have meant something told her that 'The dark plays tricks on your eyes, no need to be scared. Good night sweet heart' it was a warm and reassuring memory; she wished she could remember who it was. She blinked away the memory and grabbed two more of the devices.

The hydras wrecked body moved again more violently than before like it was vibrating at an extremely low frequency.

"Ok that one I did not imagine" she reached for two more, a spike in each hand.

'I don't think you should remove any more of those "things" guardian' the ghost started to float slowly away from the hydra.

"This thing is dead ghost. Look at it, most of it is missing or scattered across the cave floor. It's gotta be these fallen devices making it move" The titan stood and kicked the great machine with a resounding clang. She gripped the two spikes she had previously selected and wrenched them free, sparking in her hands. Instantly the hydra stopped moving and lay as still as it had when they found it.

"You see, no problem….Ghost?" Antosa was suddenly aware that the light in the cave was dimming; she looked around in time to see her companion backing off even more in the direction of which they came.

"Hey what are you doing? I need you up here I can't see"

"Heads up guardian" Chittered the retreating ghost before finally phasing out of site. The titan stood in darkness and alone. She turned back towards the hydra to be met by its solitary red eye glowing in the darkness, alive and watching her.

"What the hell?" she moved to the other side of the wrecked machine to get a closer look at that beaming red lens. It followed her every step. Antosa slowly climbed its broken body until her helmet was inches away from the great machines huge eye. She gazed deep into fathomless depths of a vex mind, swirling red contusions frequently interrupted the steady pulse of red light. The great machine started to vibrate and move, the pulsating light from the eye ceased in favour of ripples emanating from the circumference into the centre. The titan reached out toward the eye, creeping closer with gauntleted hand. The vibrations raised in crescendo the closer her finger tips reached until she finally touched the convex surface of the glassy eye. The titan shook violently with a vision of spires bursting through the Earth's last city and climbing into space. Confluxes rapidly spreading like a virus, rendered corporeal and swallowing the last Guardian stronghold whole, finally a lone figure in darkness armed with a massive Warhammer battling Atheon, he was shielding himself with a great shield of light. The time lord conjured a spatial fissure, spitting iridescent void energy. It grew immensely in size and finally consumed him. Antosa screamed.

The great Vex lord turned toward her, fixed her with a stare and lunged out with a massive hand reaching for the titan. A great cascade of sadness and rage washed over her, it was enough to break the vision. She grabbed her hand cannon with 'blink and you'll miss it' speed and aimed at the centre of the massive eye.

"So long you piece if sh..." the Hydra shook so violently it threw the titan off. Antosa picked herself up and took aim at the eye which was now darting around looking in all directions, it looked panicked, was it scared? The stricken hydra rocked heavily shifting its weight and rolled, smashing into rock shaving off more fallen devices. The hydra started to glow. It let out a monstrous and concussive bellow in its digitized, mechanical language which the titan felt in her body as much as she heard.

"GHOST!" The little light reluctantly returned blinking into existence.

"Multiple Vex signatures guardian, they're everywhere!" The air inside the cave seemed to dull and absorb the sound from the hydra's piercing scream. A thick black atmospheric disturbance began to fill the cavern, the ghosts light was being absorbed too. The titan retreated backwards to avoid being swallowed by the black fog, she could faintly hear her ghost shouting to her.

"WHAT?" The black cloud had consumed all noise from the Hydra, and she could just make out its glowing body, still rocking madly. The silence inside the cave had become deafening, her little companion swooped closer to her head.

"WE GOT VEX, EVERYWHERE" The ghost had amplified its vocal unit to the maximum but still it came out muffled as though it were shouting through several walls. Antosa stuck a thumb up and grabbed another silver orb from her belt; she could feel the smoothness of the metallic ball through her armoured fingers. The black mass ceased growing and within the cloud lightning began arcing to the cave floor and walls from three perfect spheres of light. The titan knew only too well what was coming next, she widened her stance and pre-emptively un-holstered her hand cannon in her off hand. In an instant all sound returned to the cave as the battle cries of the Vex pierced the air. A pair of tarnished metal feet materialised then the legs. Within a second a Vex goblin stood before her, the single red eye seemingly piercing her helmet and staring directly into her eyes. A split second later another vex appeared then another and another. She threw the orb which immediately began to to crackle and spark as it arced through the air towards its target before finally hitting a vex goblin in the chest, the resulting pulse rippled outwards in a spherical pattern vaporizing the robots. The black cloud still hung in the cave the spheres continued to spark and flash. Another wave of Vex goblins materialized, Antosa aimed down the sights of her hand cannon, the small red holo target hovered over the closest goblin. She pulled the trigger.

The goblin reeled with the impact, shattering its left arm in a shower of sparks and chunks of the robots destroyed limb. The small cavity in the belly of the machine caught her eye, glowing white in the gloomy cave. The titan instinctively aimed and fired. Jackpot, the small cavity exploded with the white glowing liquid, the rest of the goblin disintegrated into pieces. Before they hit the ground had already started to target the other goblins in the latest wave. The hand cannons noise was deafening inside the enclosed space which seemed to add to the damage of the slugs as they thumped into the vex bodies with furious velocity. Four more goblins fell shattered and broken, their robotic parts spattered with the white milky liquid. The remaining two turned and ran towards the screaming hydra and started ripping off the remaining fallen spikes. The titan fumbled to reload her weapon, another wave of goblins appeared bolstered by hobgoblins in the group ran to join the first two at the hydra who were busy ripping out fallen spikes from its chassis. The hobgoblins instead advanced forward slowly firing their wire rifles with deadly accuracy, Antosa scrambled for cover still trying to reload her gun, red beans of light ricocheting off the boulder she had hid behind.

"God damn!" She slowed her breathing and closed her eyes, the revolver clip smoothly slid into the open wheel, she flicked her wrist and the wheel snapped back into the weapon. She took a deep breath and stood, three hobgoblins immediately locked onto her, their weapons glowed red charging to fire. She fired off three rounds successively; two of the machines exploded as she hit her mark, the third one's head disintegrated and a flaming yellow force field erupted from its chest enveloping the robot. The titan fired another shot but the round thumped into the force field and evaporated. The force field disappeared and the hobgoblin rushed forwards completely headless and continually firing seemingly randomized shots all about the cave. She took steady aim and splattered white goo all over the cave wall, the titan took relish in the machines death rattle before another new wave of Vex dropped out of the black fog.

"I've never seen anything like this!" The ghost exclaimed sounding panicked.

This latest wave was the biggest yet with at least fifteen individuals in the mix five of which were hobgoblins, who immediately set upon the titan. The goblins ran to join their counterparts who were rapidly removing more of the fallen spikes. They jumped atop the vex hydra, climbing about its body in a frenzy. It was soon covered in writhing goblin bodies like giant robotic insects that ultimately lifted from the cave floor. The fallen devices lay strewn all across the floor. Suddenly the hydra's incessant creaming finally yielded to a low rumbling chatter, its whole body started to glow brighter and brighter to a blinding crescendo and still the goblins worked on removing the spikes. Another wave of Vex too many to immediately get a bearing on, they rushed the titan. Antosa unfazed closed her eyes and thought of the traveller. She felt its light touch her very soul, arc energy was building within her. When she opened her eyes she felt completely at peace. The titan stood from behind the boulder and began to run towards the rushing vex horde as they closed in on each other Antosa jumped high into the air and tapped into the arc energy within her, slamming the ground sending out a vast electrical shockwave atomizing all the vex caught in the arc blast. The Hydras low digital chittering rose with the blinding light emitted from its body seemingly whipping the goblins into an even higher frenzy.

"Guardian, we have a massive Vex signature coming through. We need to retreat!" The little ghost was visibly shaking. The cavern was once again filled with Vex warriors flanked by half a dozen towering robots which the Cryptarchs affectionately named Minotaur's. They bellowed a deafening mechanical roar and charged, blinking forward with small bursts of personal teleportation, Antosa reached behind her back and grabbed the heavy machine gun gifted to her by Banshee for services to the tower. The ammo chain box was full and the weapon primed, she hefted the gun up with considerable force and pulled the trigger. The oversized rounds left the chamber slowly but rhythmically 'thud thud thud' smacking into the first Minotaur which staggered with the impact but appeared undamaged. The void shield employed by these giant machines took rapid damage before finally disappearing and the Minotaur crumbling in a hail of bullets. The titan instinctively trained the massive gun onto the next advancing Minotaur which quickly fell in a pile of scrap metal; a third advanced which reached within striking distance before falling in a hail of bullets. Another fired its torch hammer from a distance splashing the gravitational energy close enough to bring the titans personal shield down, alarms were sounding in her ears. Antosa pulled the trigger to make waste of the towering robot but nothing happened, she ducked back down behind the boulder while all around the cavern was lit by the void blasts and the ever glowing of the Vex hydra. She opened the top of the ammo chamber; two rounds had simultaneously been fed into the barrel and were jammed tight. The titan discarded the weapon to the cave floor in disgust as the she reached for her trusted shotgun which she had affectionately nick-named 'Return to sender' due to a peculiarity which caused the weapon to occasionally absorb incoming fire. Antosa pumped the shotguns loading mechanism with a satisfying noise as a cartridge slid smoothly into the weapons chamber; she stood back up firing void tainted buckshot into the incoming Vex droids. The goblins now mingled with the Minotaur's partially obscuring her chosen targets yet still scores of machines fell to her barrage of void firepower. More waves of Vex arrived always more than the last and more Vex fell to the steadfast titan refusing to give an inch until finally her ammo ran dry. Harpies buzzed about her dug-in spot behind the boulder, she punched the two closest flying machines in quick succession which exploded vex parts and white fluid all over her. Another was just out of reach and in frustration launched her shotgun which missed and skidded off down the cavern, the hovering Vex moved closer to her and stopped mid-air deploying its stabilizers ready to fire its weapons. Other Vex now joined the chattering, bellowing throng around the titan who drew her hand cannon and began cracking off shots a couple of the sinister machines fell but it was not enough still the swarm advanced.

"I will not go down cowering like a mongrel dog!" the titan emerged from her cover and charged the great the Vex, fists up and fighting. One, two fell instantly to a flurry of vicious blows from the enraged titan, peripherals were twitching. An incoming blow from the side, she grabs the goblins outstretched arm and jinks sideways safe of the imminent energy blast whilst simultaneously twisting the limb free of its owner and finally delivering a death blow to the glowing white pod buried in its gut. Without missing a beat she turns and staggers a Minotaur with a brutal roundhouse kick to the machines midriff.

Suddenly there was static coming through her com-link.

"…..tosa?...ing thr..gh! Hold on!..." It sounded like Vandernoss's voice her Exo warlock friend with a peculiar quirk in her programming which caused her to speak with a blue blooded aristocratic British accent. The titan was still buried deep within the thick throng of the Vex destroying everything she could get her hands on; she took a stinging blow to the side of the head which made her ears ring, she dropped to her knees. Her personal shield warning alarm sounded off in her helmet. She retched, suppressing that involuntary urge to vomit as she stared at her splayed out hands on the cave floor, armour platelet pieces missing from several fingers no doubt from the punishment dealt to the Vex by her own fists. Her vision began to blur as she looked around. The Vex were moving in slow motion as was her hand as she lifted it up and moved it in front of her face. Antosa slowly climbed to her feet only to be on the receiving end of a goblins energy blast which was inched from her face. The force knocked her clean off her feet landing on her back with a sickening crunch, the static crackled again in her helmet.

"Antosa! Brace yourself my dear!" The titan rapidly curled up into ball, moments later the cavern was filled by a bright purple light which penetrated even the sensory draining black cloud. The titan could see from the corner of her eye three perfect balls of rippling void energy arcing through the air towards her, everything still moved in slow motion as the void blasts made land fall right in the middle of the robot scrum. Instantly the mass of Vex either exploded in a spectacular shower of limbs and white fluid, or were vaporised by the raw power conjured by the warlock. Another line of Vex warriors appeared but fewer of them and this time made up solely of Minotaur's.

The titan was vaguely aware of somebody standing over her. Vandernoss like a mother lioness stood over the downed titan protecting her cub, unleashed a hail of covering fire into the mob of Minotaur's, scattering body parts and armour plating everywhere. Antosa reached up and banged on the Exo's leg.

"Hey, you gonna help me up?" Vandernoss extended a mechanical arm without taking her eyes off the minotaur's she hoisted the titan to her feet and still firing her weapon with her left hand, Antosa could hear the actuators hissing within the Exo's arm pulling her from the cave floor.

"Are you alright? I lost contact with you when you entered this beastly cave" The Exo's vocal unit was at maximum output. A Minotaur crumbled to the ground with its hand inches away from her foot.

"I'm okay but I am totally dry of ammo." The Exo unclipped a belt of shotgun cartridges and tossed it to the titan; who fed the rounds hungrily into her own weapon, loaded a round into the chamber and began dismantling a nearby Vex with two successive shots to its body.

"Where's Defryn!?" Another Minotaur went down with a deafening death rattle.

"He was right behind me!" Antosa counted four remaining Minotaur's. She reloaded her shotgun hastily and fired at the closest machine only for the Minotaur to phase and re-appear less than a metre from her. The Warlock, who fell backwards startled, knocking Antosa's weapon from her grasp. The Minotaur reached high with a long arm meaning to bring it down upon the titan like a cruel hammer; she braced for the inevitable crushing blow.

"HEADS UP!" came a confident battle cry from behind them, Defryn leapt from a high ledge and conjured a flaming hand cannon from nothing, his cape billowed behind the hunter all consumed by flame as he channelled the power of the sun into the golden gun. Three devastating shots rang out as fiery bullets behaving like tracer rounds smashed into metal bodies; two Minotaur's were instantly vaporised, their bodies floated away into flame.

The crawling mass that was the hydra, pulsed with blue energy; a faint crackle was heard for a split second until it finally exploded engulfing the small army of goblins in the process.

All was quiet in the cave; the black cloud had gone as too was the hydra with its goblin mass. A Minotaur off to the left of them took a knee and phased, seemingly being digitally dismantled and was too gone.

Antosa was still bracing herself for the hammer blow from the final machine that was standing over her but it never came.

The titan gritting her teeth started to see spots on the inside of her eyelids. Panic driven footsteps on the gravely floor nearby punctured the once again quiet Ishtar cave.

She opened her eyes.

She finally exhaled, breathing in and out rapidly.

She was still alive.

'My dear are you alright?' The quirky Exo sounded concerned. Antosa had fully intended to stand herself back up, dust off her armour to showcase her resilience, but as she straightened her helmet struck metal. The resounding 'Clang' it made reverberated through the cave system, bouncing back to them several times before vanishing.

The titan stepped back out of the way of the obstruction. She looked in disbelief at her fireteam. Vandernoss was stood a few feet away from her glaring intently still with her rifle pointed past the titans shoulder, a gloved mechanical finger holding the tension on the trigger. Her hunter companion Defryn was nowhere to be seen except for his ghost peering over a large boulder. She turned back; the Minotaur's arm was still outstretched with its broad hand clenched into a fist. The ten foot tall machine was stuck mid-lunge, gently shaking; its single red eye was flickering, still trying to focus on the spot where the titan had been crouching just moments before.

Defryn finally emerged from behind his rock, shotgun primed and trained on the quivering Minotaur.

'What the hell is going on? Girl don't stand so close to…' He was silenced by an outstretched palm to his face from the warlock before receiving a finger wagging.

'Don't be waving your nasty metal fingers at me man! I know my rights' The hunter barely saw the Exo move, before he could react Vandernoss had drawn her sidearm and had it pointing Defryn right between his eyes without taking her own rifle or eyes off the minotaur. He dropped his shotgun and raised his hands.

For an Exo with incredibly unique and upper class programming and etiquette, she had proved on multiple occasions to be ruthless and unforgiving. Antosa had spent some considerable time with Vandernoss and found it disconcerting when this darker side of the Exo raised its head. After all she was still just a machine, a collection of plasteel rods, seventy miles of fibre wire, reinforced carbon casings and programmable matter within her positronic brain capable of brilliant things…and terrible.

'Alright' Defryn squawked, the hunters and Exo's ghost looked at each other and blinked with sympathy and guilt to each other.

Antosa turned back towards the Minotaur, still held in its frozen state and slowly walked around it. She pulled a small grey box from her belt which vaporised in her palm; her hand cannon gave a metallic click as the synthetic bullets materialized within its wheel. Weapon in hand she came back face to face with the vex beast.

'Ghost, what readings are you getting from this thing?...Ghost?' She looked around for her small companion, Defryns and Vandernoss's ghost where floating over the shoulders of their respective guardians blinking at her through the darkness.

'I can't…I…' Her ghost's voice came from within, low and full of fear. 'Hey I'm here, were all here together ghost okay' attentively the titan held out her hand, the little light materialized in her palm hovering, Its eye rapidly blinking nervously at the Minotaur. It was hesitant and with a gentle push Antosa tipped her hand toward the Vex. The Ghosts worn shell nervously twitched as it drew closer to the Minotaur; it looked back to the titan who in return gave a reassuring nod. The little lights shell started to spin at blinding speed until finally it vanished only to momentarily reappear behind the Minotaur with a cone of white light roaming over its metal body with split-second intervals. It finally reappeared over Antosa's shoulder.

'It has become trapped out of time'

'Come again?' Said the titan confused.

'Well, from what we know of the Vex is that they use, manipulate and possibly even inhabit time, moulding it, controlling it to best serve their own twisted means. Our smash happy friend here has managed to become stuck in time.' Defryn looked at Antosa who in turn looked at Vandernoss who returned the look with a shrug of her shoulders. She had long tried in the past to fully understand the computations of the Vex, why do they do what they do? How? The more she puzzled it out the more perplexing the regime became. She would find herself coming to a positive conclusion for a particular problem only to find the answer simply opened up even more questions; 2-1=3, it was infuriating.

'Ghost stop telling us that it's stuck, tell us why it's stuck.' Ghost rolled its singular eye with a certain annoyance.

'It's simple!'

'For you maybe. Why not break it down for us mere mortals to understand your grace' Antosa exclaimed exasperated, she had fought the fallen, been physically beaten by a Vex horde and was starving. All she wanted now was a cask of dark ale, a rack of Theo's spicy ribs and an ice pack for her head. She was rapidly running low and patience and gaining her formidable temper.

'Mortals? But you're…'

'GHOST!' The small machine physically jumped with the sudden deep booming voice from the titan. She instantly felt guilty. Just moments ago she was soothing her little companion sensing its raw fear following the exchange with the Vex, in very much the same way the Ghost had done for her all those years ago when it first resurrected her, alone confused and worst of all, awake. It was there the whole time.

The little light blinked at her nervously and with its single central eye it projected a straight line of light in the air, illuminating their helmets. It was slowly moving like a conveyer belt, right to left and faded into nothing at either end.

'Time is constant, for most of us in the universe at least. Simplified by this line here. Time is also linear, always moving in a single direction. Forwards. Each of us was born at points on this line…' orange dots appeared along the line and slowly disappeared one by one. '…And you die. Time carries on its merry way. For the Vex however time may look like this…' The slowly conveying line sprouted countless smaller strands of light, all linked to together in some way like a mass of spider webs all connected. 'A single individual or a group of Vex can move itself back and forth along that time line via this extra network of strands' Another orange dot appeared on the main line of light, the closest strand to the orange dot moved right over the top of the time line it occupied and pulled it into the smaller network of lines. The dot now travelled along the route of least resistance to a spot further along the main time line. 'The Vex or Vex's…what is the plural for Vex?...' The ghost seemed to momentarily lose its trail of thought before returning to it analogy. '…Irrelevant! The Vex Now occupies space in the future of that time line. Our Mechanical friend here is stuck in limbo, almost in our time but not quite and by the looks of it very much unable to utilize the Vex gate network… I wonder why?' The Ghost turned to continue scrutinizing the Minotaur and noticed something unusual, something that was not there a minute ago when it was scanning the metal body. Its hammered bronze textured plating was beginning to gain a fuzzy-static hue not unlike a computer terminal screen with no feed, slowly spreading throughout the Minotaur's whole structure. The ghost vanished with a flash as it began another scan.

'Strange…' The ghost's voice echoed out across the cave unseen as it examined the stricken Vex.

'It's not here!.. I mean of course it's here because we are all looking at it. But technically its somewhere else or some-when else. Yes. Some-when else' the group looked at each other, the hunter held his arms out in confusion.

'It's phasing out of time, our time, without a Vex gate it will probably be lost forever…what's this? The little light reappeared hovering inches away from the Minotaur's lower carapace where on smaller Vex their glowing white substance is held in the abdomen section of their metal bodies. The ghost trained a beam of light into the body of the beast searching for something blindly.

'That's can't be right' It continued to scan.

'What's not right? Said the titan with annoyance tainting her voice.

'I am detecting light energy coming from within this Vex's known power source. It is an exact match for the travellers own energy. Defryn can you pry off this plate here?'

'With relish!' The hunter strode forward with an air of superiority, ducked down under the Minotaur's outstretched arm to where Antosa's ghost was still scanning. He unsheathed his knife and thrust it at an angle between two adjoining plates within the abdomen spraying sparks as the blade conversed with the impossible Vex alloy.

'Be careful! You might damage it!' Defryn froze and looked at the ghost.

'Can you hear yourself? This dude is the bad guy, who cares if it gets damaged?!' The ghost stared straight back at the hunter with a look of complete disdain. Defryn exhaled, exasperated and went back to work with his blade.

'Whatever you say boss'

There was a resounding crack that reverberated down the cave system as the hunter eased the plating off the Minotaur exposing the glass like vessel full of glowing Vex fluid which was swirling and crackling with energy like a contained raging electrical storm.

'Big spike in light energy…' The ghost hovered as close as was possible to the glass vessel. '…there! Vandernoss can you see it?' The Exo climbed into the mix, pushing the hunter out of the way in doing so.

'That's nice, Really?' said Defryn. Vandernoss ignored him and peered into the belly of the Vex. The Exo cycled through several of her ocular modes, her eyes changing colour and even shape with each passing vision mode. At one point her eyes had gone completely smooth and metallic, from where her pupils should have been a stem protruded with a small sea anemone like tendrils waving, each emitting a different coloured light. A moment later the tendrils had gone but the metallic eyeballs remained except this time with a slight leathery looking texture. She spoke to the ghost.

'I see something; it is firmly wedged between the plating and the glass looking object. It is also emitting some kind of radiation. Defryn your knife if I may? Thank you' The hunter reluctantly handed over his favourite switchblade to the warlock who with great care and dexterity teased it out, as she worked the blade the whole knife, up to the handle, ignited with solar energy. Antosa who had been stood with her arms crossed suddenly jumped forward to help her friend however the Exo held up her hand in defiance.

'It is okay, I am unharmed…this truly is remarkable!' There was a grinding noise as she worked to free the mystery object until it finally came free; her left hand shot out to snatch the item from the air as it fell, igniting the warlock engulfing her in flames. In the same instant the Minotaur awoke, standing up straight to its full intimidating height. Instinctively the other two guardians had their weapons pointed directly at the pryed open carapace of the Vex but it stared straight ahead over the tops their heads, its single red eye fluctuated and flickered for a few seconds before finally turning white. The shield plating that partially protects the glassy eye and gives all Vex machines the impression that they are frowning; smoothly slid back and seamlessly slotted into the small crest of the head leaving the Minotaur with a more neutral even surprised look on its face.

The machine looked at Antosa scanning her with its white eye, it then turned its attention to her hand cannon and the red eye was back along with the frown. The Minotaur gripped its massive torch hammer tighter but did not raise the weapon. Antosa moved closer now aiming her gun at the head of the Minotaur which took a step back attempting to put some space between itself and the titan and still it did not raise its weapon. Instead it did something that shocked the group to its core.

It spoke to them.

'Lower your weapon' deep and monotonous at first and decidedly AI in origin. Antosa looked at the warlock who was rooted to the spot not moving a single actuator. Any attempt to communicate with these machines in the past had been futile, teams being largely ignored for the most part or getting vaporized when being persistent. The Minotaur repeated its request.

'Please, lower your weapon' inside her helmet the titan frowned. Please? Was this an emotional response? She had already ignored its initial request to lower her weapon and now appeared to be appealing to her human nature.

No, this is a mindless machine. The Vex had killed countless guardians and had shown no remorse in the loss of life they have so casually bestowed upon Mercury and Venus, Mars will be no different. Antosa gritted her teeth as she applied pressure to her shotguns trigger. The Minotaur took another step backwards, its torch hammer swigging heavily at its side. Vandernoss and Defryn were now stood at her side with weapons drawn, all three of them advanced on the Vex beast as it slowly backed away from them.

'So long you piece of sh…'

'STOP!' Her ghost rematerialized between the guns barrel and the Minotaur's head. 'It's afraid'.

'We don't have time for this ghost!' She nudged her small companion out of the way with the shotgun but it failed to yield as it continued to place itself between her and the Vex.

'It is afraid. Look' The machine was still slowly backing away from them looking wildly at the weapons aimed either at its head or its glowing vessel.

'If you think I'm lowering my guard because you think its "afraid" you don't know me very well at all. That thing it's carrying would blow us all to hell in an instant, ghosts and all.' The ghost turned to face the Minotaur.

'Lower your weapon' The Vex stopped its retreat and looked down at the torch hammer it was holding loosely in hits three-fingered hand and slowly turned it over inspecting it as if it was the first time it had seen the giant void powered cannon. It dropped it to the floor where it digitally deconstructed itself and finally vanished. The Minotaur looked back at Antosa as she slowly lowered her gun, the red eye turned white once again and scanned her before turning away towards where the hydra had been.

'What the hell is going on?' Said Defryn who reluctantly followed the titan's example and had lowered his weapon too. They watched the Minotaur as it scanned the area, when it stopped it looked around the cave seemingly lost and then returned to the fire team.

'Directive?' the Vex asked in its flat monotonous voice. The ghost answered the Minotaur as nobody else seemed willing to.

'Um. Your directive? We don't know.' The Vex repeated the ghosts words in the ghosts voice and seemed to loosen slightly, it no longer stood with such a rigid gait and it leaned slightly on its left leg, it brought both of its hands together up to its chest and was nervously twiddling its fingers.

'It's mimicking behaviour, generally a trait found in predatory creatures to conceal their true intentions.' Vandernoss said.

'Mimicry is also used defensively by prey to blend in and escape harm.' The ghost said back to the Exo. It blinked at her with defiance.

'Five minutes ago we had to coax you out of where ever the blazes it is that you disappear to because you were terrified of it and now you are defending the beast?

'I am not defending it! Do you honestly think I would show pity to these "Things" after what they've…I'm not defending it. Nobody has ever reported or even come across any kind of Vex unit behaving in this manner and I think it is an unmissable opportunity to study them further to see what makes them "tick" so to speak. So instead of just another destroyed minotaur and that disgusting Vex milk splashed all over us, maybe just maybe we can finally find a way to completely eradicate them.' The little light hovered momentarily in front of the fire team waiting for a retort which never came, then flew away to continue its scan of the Minotaur which gently reached out and touched the ghost inquisitively.

Defryn looked at his friends in turn repeatedly. To those who know him, the hunter is notorious as a perpetually relapsing socialite with an insatiable appetite for partying and gratuitously enjoying his second life and a legend to those that don't know him. His reputation precedes him within the guardian community, lithe, smooth and graceful. Many other hunters are like feral wolves who generally spend more time out in the wild than their titan and warlock counterparts and never get distracted from the hunt. Not for Defryn who spends more time in the city than most hunting other "game" in the last metropolis's many bars and other drinking pits.

But in serious situations he was completely lost and often did not know how to act or behave. On more than the odd occasion he has found himself on the sharp end of Vandernoss's decidedly "evil" side due to his lack of compassion or there of his lack understanding compassion.

On this occasion he kept his mouth firmly shut and was looking to his friends to lead the way in terms their next step because the hunter did not have the faintest idea.

Vandernoss's ghost, bright gleaming gold in hue spoke first 'It has a point, your ghost I mean. Nobody has had this opportunity to examine a live Vex specimen. Further study may lead to breakthroughs in their technology eventually helping mankind in the fight against the darkness.' Vandernoss appeared to concede and silently nodded in agreement with her ghost.

'Okay so what do you suggest we do with it then?' Said the Titan.

'I am thinking we take it somewhere more secure, we simply cannot leave it here in these beastly caves with the fallen sniffing about the place. My dear you may have drove them off and killed some of their kin but they will be back and in larger numbers. Mark my words.' The Exo was agitated; Antosa could see her friend was ready to leave the cave.

'Agreed, but where? We can't take it back to earth the warlocks coven would know before we even entered orbit. How about that old particle accelerator plant on the moon? There are hundreds of facilities along its length and some are buried deep beneath the surface.'

'It would drive the hive into a frenzy'

'Good, they have been more than a pain in my ass these last few years' Antosa said turning back toward the minotaur who was closely scrutinising the maul cannons left over from the hydra, blissfully unaware of the little light buzzing around its body, piercing it with its own scans.

'Ghost. Let's roll out, were taking it to the Mare Nectaris accelerator facility' the little light ceased its work and joined the guardians.

'On the Moon? I'm not sure how that's going to work; this Minotaur is no longer connected to the Vex mind. It's alone, probably for the first time in tens of thousands of years' the Minotaur stood and casually strode over to join the ghost, Defryn took a step back.

'So what, that's why it behaving like this?'

'What I can establish from what I have seen so far, it is no longer receiving any orders or even error commands from the Vex network. The Minotaur's are the heavy lifters right? Essentially they are the building blocks of the great spires that are erupting all over Venus. It is highly likely that ancient Minotaur's hundreds of thousands years old were responsible for assimilating Mercury into one of their great machines. They receive instruction through the Network from a Vex mind which incidentally usually take form as massive hydras. The Vex minds are like the generals if you wish, issuing the orders delegating its sub-ordinates where and even when to build constructs or spires. Without that connection it is useless.' The Minotaur was gingerly attempting touch the ghost again.

'A machine without a purpose? Said the titan.

'More than likely it was connected to that Vex mind that the fallen had butchered and once you released it from their constraints the mind called into the network for help and our friend here along with his buddies answered its cry.' Defyrn was slowly shaking his head

'Wait a second? We have destroyed countless Vex minds over the years! Even Atheon! So why are the Vex still active? Why aren't they all wondering around the solar system completely feckless and bumping into walls n stuff? According to your logic ghost, the Vex shouldn't even exist.' The hunter was animated as he spoke and voiced his confused opinion over the situation, it was usually the very reason he kept his mouth shut while out in the field because unintelligible rantings were his specialty.

'That's not what I'm saying. If a Vex mind is lost or destroyed another will take its place from within the network and more often than not as we have witnessed the Vex minds that we have destroyed in the past being restored as if we had never encountered them.

'So what are you saying?' Said Antosa, arms crossed and listening intently.

'The Vex network is not the problem. It is likely that giant hydra you encountered down her with the fallen has already been reborn or better yet travelled back to before it ran into the fallen. I'm getting off track, my point is the network is working fine…probably; it is the Minotaur that is broken. A round fired from your golden gun sir, instead of shattering the vessel that holds the Vex milk only cracked it, that is what Vandernoss removed from under the carapace with your knife.' They all turned to the Exo. She looked down and opened her hand, a single pristine hand cannon slug lay in the centre of her palm glinting in the ghosts light it then ignited, spreading the fire up the Exo's arm, who was unmarked and unhurt by the flame. She had forgotten she was holding it. The sudden awakening of the Minotaur and its subsequent behaviour had completely consumed her. She turned to the hunter and tipped the bullet into his hand which ignited as the Exo's was extinguished.

The round sat in his palm for a few moments; it was freezing cold to touch but continued flickering. The flames withdrew back to his hand as the bullet dissolved before eventually dying out. He had never seen first-hand what the burning solar energy within him was like; he just pulled the celestial trigger and things exploded, metal or flesh. Defyn turned his hand over, inspecting it closely. Nothing, as if the Exo had never passed him a flaming bullet conjured from the gifted power of a giant space god.

'That bullet severed the minotaur's connection to the network?' He was still looking at his hand.

'My golden gun bullet severed its connection.' The hunter did not appear to be addressing anybody in particular, more making a grand statement for himself. He lowered his arm and cautiously inspected the Minotaur's milk box. The tough glass-like container was cracked with a slow drip of white liquid. The armour adjacent was scored from where the Exo had been digging with his blade.

'Wait a minute, why didn't it dissolve like it did in my hand eh? And how in hell could you forget you were holding a goddamn bullet? It's cold as ice!' The hunter was stood directly in front of the Minotaur but facing his friends waving his hand at anybody who would listen. The great Minotaur towering over him looked down and cocked its head quizzically at the small creature.

'A good question, but for another time. We really should think about moving. I will call the ship, we will rendezvous with it back at the entrance.' The group turned and started to make their way back to daylight, but the Minotaur didn't move an inch.

'Ghost what's the hold up now?' The titan said. Her ghost flew back to the Minotaur and briefly scanned it. As it turned to report back to Antosa the machine grabbed the ghost lightning-quick with a robotic hand and blasted it with focused bursts of light from its centre eye, three in quick succession and then letting it free before anybody had time to react.

The machine cocked its head talking its digital talk and finally spoke in a language they understood.

'You wish to destroy us?!' it said in the ghosts voice, sounding genuinely alarmed by this wealth of information it had forcibly taken from the titans ghost.

'You are a means to an end.' Said the ghost nervously. The Minotaur stepped forward slightly reaching out to the ghost.

'No, that is not our directive. We…I…' the effects of being disconnected from the network were starting to show. '…I built the machine…Simulating…finding a better…outcome…to get home.'

'What about the Millions of people on Venus? Some of the greatest minds in human history, wiped out by you! This ends today!'

The Minotaur straightened up. Its neck joints extended hissing with actuators placing its head taller than ever before. The shoulders turned backwards and the arms extended down to the cave floor. The transformation took less than a second and gave the Vex the appearance that it was attempting to peer over a high obstacle. Its eye started to grow brighter and brighter until a series of blinding flashes were emitted, each one accompanied with a resounding electrical crack.

Their collective minds were linked together. Existing in another time and place. It looked like a dreamscape, everything appeared to have soft feathery black edges as if licked by black flames and like a dream this reality would switch radically from one moment to next without any feasible explanation but somehow it all fit together and made perfect sense. Except it wasn't a dream at all, the fire team found themselves in some of the most famous battles and skirmishes in Vex-Vanguard history.

They were running full pelt down pitch black tunnels with only the light of their ghost guiding them until they entered an enormous chamber, light spewing from an upward drifting fountain finally being disrupted by the void blasts of Sekrion, a massive ancient looking hydra. Antosa tried to stop but this was not her but some other guardian pulling the trigger.

Sekrion fell and the fountain stopped flowing.

Everything was swallowed up by the black flames and another reality emerged before them, they were moving quietly like an espionage team through the Ishtar academy, deeper and deeper. The corridors and various rooms they moved through were eerily quiet, only the constant drip of water as it found its way into the broken building was heard. Finally they entered what looked like a makeshift laboratory built over a jumble of Vex architecture which had been discovered sometime in the golden age. Pieces of the geometrically shaped rock and Vex parts flouted in fluid filled tanks with all manner of wires and monitoring equipment scattered around them. Vandernoss reached completely involuntarily for a glowing spherical object which was being suspended within a cuboid shaped rock, she gritted her plasteel teeth together attempting to pull her arm back, every strand of fibre in her positronic brain told her not to touch the object, it was too late. She was holding it in front of her face when the air dulled and the now familiar digital battle cry pierced the air she dropped the sphere as waves of Vex swept over them.

The Vex fell and the spherical object lay on the ground, broken.

The Ishtar academy was washed away by a more fluid form this time and replaced with a portal in the black garden, they stepped through and were faced with the black heart of the vex.

The heart fell and the black garden became barren and empty.

The fireteam all simultaneously dropped their weapons on the ground as the machine reconstructed itself back to its original form.

'What the hell just happened? I couldn't stop myself' the hunter said, his head flicked rapidly side to side as he looked to his friends for an answer.

'Everything we have been led to believe about the Vex was a lie. Look at all the major incursions made against the Vex. The tower instigated them all. The Nexus mind, Sekrion, Theosyion even the Vault of Glass, everything! They were defending themselves.' The titan looked up at the Minotaur who was once again trying to touch her ghost without it noticing.

'Wait, What? Okay, What about all the people on Venus and Mars? Millions dead?' said Defryn.

'There is nothing to prove that the Vex killed them all, the ones that were killed by vex probably encroached in vex territory. The Fallen and the Cabal have all done their part on our civilizations demise. Remember the Ishtar archives? They discovered that the Vex ruins on Venus predated humanity by hundreds of thousands of years and judging by the extent of mercury now, even longer there. The Vex were the first true intelligence in our solar-system long before our ancestors crawled out of the primordial soup. These beings have a total grasp of time and are able to manipulate it, bend it to their will. So why have they not simply removed us from existence? Why are we still here if they are evil? The Hive and the fallen are already on earth and actively attempting to eradicate us in one way or another, and I can guarantee the Cabal will not be far behind them to finish us off, but the Vex have never set foot on our planet. They have little interest in us.' The Exo exhaled at length with exasperation. Shaking her head in disbelief at her own words, she was not talking to anybody in particular and seemed to be arguing and justifying new concepts with herself. Her positronic brain was conflicted between what she had experienced in her lifetime and ultimately what it was originally programmed for, out right logic which she could not ignore.

She conjured a small ball of void energy in her hand and stared into its swirling abyssal depths. The Minotaur immediately stopped harassing the ghost and reached for the warlocks open palm.

'Light!' the machine exclaimed with obvious signs of surprise and delight Vandernoss was apprehensive at first, watching the minotaur's white eye as it roved over the void ball of light with complete reverence. She was close to snuffing out the light and withdrawing her hand but something deep in her core compelled the Exo to let the Minotaur touch the ball.

The metallic digit was almost touching the swirling void energy when the Minotaur stopped. Exo and Vex looked at each other, machine to machine.

She now wanted the Vex to touch it, every synapse in her artificial body yearned for it, suddenly the void ball reached out to the Minotaur. Not unlike arcing electricity but smoother, more fluid. The Minotaur stepped back as the void spread from its finger up its arm and down its body.

The void ball evaporated as her open palm turned into a finger point in the direction of the glowing white liquid in the belly of the Vex.

'Look' There had been a slow and steady drip of the white substance from the cracked vessel onto the cave floor, splashing with an electrical crackle before dulling completely. But now the void energy from Vandernoss was entwined with the glass container, the crack self-repaired and the dripping stopped. The void energy even appeared to replenish lost fluid, topping it up full. Finally the void energy dispersed into the damp cave air.

The Minotaur stood straight and spoke in the Exo's voice.

'Thank you my dear, I have re-established my link to the network' Defryn reached for his shotgun but was stopped by a restricting hand from Antosa.

'Please do not fret, I mean you no harm.'

'What the hell just happened?! Did it repair itself?' Antosa said, still with a hand covering the hunters weapon.

'The energy from the entity you call the traveller has the ability to enrich us amongst other things. I am now healed, this body is what has been repaired' The Minotaur now spoke in the titans voice.

'This body?'

'Yes, merely corporeal devices to make our existence within this universe more…hospitable so to speak. This is our true form' the Minotaur motioned towards the glass vessel.

'The Vex Milk?! You telling us that you and your entire race are composed entirely of Vex milk?' The hunter said with a slight hint of sarcasm to his tone. The Minotaur changed its composure and again its voice.

'It Aint no damn milk, bub! That's us! Our very soul! For millions of years at the very peak of existence and it's called Radiolarian if you had bothered to ask! But no! Its goddamn milk to you, you even know what milk is? Eh? Protein and lactose rich liquid expressed from the mammary glands of mammalian and similar species across the universe to provide nourishment to their babies! Do I look like I've been expressed from damn a titty to you?!' The machine oozed sass and swagger perfectly mimicking the behaviour of the small being that addressed it last.

'Well, y…' Vandernoss gave Defryn a swift backhand to the face before he could finish.

'Hey stop talking to it; I can't understand a thing it's saying!'

'I understood it!'Said Defryn, re-arranging his mask.

'What was that about Vex milk?' asked the titan. The Vex again changed its body language. This time it stood with folded arms, waiting impatiently.

'Hey can you stop that?'

'Stop what'? It voice low and dangerous like the titans.

'Stop changing every time somebody different talks to you its maddening'

'This is an effective form of real time communication'

'Well I'm starting to lose my mind listening to you change voices every other sentence' she exhaled and drew herself back up 'No more talking to him' She pointed at Defryn. 'Like listening to a group of beer'd up dregs' The minotaur stood straight arms by its side and for once, spoke with its own artificial voice.

'Billions of years ago our species were not too dissimilar from you now, a carbon based highly evolved society. Technological advancements accelerating at an incredible rate. We were everything that you are now… or at least before darkness found you. Like you our species was enriched by the arrival of a great celestial body from the depths of space and blessed us with knowledge and understanding. We evolved, harnessing this knowledge until there was nothing left for us in this realm. Some of us wanted more and we succumbed to infighting, billions of my kind fought and died in a long and terrible war.' The Minotaur briefly chittered in its incomprehensible digital language.

'What was the war about?' Antosa asked.

'Many of our number believed we were being restricted by the physical confines of our mortal bodies and began building a great machine which would amplify our minds exponentially at the cost of reducing our bodies to an unknown compound we came to know as radiolaria. The project was known as "Mialo Sol Objective". There were those who opposed this machine claiming it to be blasphemes and attempted to destroy the machine. They were resisted by my ancestors and so began the Great War that would reduce our species to ruin.

For nearly 300 solar cycles the war decimated our number and reduced us to near extinction. Finally the anti-objective faction who called themselves the "heathen corrective" destroyed the great machine but not before my ancestors committed themselves, they were reborn and existed outside of time. Those that were left behind continued to persecute each other through their beliefs and annihilated themselves from existence.'

'As is usually the way within an advanced species, we were no different before the time of the traveller humans nearly destroyed themselves by the end of the third world war in the mid 21st century' Vandernoss spoke with a certain amount of sympathy, listening to the Vex plight.

'We were watching, I believe what was left of Earths remaining superpowers soon made contact with the one you call the traveller'

'Yeah that's right, how did you know that?'

'That is when it left us'

'You see in the great scheme of things we are no different at all. We are simply trying to survive and secure our future.'

'Securing your future? But you can travel through time? What's to stop you from going to the future and securing it there? Better still why don't you travel to the past and stop your great machine war from ever happening? The Vex civilization survives, no murderous robots here in the present, everyone's a winner eh?' The titan was extremely animated, waving her arms about and punching fist in to hand to punctuate her most excellent solution.

'The past is the past changing even the smallest detail could be catastrophic, this was known by your golden age scientists as "The butterfly effect" a notion that killing something as insignificant as a butterfly in the past could create temporal fractures impossible to foresee and having devastating consequences. In the future the path forward has already been written in the present. You see the future can only be changed by manipulating the present which needs to be done by changing things in the past…' The Minotaur was shut down by a confused Antosa.

'STOP! This will surely give me a nose bleed if I think about it anymore, all the attempts we have made to communicate with the Vex in the past, and they failed! So why now do you tell three light bearing guardians on a chance encounter that we got the wrong end of the stick this whole time?'

'Contact did not fail. We had considerable communication with a scientist known to us only as Dr Shim, then the fallen came. In more recent years another made contact, a human of profound knowledge. He was afraid of the data that Dr Shim had collected over his time on Venus. He was afraid of us and what we are capable of. All communication ceased at that point, he and a small group of humans sealed the archive, hoping it to be lost forever.' The Minotaur approached the titan closer.

'Humans are unpredictable, dangerous creatures. No further effort or resources were spent attempting to commune with a wild and reckless species. Instead we are attacked as we continue our work on the machine.' The Minotaur suddenly jerked its head in the direction of the cave entrance, its eye turned red and was emitted a short burst of red light.

'More Fallen are approaching this position'

'Who sealed the Ishtar archives robot? Antosa spoke through gritted teeth. None of what she just heard made any sense. There had never been a field report about the archives being sealed. The only records were about archives being rediscovered more recently by a guardian highly regarded by the vanguard who went on to destroy a powerful Vex mind within the vault of glass.

The Minotaur was still looking in the direction of the cave entrance, and suddenly whipped its head in the other direction heading deeper into the cave system.

'HEY! I'M TALKING TO YOU!'

'Who. Sealed. The archives?' She tried speaking calm and clearly, maybe that would evoke the machine into responding to her but it remained silent staring down into the cave.

The titan was about to launch another verbal attack but was stopped by a high pitch noise behind her, they all heard it. A slow crescendo of screams and fallen chatter echoing up the cave from both directions. The Minotaur began to conjure pieces of bent metal seemingly from thin air and was hastily connecting them together on the cave floor.

'I do not have time to explain, the fallen are coming in greater numbers and we will all perish, here and now including your ghosts' the minotaur spoke quickly as it worked rapidly building some sort on construct with blinding speed.

'What are you building?' Shouted the Exo over the noise of the approaching fallen and the clattering the Minotaur was making with its construct. She caught the first dreg out of the corner of her eye and it dropped instantly in an explosion of ether she turned in time to see Defryn holstering his hand cannon.

'Thank you' she said to the hunter, he nodded in acknowledgement.

The final piece of metal clanged into place to create a huge circular structure with segmented bronze plates making up the back. The Minotaur was meticulously tweaking and changing small details with incredible dexterity for a large machine. With a final adjustment to a seemingly innate looking copper rod the very centre of the circular construct ignited with a brilliant blue white light and it slowly spread until it reached the circumference of the circle.

'A Vex time gate' said Vandernoss. More dregs and the odd vandal made their way into the viscinity of the fireteam, they all drew their weapons and began dispatching the fallen. Antosa began shouting between shots.

'I NEED TO KNOW!' The shrieks and screams grew louder behind them and the first fallen began to appear from deeper in the cave. Huge numbers of dregs and vandals scrambling over each other, the cave walls and ceiling shimmered with cloaking technology as more crawled in trying to surprise the group.

'There is no time, enter the gate and we will have all the time in the universe to talk about it' The minotaur motioned them to the blinding gate.

'We will surely perish if we stay here, I have access by an axis mind. Let me show you everything I've told you about.' A Vandal dropped from the ceiling and de-cloaked in front of the Vex brandishing quad arc blades, one in each hand. It screeched a terrible noise at the minotaur and jumped to attack only to land headless in a crumpled heap at the feet of the machine. The titan quickly turned and killed another three dregs.

'Don't do it woman! It's a goddamn trap!' shouted Defryn after burying a knife into the forehead of a fallen captain.

'You have been deceived and lied to by your leaders. They will kill you now that you know the truth. There is nothing for you here now' dead fallen bodies were piling up, with more fallen climbing over their dead brethren to get to the guardians. Antosa lowered her weapon and let it slip from her fingers. She watched it drop in slow motion as it fell to the ground, she then removed her helmet. Her long-multi braided blonde hair fanned out, small metallic trinkets and charms clinked as they bounced off her armour plating, Shr brushed a particulary thick braid from acros her face, throwing it over her shoulder to reveal a Nordic tattoo which ran down the shaved right hand side of her head took a deep breath of the sulphuric air in the cave. Antosa let her mind flow freely and void of the chaos that surrounded her in the cave. She heard only the Minotaur.

'It is time'

The screen flickered and barred for a second before coming back with the titans face filling the monitor as she looked into her helmet.

'You bastards, I will see you in hell' with that the helmet was discarded to the ground. The monitor screen fizzed and flickered as it continued to play the recorded footage. The Vex gate was fully visible at an angle, the bright blue light playing havoc with the recordings exposure. The Exo ran into the blue light, dragging with her the struggling hunter and then followed by the towering Minotaur they all vanished in a flash of light. The titan turned away, her long braided hair flicking out before resting across her fur lined armour as she strode into the Vex gate without looking back. Antosa disappeared into the Vex gate with a flash and the gate deactivated. The shrieking battle cries from the approaching fallen horde where growing gradually blurring into white noise, distorting the image on the monitor. The first dregs and vandals arrived, ripping pieces from the gate. More showed up by the second and slowly they ripped the gate apart in a frenzy of arc blades and plasma torches, the noise was deafening. Gradually the Vex gate was either obscured by insectoid feet or had been completely destroyed; it was hard to tell on the ever distorting image.

Suddenly the image span around, the environment rolled over and over with sickening speed as the helmet was kicked around by thousands of scavenger feet. The deafening shrieks were cut through with a deep roar and fevered fallen speak; the helmet was drawn slowly from the ground. A long and muscular pair of chain mailed legs came into view, already the helmet had been lifted high above the dregs and vandals until the screen was filled by a badly welded mask with an unknown fallen symbol etched on the left cheek, multiple glowing eyelets roamed the helmet before it roared once more, there was a crunching sound and with it that feed died. Nothing but static remained.

'That's all of it' Ikora said, she shifted her weight nervously. The titan vanguard was still staring at the monitor watching the static race around the screen erratically. Then finally he spoke.

'Where was it found?' He gently picked up Antosa's crushed helmet, glowing wires protruding from the cracked visor running to the computer terminal in front of them. He turned it over in his hands; shards of reinforced glass fell to the floor.

'A fireteam found it in unchartered territory within the citadel on Venus, they tracked a fallen scavenger party deep into a Vex stronghold, there were so many dug in down there. They manged to recover this and a hand-cannon before they were nearly killed'

'Tracked? Zavala questioned.

'It was a team of hunters. They have been out in the Ishtar region for almost eleven months straight.' Cayde was stood close by and slowly made his way out of the room.

'CAYDE!' very little phased the hunter vanguard, but right now he knew better than to ignore Zavala.

'Where is your team now?' Demanded the aging titan.

'Well they slept in the city last night before they handed over that helmet and gun, I would say they are probably eating about now there's a good spicy rib house down by the…'

'Cayde! I suggest you answer the question' Said Ikora, stoic as ever. He looked at the helmet still in Zavalas hands and sighed with submission.

'Look Zavala, I don't know where they are and getting hold of them will be tough enough! Those guys are feral! Living out in the wild eating rabbits and berries and things! Not washing, no clean clothes! Dirty armour! Urgh! And only returning to the city if it's absolutely necessary and even then they tend to do it with their invisibility tech on. You would never know they were there unless they wanted it. Bottom line is you will not find a hunter who doesn't want to be found. Period.' Cayde took his knife out and casually flicked it in the air and caught it half a dozen times trying to act nonchalant.

In a fit of rage Zavala smashed the helmet over the computer terminal reducing them moth to their component parts in seconds. Ikora remained unmoved with her arms folded behind her back, however Cayde physically jumped at Zavalas out of character loss of temper, dropping his knife.

'You find them today; we cannot have the truth behind the Vex going public'

'Hey can you hear me behind that armour? They are gone!' Zavala slammed his fists on a wall map cracking the smart-glass, sending the image out of focus.

'FIND THEM! Or you will write their eulogies' the hunter and Warlock briefly exchanged glances as they left the titan alone with his thoughts.

Zavala was still holding remnants of Antosa's helmet in his hand; he placed its shattered remains back down on the console and pressed the release catches on a storage container. There was a hiss as the containers seal broke. Black ether seeped from the gap, spilling over the edge like liquid nitrogen. The titan covered his mouth and threw back the lid whilst wafting away the noxious fumes. He looked into the dark space of the box and gently lifted out the hand cannon that Antosa had abandoned right before she committed herself to the Vex gate. Zavala inspected it closely, recognising the distinctive burnished steel of the barrel and hammer. Vex milk had spattered over the weapon, dried on flaky crusts.

The titan held the gun to his head and shed a tear. He absent mindedly pushed buttons on his table and a hidden drawer released, he placed the weapon away sealing the drawer and data wiped his console. Wiping the tear from his cheek, sorrow submitted to rage. He activated his personal communicator.

'Petra, I need to convene with the nine.

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