There But For The Grace Of God

The Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base. Once created to withstand nuclear blasts, or fire nuclear missiles at enemy countries, during the Golden Age of Mankind it had been more or less abandoned, given a decently sized compliment of air force soldiers and technicians, but more or less ignored. Afterall, was this not the Golden Age? Who would have cared about a secluded military base, that's original purpose was no longer needed?

That's what one Sentry-32 wished to know.

During an exploration of an Old Russian military complex, the Exo Guardian had come across curious records strewn about through the building.

Well, Ghost had found the most intriguing of them. All Sentry had really done was notice a few papers swirled about, with odd drawings on them. It had almost looked like one of those strange 'gates' the Vex on Venus used, but... Different. She'd noted that to Ghost, asking him to file through the the few remaining databases and see if anything remotely similar came up.

It had been a longshot, an off-handed remark really...

And it quickly became so much more.

Daedalus, Atlantis, Antarctica, O'Neill, Ancients, Replicators...

Ghost had stumbled upon some ancient data file that hadn't been tapped into for centuries, having gained digital dust over the eons. Sadly, this dust seemed to have corrupted it, as only a few fragments and words were legible from the garbled text.

But one staid constant, throughout all of these seeming reports:

Stargate.

The only other thing of note were coordinates for a military base, and it' name: Cheyenne Mountain.

And here she was, having piloted all the way from Old Russia to what had once been America, all because of one word: Stargate. Something about seemed to allure her, like a moth to a lit flame.

She only hoped she didn't end up burnt...

Sentry-32 exited her ship, having landed it on a nearby ledge. She looked down at the path before her, an ancient road, long overgrown by weeds and plants, leading past a rusted barb-wired fence and into a cavernous cave. A small sign stuck lopsidedly on the fence, rusted over except for one sentence.

STAY OUT, MILITARY PROPERTY. UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL WILL BE The rest of the metal was too corroded to read out any words.

"Let's hope nobody minds us walking in." Ghost quipped, hovering lightly above her shoulder. Sentry-32 lightly rolled her eyes, putting aside her weapon for the moment. "I doubt there's anyone left to even care." She duly noted, hopping off the ledge and sliding down the towards the path, casually walking past the rusted fence, it's sliding gate long ago moved aside.

"Funny, I remember you saying something along those lines during our little visit to the moon." Her companion quipped drily. Sentry-32 replied by letting out an exasperated sigh. "I told you, that colony had looked abandoned." She argued, knowing it was no use. Ghost will find something to use against me, She thought to herself as they entered the tunnel leading into the base, Ghosts luminescent eye providing limited light while he did indeed find something to use against her.

"Oh yes, because when The Hive set up somewhere, they make sure to give a show about it and make it obvious for others to know they're there." Ghost said, his sarcasm biting.

If Sentry-32 has the muscular features to do so, she would have pouted her lip comically. But, as she didn't, she instead opted to cross her arms in a childish fashion. "Yeah, well... Mars." She retorted, making Ghost 'shudder' slightly. "How about we stop discussing times we've entered presumably empty ruins and found it to be crawling with creatures that want to kill us, and instead focus in entering this one." He commented.

"Good idea." Sentry-32 agreed with a nod, looking forwards and seeing the closed door in front of them. She turned and glanced at Ghost, who returned her look. "You could try opening it." He suggested, eliciting an exasperated eye roll from Sentry. "Oh, real funny." She commented, walking up to the door and jiggling it's handle ineffectively. She turned around and gave Ghost a flat stare.

Ghost returned it. "You have magic powers. I think they're considerable enough to open a door." He said. Sentry smirked, or at least as close as one can get to smiling when your face is a non-expressive hunk of metal. "I love it when you say that I can use my powers."

"Yes, and I find it somewhat disturbing you need my permission to use them outside of combat." Ghost noted, floating a few feet away.

Sentry let out another sigh, turning to the door. "Don't worry, nothing bad will happen." Sentry said cockily.

"That's also something you said about the moon." Ghost muttered, but Sentry ignored him. She was more focused on willing the power of the Traveller through her.

How exactly she did so was something the Exo didn't quite understand yet. For the most part, these powers worked rather simply: do a fancy hand gesture or such, and you teleport, or levitate or such. Other times, she would need to express concentration on doing a certain task, such as teleporting high above a group of Cabal Centurions and smashing them with a telekinetic shockwave.

Thankfully, the current act was something much simpler.

With a loud shout, she thrusted her hand upwards, a bloom of violet energy expanding out and hitting the door, making it crumple in on itself and fall over.

A dull clang filled the halls as the door fell to the ground, Ghost whizzing over Sentry's shoulder and looking around, his light exposing any would-be Fallen Dreg or Hive Thralls. Thankfully, there was an utter lack of anything want to stick her with a lot of holes.

"It seem's like nobody has been in this complex for hundreds of years." Ghost noted, shining his light across the curved walls. "Not surprising, as this place was apparently top secret." He noted, slowly floating forwards. Sentry followed Ghost cautiously, her hands going towards her Assault Rifle, the Red Death. Although there was nothing here now, that didn't mean there wouldn't be anything up ahead.

Ghost didn't seem to notice, too bust trying to navigate the labyrinthian complex. "Now if only there was a map somewhere." He joked, looking down a set of corridors, branching off the the left and right. "Let's go this way." He said, floating over to the right. Sentry-32 looked down the left corridor, seeing another door down there and nothing down from the left. "Hey, Ghost, maybe we should go down this way." She commented.

Silence.

"Ghost?" Sentry said, looking over where her floating companion had just been.

He was gone.

"Ah, Traveller damnit." She muttered sourly, letting out an exasperated sigh. "Don't worry Sentry, if he get's lost or in trouble, he'll come floating back to you." She commented, looking over at the door. "Now let's see what's behind this." She said, slowly approaching it. She nudged the door with the bayonet attached to her assault rifle, opening the room. She looked around curiously, seeing a series of computers and a spiral case ladder. Sentry cocked her head in puzzlement, curiously walking towards the stairs. What was up there?

"Sentry!"

Sentry-23 let out a startled yelp, spinning around and seeing Ghost hovering in front of him, his tiny spikes floating around in an agitated manner. "I swear, I turn around for a single moment and I see that you've wandered off, looking around in the opposite corridor. I swear, it's like-"

"Hey, Ghostie." Sentry said, snapping him out of his rant before he could really get started. If given the chance, he could start talking for hours. Literally. She'd counted how long he could go for during a time they'd been in The City, but she'd cut him off before he could fully finish.

"I need you to scan these computers, they might know something about that 'Stargate'." She sad.

"Well of course, what else would I do?" Ghost said, the slightest bit of irritation in his voice as he hovered to a computer and scanned it with a beam of blue light. "Well, I supposed I could hover... Talk... Spin around... Read some data files..." He continued trailing off all the things he could do, while Sentry continued exploring the small room. There wasn't much to it, in all honesty. A stairwell, a series of ancient computers and consoles, a spiral staircase leading to somewhere, and a large window, currently blocked off. By a blast shield? Why would they need that? Was this an area dedicated to testing explosives?

"I think I found something!" Ghost called out, snapping Sentry out of her queries. "What is it?" She asked, turning to face him.

"It appears to be some sort of program. From what I've been able to decrypt, it was a 'dialling' program of sorts, although what exactly it dialled, I don't know." He said, his beam of light running up and down the computer, analyzing more data.

"Well, is there anything you can do with it?" Sentry asked curiously, causing Ghost to go silent for a few moments. Finally, he spoke. "There seems to be a series of 'objects' I can dial here. PJX-327, PJX-179, PJX-082, et cetera, et cetera." Ghost said, seemingly finding it tedious to list off the full number of objects.

"Well, just dial one at random!" Sentry said, exasperated. "I mean, it's better then nothing, right?" She asked, gaining a curious sound from Ghost. "Supposedly..." He said, before turning off his beam and floating away. "Alright, I dialled... Whatever it was I dialled." He said.

Suddenly, a noise filled the air. It almost sounded like something very large and heavy being rolled around, before coming to a sudden halt, followed by a loud 'swish' noise.

"Ghost?" Sentry-32 asked her small floating companion, as the noise continued.

"Yes?" He replied, floating perfectly still.

"What is that noise?" She asked again.

"I don't know." He replied, his spikes floating in his best approximation to a shrug.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Sentry-32 asked, her voice slightly losing it's calm demeanour.

"I mean, I don't know." Ghost said, before the noise stopped, only to be replaced with a very loud WHOOOOSH sound. A strange, unearthly blue glow was visible, just underneath a small crack in the window. Sentry looked at the window and then at the nearby flight of stairs leading to a hallway, presumably leading to the room where that light was coming from.

Without taking time to consider this, she ran down the flight of stairs and down the hallway.

"Sentry, wait!" Ghost protested, zooming after her.

The Exo Warlock quickly ram down the hallway, seeing the eerie blue glow light up a wall through an open doorway. She quickly turned, entering the room providing the strange blue glow.

The room was rather spacious in size, likely having been long ago one of the many missile silos that dotted the base. There was a large retractable blast door at both ends of the room, the one she'd just ran through currently open. In the room was only a handful of items of note, those being a large emplaced machine turret, a large metal ramp and what she could only presume was the 'Stargate'.

The Stargate was unlike anything she'd ever seen, a large ring made of an unknown metal with various 'runes' inscribed into it's surface, large triangles pointing inwards to the rings centre, which itself was currently filled with a strange blue 'liquid', suspended within the diameter of the ring. This was nothing like the technology of the Golden Age of Humanity, and it certainly wasn't a device made from the Guardians, nor the Fallen, Vex, Cabal or Hive.

This... This was something else.

"Sentry, why do you keep running off like tha-" Ghost hissed as he flew into the room, his chase and words coming to an abrupt halt as he saw the Stargate.

"... Wow." He said simply, not having much else to say.

"Yeah, wow..." Sentry said, her eyes focused on the glowing blue liquid within the ring. Like moths to a flame, a part of her mind noted. She didn't pay it much note as she began to approach the glowing gate, heading up the ramp.

"Sentry, what are you doing?" Ghost questioned, floating inches behind her.

"I'm gong to go touch it." Sentry said simply, still walking towards it.

"No, you're going to tell this to Cryptarch when we visit the city and then find some Guardians to come investigate this place." Ghost argued. "You are not going to go and touch the object we know nothing about!" He said, his voice holding a mix of concern and anger.

"Nope." Sentry argued, inches away from the ring. "I am not." She said, reaching out a hand to touch the liquid. "And you're not stopping me." She said, touching the liquid.

Odd, it didn't feel wet...

Without thinking much of it, she slid her way through the open wormhole, falling through it in seconds.

"Sentry!" Ghost shouted, dashing in after her, also being absorbed by the portal.

The Stargate remained active for a few more moments before the wormhole flickered out, it's lights inactive once again.

For the first time in centuries, a being had walked through a Stargate on Earth.

Now it would lay here... And wait.