It was a normal day at the tower. The Cryptarchy was doing its routine checks on the tower systems when one of the many Cryptoarcheologists began to shout something about a colony. When Master Rahool came over to take a look, his eyes went wide. Apparently, one of the colonies that had been thought long lost since the collapse, managed to send back a ping. Although it was faint, you could still make out the automated security code. With a serious look on his face, he turned to face one of the Cryptarchs, "Send word to the Vanguard. One of the colonies has been found," he said, urgency lacing his voice. The Cryptarch nodded, rushing as fast as he could to get to one of the heads of the Vanguard.
Zavala looked down at the report that he had received. His eyes scanned the screen, "Are you sure that this is correct?" A female voice from his left spoke up, "It shocked me as well. After all this time, a golden age colony pinged back." Ikora looked at the Awoken Titan, "We need to figure out a way to get a fireteam out there to get eyes on the situation." From the other side of the room, a mechanical voice piped up, "Well, why not use the Vex teleporter from when we took back the city? Hook it up to the giant gate to the Black Garden. Boom, instant transport to the colony."
"Cayde, that would only work one way. We need a way to get the team back here safely too." Zavala stated his voice stern.
The Exo Hunter smirked, "Look, all I'm saying is that we need those boots on the ground. This would be the best way to get the job done. Remember when I put that fireteam on Oryx's Dreadnaught? That was one of the best moments for the Vanguard," Cayde said, his tone illustrating the pride he took in that accomplishment. "Besides, all we need to do is keep the gate open and send supplies to help build some kind of gate over there. One point me."
"Cayde, that would be a good idea… except we have no idea how Vex tech works nor do we know how to build any of it." Ikora remarked.
"The building part? We don't need to worry about that. The strongest gate is already built on Mercury."
"How do we know it is the strongest one?"
Cayde smiled, "Simple, it's the biggest one."
Both Ikora and Zavala sighed and hung their heads. It was next to impossible to get Cayde to think rationally.
"Besides, if that colony never responded before to our routine checks, why is it that they're responding now? They may be in danger and we don't know it. Our best bet is to get a fireteam on the ground as soon as we can. And I know just the team to do it…"
Meanwhile, on Mars, a team of three Guardians managed to recover one of the many missing data nodes that Rasputin left around the Clovis Bray facility. The Hunter, named Voks'l, began to download the node and decode its encrypted data, "Hey, Lambda, what can you make of this?" he asked.
The Warlock turned and removed his helmet, revealing a robotic head. The coloring of his head was tinted a steel gray, a single green stripe went from what could be considered his upper lip to over his the top of his head. His eyes and mouth seemed to glow with a teal blue light. His mouth started to move for a moment before the light that shone forth from his face shifted color to an emerald green, "As darkness falls around us all. A single planet may just fall. For what we fight for, is a remnant thus no more."
Just as the other two Guardians were about to question what the Exo said, their coms came online, "Fireteam Victor 3, come in. This is Strike Commander Zavala. Do you read, over?"
A second Hunter keyed his comm, "Yeah, we read you loud and clear, Zavala. You sound a little distressed, what's going on?"
"It seems that since the Warmind launched his new Warsat network, we managed to get in contact with a surviving golden age colony. We are putting Fireteam Victor 3 on the case to make the first contact with them. Cayde came up with a rather… unique way of getting there. You and your team have twenty-four hours to prepare yourselves for combat and long-term deployment. That is all." he said as the comm clicked off.
The same Hunter smirked under his helmet, "Well, it seems like we have our first mission in a long time. We need to get prepped for combat and deployment. Let's head back to the Tower and hit up that ramen shop before we get prepared."
After a few hours of travel, the fireteam was sitting at the ramen shop, finishing up their meals. Lambda-3, the Exo Warlock, lifted his bowl to his mechanical lips and began to slurp down the broth from his Miso Ramen. Once he was done, he let out a satisfying sigh, "Ah… that was great Jimmy as usual."
"You know… I could never understand how you could eat actual food and drink normal things." Garth, the Awoken Hunter, stated: "Never quite made sense to me."
"Oh come now… It's the same way you do… I just don't need to use the bathroom since my 'stomach' can convert all organic substance into energy for me to use with no waste product."
"Showoff." Garth grumbled as he sat down his chopsticks, "Anyway, we need to gather our gear and prep our ships with rations for long-term deployment."
The group nodded and began to make their way around the tower. They first visited Banshee-44, the Exo Gunsmith, "You guys don't look too banged up. I guess my weapons helped you all out then. So what can I get for you all?" He asked as he lifted up another one of his many assault rifles that he so proudly worked on day in and day out. The group just passed the mechanic their rifles, "We've got a mission we're going on and we need these specially tuned for long-term deployment and just general maintenance." Voks'l told him, "We'll be back for them before we depart."
"Alright then. Should be done within a few hours." Banshee stated as he picked up the guns and took them back to the rear of his shop to do maintenance work on them. The three Guardians began to make their way to the Hanger to meet up with Amanda Holliday, the shipwright in charge of maintenance of the jumpships and sparrows.
"Well hey there Guardians. Listen, since you're going out on a long-term mission to deep space territory, we're modifying a transmat beacon for you all to use so you can perform an uplink to your ships. That way you gain access to your sparrows. Though we did run some tests. It doesn't seem to work in places like the Infinite Forest or in the Dreadnaught." Amanda said as she noticed them walking over to her. She passed out three palm-sized devices with holographic screens, "It also links back to your ship's storage. You can swap item in the field easier. Works on the same principles as the vault system."
Garth was the first one to speak as he pocketed the device, "So, do we have any intel on the LZ we're heading to?"
"Sorry guardians. I don't have access to that intel. You'll have to wait for the brief with Zavala." She answered, "But on the plus side, I did tune up your sparrows. They should be able to hit a top speed of 170."
Voks'l raised an eyebrow, "170? How exactly did you manage that?"
"Trade secret." Amanda said with a small laugh, "Just did some tweaking on the engines." She was going to continue explaining when the intercoms in the tower came alive, "Fireteam Victor 3, report to the War Room Alpha. Repeat, fireteam Victor 3, report to the War Room Alpha." it stated, before clicking off.
The three Guardians looked to each other and nodded as they proceeded to one of the nearby elevators and keyed the War Room floor. After about 3 minutes of travel in the elevator, they arrived. The War Room was alive with people. Various rooms were filled with other Fireteams that were preparing for other strikes against high-value targets. Other rooms were being used to keep communications up with teams that were out in the field gathering resources for both the Tower and the Farm. The team made their way down the hall, following the gold line all the way to War Room Alpha. As the doors slid open, they saw Zavala, Cayde-6, Ikora, Eris Morn, Lord Saladin, and another face that was long thought lost, Osiris.
"Well… Wasn't expecting this large of a crowd… Last time we had this kind of a turnout was during the Riftball finals." Lambda stated.
"Guardians. Have a seat." Zavala said, his voice calm, yet cool. The three guardians nodded as they pulled up chairs to the table. The room darkened as the table lit up, projecting some holograms. Zavala started to speak, "Eight hours ago, the new Warsat network was launched by Rasputin. Six hours ago, the Cryptarchs picked up an urgent message from an unencrypted channel that a message was being broadcast on. The message said, 'Pandora's Box has been opened. The Last Remnant of Hope has been found.' This message was sent by Rasputin." he stated, as the holographic images shifted from the message to a Vex gate, "According to Cayde's plan, we're going to perform an indirect assault on the Gate to the Infinite Forest. We are then going to link it to the portable Vex teleporter that Cayde… appropriated during the Red War and use the teleporter to feed the coordinates we received from Rasputin through to the larger gate. By this time the Vanguard will have set up a defense perimeter to repel any and all Vex assaults to take back the Gate. You three are going to transmat to your ships and fly them through the gate."
"Zavala, do we have any intel on the LZ of the planet we're arriving at?" Garth asked, wanting to get as much information as he could.
"Negative. All the information is over 700 years old. It's all golden age scans of the planet's surface. And as we learned from Nessus, those could change rather quickly. So expect the worst case scenario."
"So what you're saying is that we've got outdated intel, no idea what to expect when we get there, and to top it all off you want us to do a long-term mission out there?" Lambda exclaims.
This time Cayde spoke up, "Look, we don't like it any more than you do, but you and your team are the best qualified for what's going on. For all we know it's just a social call inviting us out for tea and cookies."
"Well, I hope there won't be much socializing during this mission." Voks'l said, sounding a little annoyed.
"Commander Zavala, since we're going to be going on a mission there, with the possibilities of peace talks, what are we going to do if we end up out of ammunition in the field?" Lambda asked, bringing up a good question.
Ikora interrupted before Zavala even began speaking, "We're going to give you access to standardized black powder blueprints so your ghost can synthesize it in the field for you to make custom ammo." She stated.
"You are all dismissed," Zavala said as the lights came back on.
The Guardians saluted and left the room, "All right, let's go pack up our rations and get some shut-eye. We've got a long day ahead of us." Garth said as he led his group towards the Cafeteria and Supply Depot. The Guardians didn't know exactly what the future had in store for them, and they'd be quite surprised once they found out what it held.