Chapter 10
Skiff
Voidwalker Maximus
"So I guess that officially means things are happening again," Arla concluded. We were in her room fairly early in the morning, the red light of the sunrise bleeding through the door. She sat on her bed with its sheets peeled back from her recent stint asleep, something her bleary eyes still heavily hinted at. Arla positioned herself on the edge of the bed, leaning back on her hands and crossing her legs while I sat on a chair a few feet across from her.
"Honestly, I think things have been going on for a long time. Dea said this hadn't been the first time the Vanguard refused evidence about the Illusion."
"She's probably right. They've probably seen the writing on the wall for a long time now, but I thought that it was gone after the Black Garden, that anything remaining was limited and peace was on the horizon. I honestly didn't think that the Fallen were capable of getting their hands on that type of technology" She rubbed her thumb and forefinger across her chin.
"Well right now, our time is limited if we don't get over to that bunker."
Arla nodded. "Right. If you'll go get Charli from her room, we'll get going within the hour." She stood up from the bed as I did similar with the chair. The motion looked stiff compared to the usual graceful fluidity to her movements. "In the meantime, I'm going to eat something and get ready. I'll meet you in the hangar."
I made a move towards the door, but stopped myself just short of exiting, turning around and catching Arla grab her armor from the floor on the opposite side of her bed, a large gash from what was likely a blade of some sort slashing diagonally from the top right of the chest piece to the bottom left, the paint around the cut scratched with a couple of burn marks. "What the heck happened to your armor? More importantly, are you alright?"
Arla turned the armor her direction and saw the gash herself, her eyes growing wide as she examined it, like she'd never seen it before just now. She muttered almost inaudibly, "I mean...it was a rough blow..." She dropped the chestplate on the bed and pressed a hand on various parts of her torso, her face twisting in pain in several spots that seemed to form a line that likely lined up with the slash. She then stiffly walked over to her mirror and rolled up the bottom of her tank top. I could only see her reflection from an odd angle, but the deep purple of the bruise extending from her waist up her chest was more than noticeable against her blue skin.
Momentarily, I flashed back to just after the battle to protect the Wall, when she began to bleed profusely from a wound she hadn't even noticed. I immediately grabbed the chair and carefully slid it underneath her. Questions flew through my mind as I did so, but none more than, "What in the world happened?!"
"It's...nothing, really. One of those Hive Knights took a swing at me yesterday when Charli and I were in the Cosmodrome. I honestly never even noticed it until now."
I looked her in the eye, maintain complete contact while I spoke and refuting any of her attempts to dodge my stare. "Arla, you know I love and trust you, but that's a load of garbage. You don't just not realize a giant black bruise across the middle of your torso like that."
"Don't patronize me," she retorted but immediately calmed herself. "I can already tell you're upset over the fact that Dea is back and this only makes it worse."
She was right, but I didn't waver my gaze. Realizing we were wasting valuable time, I asked, "Can you fi...no, can you even walk properly?"
Arla stared back at me, shooting daggers like she would almost any enemy when she saw the opportunity. I waited with my arms crossed as she delayed for just a few moments more, like she was preparing herself for the pain. After those few seconds passed, she slowly but surely began pushing herself up and out of the chair, stiff but able, her face trying to remain firm but her eyes clearly betrayed the slightly annoyed expression on her face. I should have expected as much from her. She had never been one to let injury keep her from the action, including when she was supposed to be in the Medical Ward, but then again, that was how we both worked, one of the reasons I helped get her out of there.
The fact remained that she had bested my challenge; Arla successfully stood up under her own power and even took a few stiff yet victorious steps in an extremely subdued celebration, making sure to flash me an "I told you so" grin. I put the chair back, and Arla grabbed the pierced armor again. Giving it a closer look, I could determine that the slash was more cosmetic than anything, the impact more than enough to leave her bruised like that. Though it wasn't the bruises I was concerned about; it was broken ribs. I didn't buy that she wasn't feeling anything other than the usual soreness, but since she seemed to be breathing fine and could sit, stand, and move around just fine, I could all but rule that out. It was against my better judgement, but she was going to come whether I wanted her to or not. "Do you have any backups?" I asked. I figured she did, but she'd been wearing this one since I'd customized it. Her Ghost respawning it wouldn't likely repair it given that was probably what they, or at least Stargazer, had attempted when they got back.
Arla thought for a moment, placing a hand beneath her chin and lightly crossing the other arm over her chest. "I do, but there not nearly as high quality." Suddenly, the chest piece disappeared in a flash of light and rematerialized only a few seconds later, shiny and whole again save for a few dents and dings Arla likely asked Stargazer to keep. Most notably, the gash was gone, replaced by the deep purple paint and gold detailing that only accentuated the regal look of the armor. I now realized that the look she had earlier was not seeing the gash for the first time. The look instead appeared to stem from the fact that Stargazer had not refreshed it during the night. Arla gestured towards the armor. "Good as new. Now, go wake up Charli. She's across the hall four doors down."
"On it," I replied, quickly exiting the room and walking briskly down the hall. I first knocked on the door to no response. I rapped on the door a few more times, hitting a little harder but only heard a rather unattractive snoring coming from the other side. Moments later, Arla walked out of her room, her armor now complete minus the helmet, and saw me standing in front of the door. She quickly, but stiffly, made her way over to me and said, "I guess she's still out like a light."
Charli snored again from beyond the door. "Yeah, I couldn't get in."
"I thought I added you to the permissions list," Arla said, once again placing her hand on her chin. "I guess not. I'll get that done." Arla then knocked a few times on the door, and it slid open almost immediately. The room was sparsely furnished, little more than the bed, table, drawers, and armor rig that came standard with the each room. The walls were largely silver with a pair of crimson stripes that slanted down the center of each wall. In the bed lay a face down Charli still wearing her entire suit of armor and snoring with every inhale. I walked over to the bed and placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a slight nudge followed by a harder one. She sharply inhaled and shook her head, bringing her hands to her head as she sat on her legs. Her armor also featured some cosmetic damage but nothing to the extent Arla's had, just a few scorch marks and dirt stains that marred the shine of the burnt orange armor.
Charli felt unclasped and removed her helmet after searching with her slightly uncoordinated hands for a couple seconds. Her auburn hair seemed to go all over the place except for where she likely wanted it to be. Her forehead had a large red area on it from where she'd pressed against the helmet while asleep. Her eyes looked asleep with dark circles beneath them. She rubbed them with her gloved hands but quickly shifted her bleary gaze to her hands, proceeding to look all over her body to find that the armor still covered her. Charli seemed to yet acknowledge our presence in the room. "That explains why I dreamed I was sleeping on a pile of sharp rocks." Her voice sounded as asleep as her eyes. She looked up and seemed to finally see us. "How did you two get here?" she asked with her tired voice.
"The Tower's computer let's teammates go into each other's room while the owner is in there," Arla explained.
"Most of the time," I muttered.
Arla flashed her gaze at me before turning back to Charli. "We need to get going. We've stalled as long as we can."
"Where are we going?" Charli inquired, taking off her gloves and rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands.
"The American wastes, not too far from here, but we have word that the Fallen are trying to hack into a prototype warmind from long ago."
The Titan seemed to perk up when Arla said "Fallen." Her eyes seemed to have embers in them. Charli blinked and the embers disappeared. "So we go in, shoot up the place, and stop them from hacking it?"
Arla smiled. "Perceptive for being half-asleep but not quite. We need to get inside and destroy any assets it has." I hadn't told her that which made me a little suspicious.
Charli stood up and began to pace around the room in an apparent effort to arouse herself from her current drowsy state. "Sounds like a self-destruct sequence would do the trick. I would think that something like that would have some sort of protocol in case they got into the wrong hands. Several of the ships I served on had failsafes like that. Saved several of them from the Fallen."
I folded my arms and continued listening to them talk. Arla responded, "Sounds reasonable. I've never been in a warmind, but I think it's safe to assume that there is something we can trigger. Either way, time is of the essence. Meet us at the hangar in ten minutes. Eat something, check your ammo, and don't be late. Maximus and I will make sure Halliday has your ship ready to launch."
Charli nodded. "I'll be there." Arla and I turned to leave but just before we did, Charli called out my name.
"Yes," I said, motioning Arla to continue. She walked toward her room rather than to the lift. I turned toward Charli. The Titan was grabbing her weapons off the desk, a red and blue auto rifle that I hadn't seen her use before and the white pistol I'd given her.
She placed the rifle on her back and spoke. "Is it normal to see this much action in just a day or two?" Her voice didn't seem worried, but more than just a casual question.
"Generally speaking, no," I responded calmly. "I'm not really the best one to ask though."
Charli seemed to nod and get back to getting her gear together while I walked away. Arla's door opened as I approached as if she'd been expecting me to come in. I walked in and stopped for a second when I saw Arla in pale gold armor with small stripes of white that accentuated the gold parts. She was wrapping the hilt of her knife with tape similar to the pale gold on her armor. I glanced at the door as it shut behind me. Arla finished taping her knife and placed it back in its sheath. "When did we decide that it needed to be destroyed?" I inquired.
"We didn't," Arla stated flatly. "I did. If one group of Fallen got in, then that means other groups like the Cabal could get in, and we can't have them get that kind of weaponry. The only way to prevent that from ever happening is to destroy it."
"Since the door's open though, why don't we try and use it for our own purposes?" I knew it'd probably get shot down, but it was a worthwhile question in my opinion.
"The Vanguard recently tried to do that with Rasputin. Sent a greeting party. We're not sure what they said, but when their pieces were found scattered throughout the Cosmodrome, the Vanguard did not take that as a sign of cooperation. They're not about to take that same chance with a prototype that was ultimately shut down. Especially one with an Exo army to command."
"I see your point," I conceded, unsurprised. "What makes you think that the Fallen haven't met a similar fate?"
"What makes you think this is the Fallen in the first place?" Arla countered.
"Call it Dea and a hunch. Either way, we can't let the Fallen align themselves with this warmind, or we'll be in quite the predicament."
"Agreed," Arla replied, checking the weapons on her back. With that, we both exited to the hangar.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The American Wastes spanned most of the North American continent, and featured ruined cityscapes, mountains, forests, and the one we were most concerned about, deserts. Caesar was located in a remote part of Arizona, a region once part of the United States of America, a country that pretty much self-destructed in the 2100s. A shame really given how much they overcame to that point, but the political and economic holes they dug themselves into were just too much to overcome in the long run. Of course, nuclear weapons and civil war don't generally mix well either, so that certainly did not help their cause.
"Starco," I called out to my Ghost. "You got a lock on that signal?" We had to be close by now. It'd taken us a little over an hour of flying to get to its vicinity only to find out that the specific coordinates had been scrambled and encrypted. Using methods far beyond what I would be able to comprehend, Starco and the other two Ghosts were trying to decrypt and pinpoint the source of the signal and Caesar.
"It's getting stronger, but we haven't had any luck breaking the decryption," Starco replied from somewhere in the ship. I was busy keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of an underground bunker. Of all the places they could put a secret bunker, it had to be in the desert. "Honestly, I'm more scared of it detecting us and locating us. If that thing is fully functional, it'll fire on us, and I can't guarantee it'll miss."
"Charming," Arla said sarcastically over the comms.
Charli chimed in. "So what exactly are we looking for?"
I had no idea. Dea hadn't really told me. "Probably a metal building or something. Keep an eye out for any motion on the ground, especially something that looks like it has a gun."
"Did you find something?" Arla asked.
"You could say that," Charli admitted.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Titan Charli Hendricks
Fallen Skiffs looked different than Charli remembered, sleeker with more guns. They also looked a bit more compact, built for speed rather than strength from what she could remember, but that no longer seemed to be the case. The big question was whether or not they'd seen her and if her piloting skills had transferred to this "new Charli."
'Well, what did you find?" Maximus asked over the comms, his voice sounding excited or anxious, Charli couldn't tell which. She was busy watching the readouts next to the circle on the ship's HUD that highlighted the Skiff a couple thousand feet below and away from her. She noticed her grip on the stick was a little tighter than it had been when she had flown fighters, perhaps it was the size and relative bulk of this ship. It was by no means second-hand, but it didn't seem too capable on offense. She'd had worse dance partners before.
"The ship's telling me a Fallen Skiff. House of Kings. The ship's also picking up a signal that matches the one from the Warmind prototype." She pressed a few more buttons to try and get a few readouts on the ship's defenses. She could only assume that the Fallen's technology had advanced since she'd last seen them.
"Of course!" Maximus' Ghost Starco exclaimed over the comms. "We should've applied the Kell Code to it!"
"I told you to do it," Vern argued. "But nobody wants to listen to the new guy."
"Welcome to the club pal," a new voice butted in. Charli faintly recognized it as the Machine Gun that Maximus had back on Mars. What was it's name again?
"Quiet Crush!" Maximus warned. That was it, she realized. "I'll leave you on the ship if you continue to blurt random nonsense like that."
Starco ignored them. "We've got it pinpointed Charli. Moving to your location now."
Suddenly, Charli heard a low rumble, like the sound of...She looked down and saw the Skiff suddenly rushing straight upward on a direct collision course with her and closing fast. "Too late. AO is hot. Repeat, the Fallen have spotted me!" Suddenly, the comm channel went to complete static and then nothing, a sign that the Fallen had begun jamming all enemy communications. They'd been listening somehow. For how long, Charli knew not.
Charli swiped away the useless video feeds and brought up the weapon systems. They were meager as she had expected, a pair of low caliber ion cannons that she'd asked Halliday to add while she and Arla went on that mission yesterday. They were the most powerful things that could sync up to the ship's computer without having to do any major rewiring, but they would hopefully suit her purposes. Charli gunned the thrust and pulled the ship up and away from the rising Skiff. She felt the g forces press her into the seat as her attitude quickly climbed. Satisfied with her height far above the Skiff's sensors, Charli killed the thrust and pulled the stick farther back, flipping the ship until it was pointed nose and cannons down. She then re-engaged the thrusters and descended faster than she had ascended.
Just as she had predicted, the Skiff had stopped its sudden ascent and was looking for her with its sensors. It had also moved a good ways forward, allowing Charli to pull out of her dive and open up the cannons, a pair of blue energy streaks shooting out at remarkable speed and directly into the Skiff's shielding, the energy field rippling with each hit. She leveled out at a slight angle, enough so that she would continue peppering the ship as she flew by and just barely miss its cockpit by only a couple of feet, no doubt surprising whatever was flying the ship.
She then pulled back the thrust and made a hard left, physics once again forcing her into the seat. She laughed a little as she was forced into her seat. She missed the rush of adrenaline, the feeling of power as she wielded weapons capable of tearing ships apart, but what she missed most was the enemy's futile attempts to try and stop her. Charli rolled away from several streaks of energy that tried to cut into her hull and shielding. Charli pulled her ship around and faced the side of the Skiff. The ship immediately went to work scanning the ship's systems from that side as Charli continued to hold down the trigger on the cannons. Slowly but surely, the ripples against the shields grew dimmer and dimmer, a sure sign that they were failing from all the punishment. Charli rolled away from more incoming fire and let loose another few volleys at the ship until she saw exactly what she had been looking for: an explosion towards the back. It was small, nothing more than a few feet, but in its wake was a sizeable hole in the armor where the cannons had finally announced their penetration into the ship. A couple of unfortunate Dregs suddenly found themselves sucked out of the hole and falling helplessly to the surface thousands of feet below. "Enjoy the fall!" Charli victoriously cheered to nobody but herself and Vern.
Charli dipped below a few more blasts and rolled away from several more as she circled for another run on the Skiff. This time she was coming for its starboard, coming from behind and streaking the side with cannon fire all the way up to the cockpit. Multiple explosions, increasing in size ripped across the ship's armor, and more grunts found themselves in an involuntary freefall as they were either blown off their guns or sucked out before the blast doors could seal the internal pressure.
Charli came around once more for a final run. Now that the armor on the starboard side was basically toast, she eyed her final target, the main fuel line that would be exposed and ruptured with only a couple volleys of the cannon blasts. Charli lined up her shot and highlighted the fuel lines on her HUD. By now the Skiff's guns on this side had gone silent as most of them were either abandoned or destroyed, fires roared across the the many holes in the hull. Once more, Charli squeezed the trigger and let loose several volleys of energy directly into the feeble blast doors that stood in her way of her ultimate goal.
The first volley crashed into the ship, disintegrating the blast doors on that covered the hole. The second volley smashed slightly off target just above where she wanted. Charli was growing closer by the second, too close for comfort for the magnitude of an explosion that fuel line would create, but she didn't care. She was going to rid the universe of these pirate scum and continued to hold down the trigger. The third volley smashed inside the hole and left a hole directly to the main fuel line. Charli squeezed one more time, time seeming to slow down as she did so. The shot was slightly high, but she noticed that the Skiff suddenly began to roll left, offsetting how much she would have missed her narrow target by. She couldn't tell if the roll was due to the damage or their trying to avoid one final direct hit. From only a few hundred feet out, it was too little too late. The shot went cleanly through to its target, igniting the fuel line and shooting explosions across the entire ship, the largest ones erupting out of the holes Charli had created in the starboard side of the ship, causing it to crash downward even faster than it would have. The shock wave from the explosions were enough to affect Charli's shields and send her spinning upward as she fought to regain control of the stick.
She gripped it hard and pulled the opposite way of her roll, slowing it until the ship was level again, but her vision was still spinning in a nauseating manner. Charli ignored it and turned the ship around and pointed the nose down to follow the ship and watch it explode in a blaze of glory, her latest masterpiece. Charli scaled back her speed to a much more relaxed pace and broke through the low clouds just as the Skiff crashed into the ground in the expected blaze of glory. The explosion no doubt killing off anything that may have been alive just before impact. What Charli did not expect was the Skiff smashing through the ground and continuing to plummet somewhere below the ground.
Charli descended further just above the hole the Skiff created. Jagged metal from what used to be a sand-covered bulkhead or something. Thick, black smoke began to rise from the hole. The comms suddenly crackled back to life just as she put the ship to hover. "...li! The signal has cut out! Do you read? We are coming to your position!"
A drop of sweat dripped off her forehead. She didn't realize just how much energy all that flying and maneuvering consumed. She leaned back in her seat before responding out of breath. "Maximus, Arla. I'm...I'm here. The Skiff's gone down, but it seems to have opened up a massive hole in the ground. I think I found Caesar."
"Charli," Arla began. "You gave us a heart attack. When the comms cut out, we assumed the worst."
Charli chuckled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. Remember, I'm a pilot. Fancy flying's what I do. I just don't remember it being so draining. Oh well. What's your ETA?"
Maximus replied first. "Just a couple minutes. Sit tight and don't get shot at until we get there."
Charli smiled. "I'll try." The comms went silent as she waited. While Maximus and Arla were inbound, Charli grabbed her helmet and spoke to Vern. "Drop the ramp. I want to take a look at this hole myself."
"We're not turned the right way," Vern warned.
She winked at the Ghost floating near the pilot's chair. "I know. I'll be careful"
The Ghost sighed. "I strongly advise against jumping into the hole."
Charli smiled devilishly at the Ghost. "Don't worry. Didn't plan on it...yet." She dropped pulled the handle to drop the ramp and pulled her helmet over her head. She walked out to the edge of the ramp, jumped, and immediately activated her suit's Lift function to push her up and above the ship's roof, right in between the heat of the engines, leaving Charli in the cool wind that blew above the top. The view looked almost limitless minus the heavy smoke that rose from the hole. Charli walked up to the front of the ship, making sure to keep her footing on the metal plates that made up the top of the ship, practically untouched thanks to her flying. Charli stood confidently on the edge of the ship's top, watching the two small spots in the background steadily grow larger.
Within a couple of minutes, both ships had stopped at the same altitude, surrounding the hole. Charli continued to stand confidently on top of her ship as Maximus and Arla stabilized their ship's hover patterns. "Weapons please," she radioed Vern. Almost immediately, the weight of her weapons returned to her back, and she grabbed the assault rifle. She pulled out the magazine, pushed down with her thumb on the top bullet, making sure it was full enough that it wouldn't move before pushing it back in the gun and pulling back the bar that ensured the bullet ready to fire. As Charli did this, she moved back to about the midpoint of her ship. She expanded her comms to Maximus and Arla. "Let's get it started," she announced. "I'm heading in." Before either could object, Charli picked ran to the edge of her ship and leapt off the end, doing a couple of flips before steadying herself as she descended into the hole.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Voidwalker Maximus
As soon as I saw Charli jump off the top of her ship, I grabbed Crush, the yellow rifle, and a red and blue shotgun that I've rarely used and blinked out of my ship into the crater, spreading my arms and legs to control my descent.
The hole seemed impossibly deep as we fell, black either from the smoke or lack of light making it extremely difficult to see, probably both. Infrared wasn't much better, and due to the Skiff giving off immense heat readings that seemed to spread all around us, thermal was out of the question too, so standard was the best option though none of them were good enough to do any effective combat. Several seconds passed as all three of us were in total freefall, but soon enough I could begin to make out lights below us, oranges and yellows like fire. It must be the ship.
As if on cue, Charli reported from the bottom, "I've got boots on the ground. Can't see much down here without my Ghost's light though." Arla landed just before I did, using her second jump's upward force to cancel out the dangerous momentum we'd gathered and reported the same thing, staying still until I landed using my Glide similarly a few feet from her left, so we could find Charli. All of us avoided landing on top of the burning ship's pieces by some miracle. As I had steadily come to expect, the much of the ship was disintegrating in order to control the blaze, but obviously, that wasn't going to do much in terms of saving the ship. After a few moments of searching, both of us had eyes on her ghost's light.
"Everyone alright?" I asked, placing a hand on Arla and Charli's shoulder so as not to lose them in the thick smoke that covered up almost all of the fires' light this close to the wreckage.
"No better than when we started," Arla replied, glancing to her left and right. "We need to find a way out of this smoke, or we risk an ambush."
"Agreed," Charli said, also looking around but this time up. "How far do you think that was?"
"I'd say far enough to be about where Caesar would be," Arla replied, pulling out the pistol.
"Get to the edges," I ordered. "See if you can find a door out of here. I'd rather not take the risk of the Fallen flooding the area."
Arla and Charli nodded their affirmation and turned around, walking towards what we hoped was the outside of the area. The farther away from the Skiff we went, the lighter the smoke became, ultimately just leaving us in the relative darkness that Starco's light easily took care of.
As I walked, I steadily gained a better understanding of whatever we were in. Clearly it was not just some crater created by the ship, nor was it something an asteroid created. I paused for a moment to swipe away some of the dust on the floor. It took a few, but I was able to see the floor before ash and other particulates covered it. It was white of a seemingly sterile variety, extremely worn letters that looked to spell out "SAR." Each one had curved corners except for the places that had faded with time, and if it weren't for the scuffs on the paint, it looked like the words all connected at some point. I investigating further, crouching down once again and wiping away more of the dust immediately to the left of the SAR. First came out an "E" with the bottom line almost totally missing, then an "A" completely intact save for one piece of the central bridge, and then, to no surprise, a "C" that was all but destroyed. "Arla, Charli," I called out over the comms. "If we hadn't established that this is Caesar, I'm certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is now."
"I think I found a terminal with these fabled Exos, and it doesn't look like it was touched by the crash." Arla reported a seconds later.
"What do they look like?" I inquired.
"I'd love to tell you, but they're not here. Probably haven't been here since it was deactivated…"
"Or since it was reactivated," I interrupted. "Guns up and check your targets before you shoot. The last thing I want is to be shot by one of you because I look like them."
"Don't shoot the Exo in a robe. Got it." Arla joked. Charli chuckled lightly in the background.
I shook my head. "Funny, but I'm being serious." I continued walking forward in relative silence, my footsteps the only thing accompanying the relative darkness and debris scattered about the facility. I wasn't sure about Caesar's layout, but I knew that there had to be a way out of this place. I eventually found the wall, metal plates of the same color bolted into whatever was beyond them. I walked alongside the wall, looking for some sort of opening. Most of it was covered in a thinner layer of particulates that, upon being swept away, revealed a picture of a black laurel wreath, probably the symbol associated either with this project and prototype warmind.
Charli broke the radio silence. "I found a lever on the wall. The writing on it is completely gone, but I think it still works. I'm going to pull it unless there are any objections?"
Pulling it wasn't a good idea, but I couldn't come up with a good reason as to why not. The security Exos were gone and likely destroyed; I highly doubted the power would come back on that easily; and almost anything attached to that lever likely required the power to be on in the first place. Suddenly a solid and heavy sound rattled softly around me. Apparently taking silence as a yes, Charli announced, "I flipped it up. Took a little effort, but doesn't look like anything…" Suddenly, there was a second much louder and solid thunk immediately followed by a whirring originating from somewhere in the walls. Blinding white lights suddenly flashed on until about 10 feet overhead. A monotone voice glitched for a moment as it spoke, the deep tones reverberating off the walls. "Wa-a-a-arnnningg! Majjjoor [static] Breach detected in Silo Theta 1. Initiating countermeasures." I looked skyward, expecting something to close, but instead there was an intense clicking noise followed by another announcement. "Countermeasures failed. Please evacuate this sector before it is erased in 30 seconds."
"That escalated quickly," Charli commented.
"Where's the door?" I shouted, searching through the now-illuminated smokey "silo."
"It's over by me!" Arla shouted through the comms, the HUD marking that she was about 50m to my right. "Get over to my position." She didn't have to tell me twice. I immediately turned and sprinted towards the diamond marker my HUD placed on Arla's signal, a route that was partially blocked by larger pieces of debris and smoke but maneuverable. I mantled over a stray and charred piece of the Skiff that stood taller than my head. I rolled when I landed and continued running. 10 seconds had passed, and I was closing in. I hurdled over a smaller piece of smoking metal and could see the glowing visor on Arla's helmet in the distance. As I continued running, I began to hear a high-pitched whine growing in intensity and pitch with each passing second. "I'm in!" Charli called out. "Maximus! Where are you?" Her voice was frantic.
"I'm almost there," I called back. "Just have to get beyond this bank of smoke."
"Say again?" Arla asked. "There's no smoke over here and no sign of you."
"What?!" I leapt over another piece of debris just as the marker hit zero. Suddenly, something wrenched my arm in midair and tossed my to the ground. The colors on my helmet warped, and my vision spun from the sudden impact. The whine was quickly becoming a piercing screech as I tried to make sense of what just happened.
"Threat identified," a robotic, gruff voice said in a reporting tone. "Purging now."
"Maximus!" Arla called out. "What's happening?" Before I could respond, I rolled over onto my back just in time to see a metal hand grasp my helmet, the pressure quickly becoming more than the helmet would be able to take if I didn't do something. The hand ripped me off the floor, and I made a wild kick in the off chance of actually hitting something. Somehow I did, and the hand immediately let go of my helmet, dropping me back onto the floor. "10 seconds to erasing. Please evacuate the area immediately." Not wasting any time, I scrambled to my feet and ran straight into my assailant, an silver Exo with heavy plating all over his body. The plates seemed to hide his eyes from view, but I was sure he wasn't blind given how he'd snatched me out of the air. I made a grab for my gun, but before I could, the Exo had put a boot to my head. Cracks spider-webbed across the glass on my HUD as I fell backwards, the impact with the floor finishing the job of shattering the glass with ease.
"5 seconds until erasing procedure, sealing blast area."
"NO!" Arla screamed as the door audibly slammed shut, probably struggling to get it back open. The piercing sound was now a roar, and the lights had gotten significantly brighter in the last few seconds. I knew I was about to die, but I wasn't going to allow this thing to kill me without a fight. The silver Exo stood over me and grabbed my robe at the center, lifting me just as the monotone voice counted 3. In a last ditch attempt, I meleed the Exo in the chest, releasing its grip on me and causing it to stutter back a few steps. I landed solidly at 2 and grabbed my shotgun, charging forward at 1, and pulling the trigger at point blank. I could see nothing but white as the shotgun kicked back, and immediately afterward, everything went black.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
30 Minutes later...
It felt like I was floating in some sort of limbo. Gravity did not seem to have a hold of me, but I knew I had to be somewhere. Unless I was dead at which point, I don't know where I would go or be. Maybe this was it, this feeling of weightlessness amongst a backdrop of black. An endless nothingness that would rule me forever. It was then that I realized my eyes were closed. Upon opening them, I discovered that I was still in the pit, fires from the ship flickering much smaller now. Either the smoke still choked out almost all of the sun's light this far below or night was falling.
A voice snapped me back into the situation. "Yo, Max." It was Crush. "I'm not sure this is the right location for a nap."
I sat up, feeling the soreness that was my back and arms. My head also throbbed lightly from whatever that thing did to me when it grabbed my helmet. I looked about the HUD, searching for any sign of cracks in the smart glass, but there was little to be found in the darkness. I tried to contact the others. "Charli, Arla, are you guys alright?" The static answered with a distinct nothing. "Arla, Charli, are you two alright?" I pushed myself to my feet, and Starco activated his light. "Nublier, Hendricks! Do you copy?" There was still nothing coming from the other side of the comms. I glanced at the motion tracker on the top left of my HUD; as far as I could tell it was clear, but I was going to make this quick regardless. "Starco," I said to my Ghost. "Shine your light on my helmet when I take it off." I quickly unclasped it and looked at the back underneath the white light, angling the helmet to limit the glare it would give and wiping off dust in other places.
I searched the back portion of the helmet, looking for a small rectangular panel that should be located close to the top. I quickly found it but not before I discovered a sizable dent in the metal. "That explains the radio silence," Starco commented.
"But not the waypoint that led me right to that Exo." I slid the helmet back over my head.
"I don't really have an explanation for that. I just displayed the coordinates I received. Arla should have been right there. Though my biggest question is how are we alive right now. The computer clearly said something about erasing."
"I don't think this place has had its power activated for centuries. Its power grid probably couldn't handle it and overloaded just before it fired," I suggested. "There are probably countless parts that have rusted over or fallen apart, so I'd venture to say that this place can do little more than turn on the lights and run the computer."
"That said, we'll still have to deal with your friend's comrades."
"Then we keep our head on a swivel." I used Starco's light to locate my weapons and secure them to my back, keeping Dea's rifle out just in case. The damage to the helmet was not going to help me in any way, but I didn't want to bad spt should something pop out at the exact moment Starco despawned it. "Are you able to get a fix on Vern or Stargazer?"
He went quiet for a minute. "I'm not picking up anything. It's like we're being jammed or something. I can't even get a fix on the ships outside of the facility. It's weird and definitely not reassuring."
"Well then, I guess we find the door the old fashioned way." I began walking straight forward until I found the wall, tripping a couple times over debris I failed to notice and having to climb over pieces of the Skiff several times. It was eerily quiet as I approached, every piece of me alert for any sound that did not belong to me or my movements, a footstep or a breath, something that would alert me to something else in the room that could do me harm. Once I found it, I continued walking along the perimeter, which looked more and more circular the longer I followed it, until I found a door sealed shut. Its surface was void of any windows and several inches of metal by the looks of it. Also given that there was no tangible lip to the wall big enough for my fingers to curl against, out went the possibility of forcing the door open manually.
"You think this is it?" I asked.
"I hope so. There's only one way to find out." Starco sounded slightly worried.
"Would you be able to get it open?" I asked. Starco flashed in and quickly began scanning the door from several different angles.
"In short, no. There's not a local terminal linked with the door based on what I could find."
"Crap. The only other option I can think of is contacting the others, but you'd need to refresh the helmet, and I don't feel like going headless should one of those Exos appear again."
Starco disappeared again. "I think you may need to bite the bullet on this one. Metaphorically speaking of course."
I glanced at the blank motion tracker on my HUD. I didn't trust its unambiguous all clear. "You're not picking up anything?" I asked.
"Nada," Starco replied.
"Well then, here goes nothing." I quickly took off my helmet and tossed it away, letting Starco despawn it almost immediately.
I never noticed just how much the suit's systems helped me see in relative darkness even without the night vision. The blackness of the smoke seemed all the more daunting without my helmet. One of many reasons I immediately pulled up the sights on the rifle and gazed into the dark through the lens of a circular, holographic sight. Seconds ticked away slowly as I waited for Starco to hurry and respawn my helmet. Finally he did, and I hastily slipped it over my head and returned my sights to the smoke. "Arla, Charli. Are you there?" I waited for several seconds before repeating myself. "Arla, do you copy?" Another couple seconds of static and silence. "Charli, are you receiving?" Still nothing. I continued cycling through my various ideas to contact them, but none of them ever worked. I had lowered my weapon several minutes ago as I tried to get ahold of either the Huntress or Titan because if something was going to get me, it should have already tried its best. I stopped transmitting not long after because as much as I wanted to continue, I was beginning to lose hope that they were still able to be reached. Either they had abandoned me, thinking I'd been "erased," or they had been killed. I didn't fancy either outcome, but they may very well be the outcomes with the highest chance. I turned around and looked at the wall as if it had the answers I needed. Wait a minute…
"Starco," I requested. "Do you mind giving the wall a scan?" I think I had a solution.
"I think you're grasping at straws," he protested. "I think it'd be better just to call the ship."
"I think calling the ship would do us just as much good," I responded.
"And why's that?"
"I'd venture to say that the ship's computer wouldn't do too well in the large amounts of smoke rising from this pit."
"Fine," the Ghost relented. "I'll scan the wall. If I get shot…" Starco extended a gridded beam of blue light that shimmered against the wall. As he did with the door, he took scans from different angles, getting rather close to the wall and then backing up beyond where I was to get several more scans. His scans complete, Starco floated over to me. "Well, it looks like you were right. That wall's thinner than the door, but I'm not sure that's going to make much of a difference."
I had already pulled out Crush and was in the process of attaching a basket of bullets to the gun's underside and pulling the feed. "It's one more chance than we had a minute ago." I shut the feed tray and forced the bolt back, letting the tension slam it forward again and load the first bullet. If Crush had a face, I knew it would have a wild grin stretched all across it.
"Just know that it's not my fault if you fail," Starco warned. The gun seemed to vibrate with excitement in my hands. I braced myself for the recoil and opened fire. The fiery bullets sprayed in a stream of orange that almost looked like a continuation of the fire ushering out of the barrel. Keeping it under control as much as I could, I guided the shots in a general rectangular shape and then retracing it with the leftover bullets. The basket empty and the feed laying in a heap on the floor amongst the casings, I detached the now-useless basket and tossed it to the side, slinging Super Good Advice back over my shoulder instead of having Starco despawn him. The gun jockeyed for position with my shotgun for a minute, but when I pulled Dea's weapon off my back, things seemed to settle down.
I walked up to the wall with the sizzling bullet holes now dotting its once-smooth surface. Nine-tenths of them seemed to connect with a bullet hole on top of it in addition to one on the bottom, exactly what I'd been going for. I walked up to a cluster of rounds closer to the rough top left corner I'd created and peered through. As I had expected, it was pitch black on the other side, but that could partly be attributed to the orange smolder the bullets had left in the doorway. I took a step back and raised a boot, kicking the rectangle in the wall with as much force as I could muster. A solid sound of metal screeching against metal shrieked throughout the immediate area, dissipating into the vastness of this pit. As planned, the piece of wall slid back a few centimeters. I lined up and gave it another kick, resulting in about equal progress. A third kick, a fourth, a charge with the shoulder, and finally, I had a sizeable crevice that I could squeeze myself into. The wall had dented slightly but retained its shape nicely against the beating I just gave it.
The metal now for the most part free of the hinges I created for it, I attempted to twist it various directions to completely remove it. The integrity severely weakened, I didn't find that task terribly difficult. I hefted the now-disconnected piece and tossed it to the side, the screeching sound echoing into the air. Looking at the hole I created, I could see the assortment of cables running laterally, delivering power to the various parts of the facility. "Any objections?" I asked Starco, grabbing Crush off my back once again.
"None that'll deter you."
I connected another box of ammunition to the machine gun and pulled the bolt back. "Good." I opened fire and created another rectangle, snapping the cables with only a few bullets and cutting into the metal wall behind them. Sparks flew as the bullets severed their connection and freed my path. Once I'd made my doorway, I strung a few shots on the outside edges to cut any any cables that dangled stiffly in my way. I tossed the empty box of ammunition and walked toward the hole I'd cut, sweeping away the dead cables with my foot and looking at the wall behind them. I pushed against it and felt it move after some effort. I took a small step back and began charging an orb of energy in my hands. "Let's find the others." I threw my hands forward and unleashed the energy.