Telysa closed her eyes and breathed.
Slowly draw the air in. Up here in the Martian highlands, the air was thin. Desperate, almost. Hold the breath. Let it sink into her lungs. Now, picture the target. A gray stump of wood with several nicks cut in to it. Release the breath, and with it, movement.
Telysa whipped into action, spinning around and straightening her arm. She finished the motion with a flick of her wrist, imparting the momentum into the knife. It flashed across the clearing and clattered off the stump, then dropped to the sand with a thud.
Missed. Again.
She stared at the fallen knife. It almost seemed she was getting worse as she practiced. The first few times, she had at least managed to stick the blade in the wood, even if she had missed the center of the stump. Now she couldn't even balance the knife properly.
She sighed and rolled her shoulder in the socket. She could feel something catching in the joint. Azul had repaired the wound as best he could, but just like a normal injury, they hadn't set it right, and now it had healed with a hidden flaw. In order to truly fix the shoulder, she would have to die so Azul could rebuild her body from scratch.
But with the Traveler in Cabal hands, dying was a luxury they could no longer afford. She would, just like a normal person, live with the injury.
Telysa crossed the small circle of orange sand and retrieved her knife. The circular enclosure she'd dubbed the hideout's training ring was the hollowed out stump of an ancient tree. The ancient plant had rotted away after the Collapse, leaving the stump. Now countless saplings had sprouted from between the desiccated wood, casting the ring in dappled shadow.
She squeezed through a narrow gap between two sections of the stump, the wood rough against her bare shoulders. She'd been eager to get out of her armor after spending the morning crawling through claustrophobic tunnels. Now she wore a simple tank-top and shorts for exercise.
The world outside was vibrant green forest. Mars had faded after the Traveler retreated, but it was far from dead. Life, ever tenacious, adapted to the drying climate, becoming hardy and scrub-like. Now, in sheltered places like this valley, it flourished.
Telysa strolled between the gnarled acacias and spindly gum trees. They clung to the weathered stumps of the ancient trees. A new generation anchored to the generation past.
Her path led her to the cluster of stone and metal ruins at the head of the valley. Several freestanding pillars were scattered between the trees. Behind them was a broad façade cut into the valley wall. She stepped up the uneven steps in the middle and entered the low vestibule.
Her eyes took a moment to adjust from the bright sunlight to the pale gloom. The Vex structure extended for a couple kilometers into the mountainside, but Telysa had only really used the front two rooms. Yes, these particular ruins were abandoned, but that didn't mean Telysa wanted to go plumbing their bowels.
She noted that Linvana had finished organizing the room. Over the years, Telysa had stocked the hideout with whatever spare supplies she could afford to leave behind. The result was a random collection of weapon parts, extra armor, stale food, and the occasional centurion's helmet. Not really suitable for a proper hideout, but it was all they had.
Linvana had brought up the supplies from the back room, and arranged all the crates along the left hand wall. The right side of the room was the improvised living space, with a red tarp hung on the wall, a double cot pushed in the corner, and a folding table with two metal chairs.
Telysa sat down in a chair with a groan. While it felt good to be moving again, her body was still sore from getting kicked off the Cabal cruiser.
There was a lantern and a canteen on the table. Telysa lit the lantern and took a long drink from the canteen.
After hiking down the valley to broadcast a message via their ship's high-gain sensors, Linvana had returned to the hideout and taken it upon herself to make a detailed map of the ruins. Cartography was traditionally a Hunter's roll, but half of Telysa's original map was labeled "Vexy stuff." So she was only slightly annoyed Lin decided they needed a better one.
Twenty-four hours. That was how long they had agreed to wait after sending the transmission. When the time was up, they would return to Earth and start searching for survivors. Hopefully by then, at least a few of their teammates will have shown up. If not, well, they would have to assume the worst.
Telysa set the canteen down and slumped forward, chin resting on her folded hands. With her exercise routine complete, she needed something to do. Something to distract herself from worrying.
Her broken auto-rifle was still sitting on the edge of the table, where she'd dumped it the day before. She picked up one of the pieces. It had been a beautiful weapon, with a silvery bayonet and white bodywork she engraved with stars and planets. Auto-rifles never really had been her style, but this one was a gift from Linvana. That made it worth more to her than all the glimmer in the system. And now it was snapped in half, bodywork torn free and the frame in pieces.
Even with the proper tools, she wouldn't be able to fix it. But here, in a remote Martian canyon, it was hopeless. They needed weapons to fight the Cabal. She had a few parts stashed here, and some plasteel too. And with Azul conscious again, he could fabricate new parts from her glimmer. She wouldn't be able to fix her rifle, but maybe she could whip up something.
Linvana held the lantern high, revealing a boxy metal room that was actually pretty boring.
The harsh yellow glare of the sodium lantern glinted off the metal panels that made up that made up most of the floor and walls. The chamber was narrow and rectangular in shape, with a high ceiling. A narrow ledge jutted from one wall, forming an elevated walkway of sorts.
Linvana set the lantern down and scratched a note on the map in her hands, describing the room. "Tall, long and narrow." The rest of the sheet was covered with a spiderweb of lines and similar notations. Polaris had generated the base diagram using acoustic signals to map the complex of corridors and chambers. Now Linvana walked from room to room, recording any features of note.
She picked up the lantern and stepped back into the main corridor. Exploring the complex had gone a lot faster than she anticipated - she only had a single chamber left. It helped that most of the rooms were pretty unremarkable. There were a few with metal contraptions on the walls or ceilings, and even one with a pool of perfectly smooth water in the corner. Most of the structure was inactive, like a frame on standby. Like it was waiting for something.
She turned right down the corridor, traversing deeper into the mountain. The structure cut horizontally into the mountainside. The entrance penetrated the low wall of the forested dell. Some of the chambers in the front section overlooked the next valley over, which didn't share the water and life of its neighbor. From there, the corridor plunged straight back into the mountain. By Polaris's measurements, they were nearly a kilometer back.
The corridor descended a short flight of uneven steps. Why did Vex structures need stairs? Couldn't they just teleport everywhere?
A few places were lit with glowing filaments, a few of them white, but most of them orange. They created warm islands of light, separated by long stretches of shadows. The lantern cast fractured shadows across the layers of jutting metal that made up the walls and ceiling. Her boots clopped softly on the metal floor, the only sound in the vast silence.
The passageway finally opened into a sizable chamber. It wasn't big by Vex standards, but it was the largest she'd seen in the complex, about forty meters across. The yellow light of the lantern barely penetrated the gloom, casting gray shadows in the corners. Some sections of the floor were elevated, others were recessed. She stood in the hall's only entrance. It was empty, save for an inactive warp gate near the far wall.
Well the gate was different. It was the only one she'd seen in the complex. But, like so much of this place, it was darkened and dead. Vex ruins were supposed to be shifting, disturbing places. Where was uneasy atmosphere, the disturbing sense of slipping through something just beyond your perception as you walked?
To think she'd consider a perfectly normal complex of tunnels and caves to be an unusual find.
She noted the gate on her map, turned around, and started walking back up the corridor.
"Polaris," she said, holding up the map. "Digitize this, and combine it with your scan of the ruins."
Her Ghost appeared over her shoulder and scanned the folded sheet of paper. "And done," he said, "Annotations catalogued and cross-referenced."
"Did we miss anything?"
"According to my acoustic scans, no, that's everything."
"Right." She continued waking. The corridor wasn't perfectly straight. It would occasionally rise or descend a few feet, or shift to the left or right for some inscrutable reason. She passed numerous openings as she walked, short passages connecting to the various rooms.
Eventually, the corridor deposited her in an open courtyard. The rectangular space was cut straight from the mountainside. Three sides were bordered by covered walkways, while the fourth overlooked a stony ravine. Clumps of grass grew in the dusty ground, and a spindly tree had rooted the corner. The sun was low in the gray sky, letting scattered stars shine though as the afternoon faded into evening.
Three entrances, including the one she'd just come through, led away from the courtyard. Linvana turned off her lantern and set off down the rightmost one. The front part of the ruins weren't buried as deep in the mountainside, and were exposed to the air in some places. That let dim gray light illuminate the corridors.
Telysa was seated at the table in the front room. Several open supply crates sat next to her, and the table was covered with weapon parts. The Hunter looked up as Linvana approached.
"Ah, there you are," she said, standing up. She grabbed a tape measure and the frame of Linvana's Khvostov rifle.
Telysa handed the black rifle to Linvana. The weapon itself still worked, but it was missing its stock, which had broken during the attack.
"What are you doing?" Linvana asked, holding up the rifle.
"I am making you a new stock," Telysa explained, "We need as many working weapons as we can get. Now, hold the rifle as though you're aiming down the sights."
Linvana complied, raising the rifle and leaning in to peer down the scope. It was quite difficult without the stock to brace against her shoulder.
Telysa stepped around Linvana and held up the tape measure. She muttered to herself as she noted the distance from the end of the frame to Linvana's shoulder.
"Well," she said, stepping back, "I won't exactly be a perfect fit, but you won't have to fire from the hip anymore."
"Thanks," Linvana said. Telysa sat back down at the table and picked up a lump of weathered wood lying on the floor. She began making marks on it, presumably to carve the new stock.
Linvana rounded the table and examined the mess of parts laid out on top of it. There were quite a few scopes, magazines, and barrels, but not much else. "What are you working on?" she asked.
Telysa sighed. "Not much. I never left any good weapons here. Just a bunch of mismatched parts, and these -" She pointed at a pair of battered looking side-arms on the corner. "With Azul's help, I might be able to get this working -" She held up a fieldstripped submachine-gun. "- but I'll to take apart one of the side-arms to do that."
"Can I help?" Linvana asked.
Tel shook ruefully shook her head. "No offense, but you're not really a gunsmith."
Linvana smiled. "You just had to remind me."
Telysa chuckled and went back to work, whittling the block of wood with her knife. Linvana wandered away and started pacing. Now that she'd finished the map, her mind started to wander again. Why hadn't any of their teammates showed up yet? Would any of them show up? They wouldn't be able to hear any replies, with all the Vex interference over the region, so it was a waiting game.
And on top of that, they had no idea what was going on beyond this little valley. What was the situation on Earth? How many managed to escape the City? Was the City even still standing? Where were the Vanguard? How many Guardians were dead now, without the Light? Was there anyone left to fight back?
Gah! She needed a distraction. Organizing the hideout's meager supplies had taken barely an hour. Mapping the place had taken three. What else was there to do? Start a journal maybe? But what would she write with? The hideout had neither pen nor paper.
She paused in front of the cot. The cracked and scratched yellow plates of her armor were stacked at the foot of the bed. By the looks of it, Telysa had already patched them up with plasteel scraps, though the suit was still in terrible condition. A dark red scarf sat folded on top of the stack. Linvana picked it up and unfolded it.
One end of the scarf was ragged and frayed, torn during the fall from Ghaul's ship. The other end was embroidered with silver thread, depicting a stately serpent and a majestic lion, wrapped in each other's embrace. A Hunter and a Titan, together in love…
A single tear leaked out of her eye. The scarf, it was a gift from Zavala for their wedding, not two months ago. Finally, the realization she'd been trying to avoid for the last two days sank in. They'd lost it all. The balcony where they'd gotten married. Gone. The garden where she proposed to Tel. Gone. The spicy ramen shop where'd they'd had their first real date. Gone. The dingy little bar in the Bauxite District, where Fireteam Dawnstar officially formed. The Tower. Gone.
The Last Safe City, the sole bastion of humanity, and the only home she'd ever known.
Gone.
Everything was gone.
Waves of emotion crashed over her. She sank onto the bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. The people of the City, they'd trusted the Guardians to protect them. They failed. And she'd run away. Linvana the Titan was not a hero. She'd always hated when people called her that, because deep down, she knew the truth. She was a coward.
Something moved beside her. Telysa sat down on the bed and wrapped her arms around her waist. Linvana squeezed her eyes shut and started sobbing in her embrace, until it was all gone, and she felt empty and dry inside.
"Hey," Tel said when she'd finally finished. She reached up with one hand and brushed a tear off of Linvana's cheek. "They'll show up. I promise."
Linvana sniffled. "It's - it's not just them Tel. It's everyone. The City…"
"It's not as bad as it looked," Telysa tried to reassure her. Linvana started shaking her head, but Telysa gripped her chin and stared at her with her piercing blue eyes. "Listen. The Cabal, they didn't attack the City directly. They focused their forces on the Tower, and we stalled them for nearly three hours. That was enough time for Dead Orbit to get most of the civilians out."
"How do you know?" Linvana accused, "It's not like we stuck around to help. We ran away, tails between our legs."
"I have to believe it Lin," Telysa said, her expression hardening, "Because if I don't, I won't be able to keep going. We escaped. If we could get out of the City, that means everyone else did too."
Something calm and quiet settled in her chest. Not quite hope, but not quite despair either. Acceptance, or at least the beginning of it.
Linvana sighed and stared at the floor. "I guess you're right. We can assume things without knowing, for better or for worse. Thanks."
She kissed Telysa, then stood up and crossed to one of the crates. After a few moments of rummaging around, she found a fieldweave repair kit. She selected a thick needle and thread, then started walking towards the entrance.
"I'm going to get some fresh air," she called over her shoulder.
"Do you want me to sit with you?" Telysa asked, hovering beside the table.
"No," Linvana replied, "You can keep working. I'm fine. I promise." She flashed a meek smile at the Hunter.
Telysa nodded and started carving the stock again.
The sun shone low through the trees of the valley, casting dappled patterns of light and shadow across the front of the ruins. Linvana sat down on the steps. The faint breeze ruffled her hair and dried the tears on her cheeks.
She set the scarf and the thread down beside her, then unbuckled her mark and held it up.
Marks didn't just identify a Titan's order, they were part of their identity. A way of telling each their own personal story. She'd had this Sunbreaker's Mark for nearly two years now, as long as she'd held the flame in her heart. The color was starting to fade in some places, and the bottom edge was threadbare.
Who did this mark belong to now? She wasn't a Sunbreaker anymore, but it represented more than just her powers. When she took up the Hammer of Sol, she'd also taken an oath, to keep the flame and protect humanity for as long as she lived. Well the Light was gone now, locked away by the Cabal's cage. But if there were any survivors out there, she still had work to do.
She picked up the tattered scarf. It was about three feet long. She folded it length wise, then took the needle and started sewing it to the belt, right behind the Sunbreaker's Mark. For better or for worse, she wasn't just a warrior anymore. She'd sworn an oath to Telysa too. Maybe she needed to remember that more often.
When she finished, she stood up and fastened the belt around her waist. The ends of the scarf hung behind the Sunbreaker's Mark like tassels. It reminded her of the mark of her original Titan order, the Pilgrim Guard. The style was one rarely seen these days.
A noise came from the forest. Footsteps on the gritty ground. Linvana dropped her hand to the knife in her boot.
A woman stepped from between the trees. She wore a knee-length olive green coat, and had a black and gold Vex rifle slung across her shoulder. Her bronze skin glinted against the setting sun.
"So…" Elva said, "You're alive. Nice place you have here."
Linvana stared at the Warlock for a few shocked moments, then charged across the clearing and embraced Elva. She cried, but this time, it was for joy.
Telysa looked up as Linvana entered the room, trailed by a Warlock in a green coat. She dropped the half-built submachine-gun on the table and rubbed her temples.
"Well if nothing else," Telysa declared, "We can now beat Ghual to death with a dissertation on the non-linear topology of non-baryonic confluences."
Elva drew up short and swore. "You were drunk and half asleep when I read that thing to you. How the hell do you remember the title?"
Telysa stood up and stepped in front of Elva. "You're probably the most memorably boring person I've ever met. And I'm so happy to see you alive and unflatten."
Elva smiled, and they clasped arms. "Same to you Tel. Though really, it's more surprising that you two are alive, since I'm a robot, and you're squishy."
"Well I've had worse," Telysa said, rolling her shoulder. "Getting kicked off a Cabal cruiser certainly is an experience."
"Yeah…" Elva agreed, looking around the room. "Speaking of which, did you girls hit your heads when you landed? Because making camp in Vex ruins isn't something I'd recommend for your personal posterity."
"It's abandoned," Telysa explained, "Just like Bastion and the Timekeeper. And, as you might have noticed, it's cloaked from above. Which is quite helpful when you're trying to hide from an armada of angry space turtles.
"I was wondering about that," Elva said, "The Vex concealed this valley, but they didn't go so far as to isolate it from the timeline. It's almost like they're trying to protect it without drawing attention to the fact they're actually interested in it."
"We actually came to a similar conclusion," Linvana said, "And we think we know why they've hidden this valley. There's a cave system further up the gorge with a shard of the Traveler's shell."
Elva started. "A shard of the Traveler?"
"A small one," Linvana explained, "Like the one Damien found in the Chamber of Night."
"You do realize how bad that is?" Elva said, "Even a small shard is still connected to the Traveler and the Light. If the Vex are in possession of one, they could use it to kill the Traveler without setting foot on Earth."
"And yet they haven't," Telysa noted, "The Vex in this valley, they're kind of strange. They're not like the other Martian tin-cans."
Elva perked up. "Strange how? The Virgo Prohibition is already an anomaly among the Vex."
"It's…difficult to explain," Linvana said. "You'll see for yourself when we go to the shard. It's the reason we chose here as the rendezvous point. There's traces of Light left in the shard. Not enough to resurrect you or get your powers back, but you'll have full transmat and superluminal communications."
Elva glanced back at the door, where the light was rapidly fading now that the sun had set. "Is it possible to go tonight?" she asked, "Now you've got me worried about these strange Vex, and I'd rather see for myself."
"Well, I guess if we go now," Linvana said, "we could get back before it gets too late. But…"
She met Telysa's gaze, and she immediately knew what the Titan was thinking.
"I'll stay here," Telysa volunteered, "keep watch in case anyone else shows up."
"You sure?" Linvana asked, "You're more familiar with the area than I am."
Telysa shrugged. "I've only been in those caves twice. You know about as much as I do. Besides, I would rather not have to crawl through that place twice in one day."
"Okay," Linvana acceded, "Elva, do you need anything?" The Warlock shook her head. "Right. Let me grab my pack, and we'll get going."
They were gone a few moments later, climbing up the cliff above the pond, on the rope they had left there for that purpose. Telysa watched them disappear down the ravine in the deepening twilight pall. She glanced back at the western sky, where a faint shimmering arc of light rose from the horizon. Daylight faded quickly from the thin Martian air, but the dust high in the atmosphere stayed luminous for hours after sundown.
She stepped back into the front room and slipped on her fieldweave. The formfitting bodysuit was the base of any Guardian's outfit. Layers of advanced textiles protected the wearer from almost anything. Extreme heat, extreme cold, caustic Venusian rains, blistering Martian sandstorms, and brief stints in hard vacuum. It even had built in chest support, though in her case, there wasn't much to do in that department.
Right now though, she just wanted to ward off the evening chill.
Telysa slumped back down in her chair beside the table. The clutter of parts had spilled onto the lid of an empty crate, but still none of it was enough to build a weapon. The only thing she had enough parts for was the submachine-gun, but she had to decide if it was worth dismantling one of the side-arms
She stifled a yawn and cradled her head in her hands. She hadn't prepared for this place to be anything more than a waystop. It was a stash, a place she offloaded extra junk she couldn't fit on her ship. It simply didn't have the resources needed to build an arsenal or plan a counteroffensive against a Cabal armada.
Yet it was all they had. The Tower was gone, the City was lost to them. Zavala had sent out an order to evacuate the planet, then gone silent. Their plan comprised of sending an encrypted message to their fireteam, see if anyone answered, then fly back to Earth to search for survivors, and hope they weren't blown out of the sky along the way.
Yeah. Great plan.
They really had it easy before, didn't they? Go in the direction the Vanguard pointed them, shoot some big nasty, collect the reward for their bounty. Even when a Hive god-king invaded the system, the Vanguard was there, coordinating war efforts across the system from the security of their home.
And now here they were, scattered and afraid, without anyone to tell them what to do. Guardians liked to pretend they were independent and all, lone wolves prowling the wilds, but really, they were useless without a guiding hand. How many Guardians out there had truly taken initiative? She certainly hadn't. Even back when she tried the whole lone-wolf thing herself, she had just been going where the bounties told her. She wasn't a warrior; she was a weapon, something to be pointed at a target.
Things didn't even change when she met Linvana and joined her fireteam. Linvana was their captain, but she was just as uncertain as Telysa was. She'd seen it in her eyes. Linvana put on a brave face for the world, but she was a mess underneath that mask. Yeah, Linvana was great at planning ops, but actual leadership? Telysa knew her wife well enough to know when she was scared, and making decisions people's lives might depend on terrified her.
Everything was just one giant mess. That nagging fear welled up in the pit of her stomach. The lurking worry that everything was hopeless, and they and all of humanity were doomed. What would they really do, in the face of the enemies they fought? Scores of Fallen, legions of Cabal, hordes of Hive, endless ranks of Vex. They barely survived Oryx. And then Ghaul finished what the Taken King had started.
No! She stopped herself. She would not go down that road again. She would not give up hope, not until they were all dead. She had promised that to Linvana. For her sake, she'd keep it together. Truth be told, she would do anything for Lin.
She rested her chin on her arms, her eyelids heavy. They would figure out a way through this. One step at a time. Start by finishing the submachine-gun. Then she would have Azul search for something he could convert to glimmer. Maybe he could synthesize a new weapon frame. And after that, sleep. Her dreams of the Traveler and the deep, deep water had kept her lying awake last night. She needed a good sleep. She was already so very, very tired…
"I'm trying to come up with a good pun, but now your mouth is open, and you're starting to drool."
Telysa jumped awake, banging her knees on the table. Before she could even try to think, reflexes had her hand-cannon in her hands and trained at the source of the voice.
Dellander, leaning in the entrance, raised his hands in mock-surrender.
"Shit." Telysa lowered her hand-cannon and put it on the table. "How long have you been standing there?"
"About five minutes." Dellander pushed off the wall and crossed the room. "As happy as I am to see you alive and well and snoring, where's the Captain? I have some intel she'll want to hear about."
"She's further up the valley," Telysa said, rubbing her forehead. How long had she been asleep? "She's with Elva, exploring some creepy Vex caves."
"This late at night? Must be one hell of a party."
"It's a long story."
Dellander smiled. "Trust me. Mine's longer."
Elva stepped out of the tunnel and leaned against the rough stone, her head reeling from an overload of information. Focus, she told her self, one step at a time. Lay out the facts, then draw your conclusions. Overhead, thousands of stars twinkled in the cold night sky.
"I have been studying the Vex my entire life," she declared, "And that was the strangest thing I've seen by several factors of magnitude."
"The whole time I was worried they were going to vaporize us," Linvana said, emerging from the tunnel. She glanced over her shoulder and shuddered. "I kinda still am."
Elva took a deep breath and organized her thoughts. It had to be part of a pattern. Eveything had a reason. You just had to look for it.
"The last time I saw the Vex show anything but aggression towards Guardians," she said, "I was in the Vault of Glass, and they were letting me enter so I could purge the Vault of Taken. What those Vex just did was something else entirely. They deferred to us. They…knelt to us?"
"You're the expert on the Vex," Linvana said. She started down the ravine, yellow sodium lantern bobbing in her hand. "I was hoping you could tell us what was going on."
"I'm not sure," Elva said, following Linvana. "You said they did the same thing the last time?"
"Yep. Tel says they did it when she discovered the place too." Linvana hesitated. "As we were leaving, they also gave us a crystal."
"A crystal?" Elva asked, "Can I see it?"
"Yeah." Linvana handed the lantern to Elva and shrugged off her backpack. She fished out a triangular crystal shard as they walked. Elva traded the lantern back for the crystal.
It was jagged and triangular, a little bit larger than her hand, and roughly the same shape. The smoky color was stained pale blue, whereas the other crystal in her pocket was burnt orange. The orange crystal came from the Incendiary Revision, a programing collective on Mercury that had been tasked to master the Solar force.
The Vex back in the cave did look like they could be their Arc force counterparts. Blue and silver armor, with similar conduits across their bodies.
But why would they just give Linvana and Telysa the crystal? And why would they hide a shard of the Traveler, yet let Guardians freely approach?
"You said Telysa's Ghost called these ruins a nexus of some sort," Elva said, "Did he say what kind of nexus?"
"She called it a 'fractured nexus.' Some sort of vertical cross-something," Linvana replied.
Elva nodded. "It's a fractal nexus. A vertical cross-roads. We think they're a type of central node in the greater Vex networks. Erytheia, how are you feeling?"
"Better," her Ghost said softly. "We're not at full power, but its like we've taken the earplugs out. I can feel the world around me again."
"Good. Do you think you could search Osiris's notes?" Elva asked, "See what he has on fractal nexuses?"
"Sure," Erythia said, "Give me a minute."
Linvana glanced back at Elva. "Osiris? What does he have to do with this?"
"When I woke up in the rubble and couldn't find you and Tel, I ran to my ship and fled to Mercury," Elva admitted, "It was…the only place I could think to go. I went to the Lighthouse. He left a file of notes on Vex technology for me, embedded in a conflux."
"Every time I hear Osiris's name, there's some sort of trouble brewing," Linvana muttered. She frowned. "You said he left the notes for you?"
"I…" she began.
I'm a Vex construct, built as an experiment to try to understand the Light, then given life and consciousness by my Ghost. Now I'm not sure if I'm a Guardian or a Vex puppet, but Osiris has been secretly watching me my entire life.
Was she ready to tell Linvana her secret? Was she ready to tell anyone?
"I don't know," Elva lied, "I guess he just left his notes as a backup or something."
"Huh. Well, wherever you got them from, I won't complain if they help."
"Maybe," Elva agreed.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The only sounds were the bubbling stream and the crunch of gravel under their boots.
"I found something," Erytheia chirped, "The notes describe fractal nexuses as lynchpins that connect sections of the greater Vex networks. Routing points for the gate systems, essentially. Osiris theorizes that removing one would create an independent sub-network that acts as a limited copy of the main network. Doing so would isolate the nexus, but leave the greater network largely unaffected."
"That must be what happened here," Elva mused as they walked. "The ruins down below look abandoned because only a minimal amount of their computational power is being used to support this network."
But why? By removing the nexus, the Vex were essentially hiding the shard of the Traveler from themselves. Why would they deliberately hide such a powerful advantage over the Light?
They continued walking, turning a corner and carefully climbing down a place where the ravine floor dropped a few feet.
"So those Vex back there," Linvana said after a while, "They're the counterpart to the Incendiary Revision we fought on Mercury, right?"
Elva nodded.
"I'm guessing their job is to study the Arc," Linvana continued, "But the Virgo Prohibition already harnesses the Arc storms. Why would they another collective to fix a problem they already solved?"
"They're searching for complete control," Elva said, "Remember how the Incendiary Mind drained our Soar energy? They want to accomplish the same thing here. They don't want to just channel the Arc energy, they want to be the Arc energy."
"Huh," Linvana grunted, "I wonder how the shard helps them then."
Elva froze. "What did you just say?"
"The shard," Linvana said, stopping in front of Elva. "The Vex were guarding it. They must think it's useful to them somehow."
"Linvana," Elva said, "I think you might be on to something."
"Am I?" she replied, "I'm more accustomed to dissecting Vex bodies than dissecting their motives." She started walking again. Elva scrambled to catch up.
Linvana's words tugged at something in the back of Elva's mind as they rounded a bend in the ravine. The Vex in the cave valued the shard of the Traveler. She could almost put her finger on why…
"The Virgo Prohibition must have hit a road-block," Elva thought aloud, "so this Arc Revision, they started looking for other ways to control the Arc. And the shard is one of them…"
In front of her, Linvana held up her hand, silencing Elva. Distant voices drifted up the ravine. Linvana switched off the lamp, and they rounded the last bend. The ravine opened up in front of them, revealing a darkened canopy of desert trees. Elva hadn't realized they were close to the valley.
Warm yellow light spilt out of the Vex ruins to the right. The voices came from within.
"There's someone down there," Linvana said quietly.
"It could just be Telysa and her Ghost," Elva whispered back.
"Let's go find out," Linvana said. She grabbed the rope that was tied to jutting rock and rappelled backwards down the cliff. She hit the bottom with a crunch.
Elva followed, stumbling a bit as she hit the ground. Traveler, not being able to glide was awkward.
Linvana strode towards the ruins. She didn't seem worried, though Elva drew the Mythoclast anyways. Couldn't hurt to be too careful.
Inside, Telysa was still seated at the table. Across from her sat a second Hunter, with wavy blonde hair and an ochre yellow cloak.
"…not a bubble, but an actual, solid shield," he was saying, "Covered with patterns and about this wide -" He up his hands and stopped as he noticed Elva and Linvana standing in the door.
"And they're back!" he said with a smile. He stood clasped Linvana's arm. "Captain."
"Dellander," Linvana said, "Good to see you alive and well."
"Same to you," Dellander replied. He glanced over the Titan's shoulder. "Elva. Long time no see. Been what…two months since Mercury?"
Elva smiled sheepishly. "I uh, sorry. Haven't had much time outside of my studies.
"Huh. Well, I guess it just took another crisis to throw us all together again. Nothings changed there." he said. He turned back to Linvana. "Captain. I'm not sure what your plans are, but I there's a place I learned of back on Earth that could use our help."
"We can discuss it in the morning," Linvana insisted, "You look exhausted. There's plenty of room in these ruins. Find a spot and get some sleep. Hopefully by tomorrow, we'll have heard from the others."
"Right. I guess that means I need to run back to my ship to grab my cot," Dellander noted, "'cause I am not sleeping on this hard metal."
"I'll come with you," Elva added, "I need a bed too, and I want to grab some tools."
Half an hour later, Elva leaned back on a metal folding chair as Erytheia scanned the orange and blue crystals.
Linvana was right when she said there was plenty of space in the ruins. There were literally dozens of chambers of all shapes and sizes. The one she had chosen was square, with a low ceiling. An elevated platform in the back right corner was a good spot for her bed. A grid of orange particle fields glowed in the left wall, filling the space with warm ambiance. The rest of the back wall was spanned by a low metal shelf that made the perfect workbench. The bench held the crystals as Erytheia probed them with stabs of blue light.
"Well," Erytheia said as she finished, "Chemically, they're identical. The crystal itself is di-hadium oxide, the same stuff the Hive use in their rituals, minus the impurities. The difference in color stems from differences in the quantum state of the hadium atoms. The orange one reacts strongly to infrared radiation, and the blue one is electrically conductive along two of its axes."
"Solar and Arc," Elva muttered, "The Vex tuned the crystals to two of the elements." She frowned. "You said this is Hive crystal?"
"It's a perfect match," Erytheia confirmed, "but we knew that already."
"I know, but there's something we're not seeing here. Why would the Vex need special crystals to control the elements? The Vex aren't paracausal, and without paracausal phenomena, the 'elements' are just ordinary physics to them. So why copy the Hive?"
"This isn't the first connection between the Hive and the Vex," Erytheia noted, "The Hive history book Damien found on the Dreadnaught claims the Vex's omnicidal campaign is an emulation of the Hive's sword logic. Something about ensuring their survival by being the only life forms left in the universe."
Elva stood up and started pacing. The connection between Sword Logic and the Vex's goals was tenuous at best. She still had numerous debates with other Vex scholars on the subject. There was something else though…
She snapped her fingers. "The Sol Divisive."
"What about them?" Erytheia asked.
"They worshiped the heart of the Black Garden. Religiously, with fanatical devotion. They could only have learned that from the Hive. The Incendiary Revision, and the Vex in those caves, they must share a common root with the Sol Divisive, because they both use Hive-based behaviors."
"That makes sense," Erytheia said.
"Maybe," Elva muttered, stroking her chin. "If the Vex here are emulating the Hive, then why would they protect the shard of the Traveler? They haven't used it to destroy the Traveler, like the Hive on the Moon tried to. What else could they gain from it?"
"Linvana thought the Inductive Revision hid the shard because it was useful to them somehow. And you agreed with her."
"Well," Elva said, "the Inductive Revision's goal is to presumably master the Arc force. Without paracausal interference, the Arc force is just electric charges and fields, which they can already manipulate. Maybe they thought the Light could help them master it in a new way? But I don't see how it would help, since they can't model paracausal phenomena…"
It clicked like a light bulb turning on.
"The Inductive Revision," she blurted, "They're worshiping the Traveler!"
Erytheia stared at Elva.
"What?" she said flatly.
"It makes sense," Elva insisted, dashing back to the bench and picking up the orange crystal. "The Sol Divisive, have a directive to worship paracausal entities, and the Revisions were branched off of the Divisive. They were tasked with mastering the three paracausal elements, but with the Arc force, they hit a wall. So, they took inspiration from the beings that so deftly use the Arc to destroy their ranks, and turned to the Light!"
She set the crystal down. "But something went wrong. Instead of studying the Light, they started worshiping it. That is why they didn't attack us, and that's why they disconnected this nexus from the networks. They couldn't let the other Vex discover what they'd become, so they hid themselves."
"…Okay," Erythia said, "I guess it's technically plausible, but…the Taken are also paracausal, but you don't see the Vex trying to worshiping them. There has to be more to it than just a happy accident. There's no precedent for it."
"You mean a precedent like say…the Vex building a body designed to channel the Light, and that body getting resurrected as a Guardian?" Elva countered.
Erytheia hesitated. "When you put it that way…"
Elva sighed and collapsed in her chair, suddenly feeling very tired. "I don't know." She rested her elbows on the bench and cradled her head. "I just don't know anymore, Erytheia. I want to know. I want to stay here and keep studying this place. Pacifist Vex that are hiding a shard of the Traveler. It's the perfect distraction for me. But…the City is gone, and now we have a war to fight. Things will never be the same."
"So what are we going to do about it?" Erytheia asked, "Sit around and mope?"
"What can I do? I'm not a warrior, I'm just a scholar with fancy powers."
"You know, Osiris left us some notes on these crystals," Erytheia said, not too subtly changing the subject, "He had some ideas on how we could draw power from them."
Elva sat up straight, a spark of curiosity burning away her fatigue. "Power. Could we build weapons from them? Weapons to fight the Cabal?"
"Sure. If we had the right parts."
"So we need something that can interface with the Vex tech. If we had access to a lab an the City, we could maybe build something, but where would we get those materials out here…"
Elva trailed off as she realized she was sitting in a room made of thousands of layered metal parts. Flawlessly engineered machinery, made by the same beings who had created the crystals in the first place.