A trip into the City with Koro had been cancelled before Wren could leave her room for the day. She'd woken to a soft knocking and a note slipped under her door. It seemed to be Cayde's preferred means of communication since her birthday and the following day when they'd scrubbed the outer walls of her den clean before he was called back to the Tower. Something about a Cabal base on Phobos.

The note only said for her to get to the command center ASAP and since there had been some speculation on a team checking out the base, Wren assumed Cerulean was getting called out once more. She donned her armor, tucked her necklace safely under her chest piece and secured the Better Devils in its holster before making her way up to the courtyard.

"Kiran, can you get word to Koro somehow that I can't go with him today?"

"I'll see what I can do," he replied.

Wren descended into the command center where the usual staff bustled about, watching monitors and reporting anything strange to the three Vanguard who were standing in their respective places. But Cerulean wasn't there. She slowed a little, then looked over her shoulder to see Eris Morn was following her.

"Wren," Zavala greeted, motioning her closer. "I'm sure you're aware that a Cabal base on Phobos has been blasting a signal across all channels. If they're willing to break transmission silence, this could be a prelude to a full scale attack."

"I'm going alone?" she asked.

"We don't plan on engaging enemies," Zavala said. "We only want to survey the situation."

"Sending one Hunter makes more sense than sendin' a whole squad," Cayde said, giving her the vaguest of nods. For assurance perhaps? "You just gotta keep your head down and let us get in there and see what we can."

"Eris Morn will be monitoring with us," Ikora said with a sweeping motion toward Eris who was clutching her rock to her chest possessively.

Wren didn't get why it was necessary for Eris to watch as well, but she nodded and accepted the mission. Zavala dismissed her and she took her leave.

"I guess you should let the others know what's going on," Wren said to Kiran as they stepped into the sunlight of the courtyard. Red leaves swirled around her boots, the tree beginning to lose its leaves. Wren took a moment to watch them, a growing feeling of anxiety rising in her belly.

"We'll be just fine," Kiran said and Wren hoped he was right.

Wren flew over Phobos, its dark, pitted surface glowed in spots from fires around a smaller complex of the Cabal base. Smoke and dust blew thick across the terrain and as she drew closer, she could see parts of the complex were destroyed entirely.

"We're landing now," Kiran said.

"We're monitoring," Zavala replied.

The drop zone was littered with dead Cabal, broken lanterns causing flickering light to distort their features. The ledge was narrow, but not so much that she couldn't pass the bodies with a wide berth.

When she crested the top of the hill, she had to jump back into cover as a Cabal ship rose beside the cliff only a few meters away. The ship was backed by a view of part of the main base, as well as a view of Mars which was so large from this distance that it blocked out most of the horizon.

The ship passed, its light shining on a dying Cabal that hadn't made it to the ship. Wren passed cautiously and the Legionary reached out to her, emitting a deep gurgling sound before collapsing, dad. Had it been trying to reach out to her for help?

She had no time to process the incident when the main base exploded to her left. Ships were taking off from all over and she clung to the shadows as they flew overhead.

"Commander?" she said.

"I'm here."

"The Cabal are evacuating. I don't know what's going on, but they're really getting torn up down here."

"Proceed with extreme caution."

Wren drew the Better Devils, then made her way toward the base. She skirted around fires and stuck to the outer edges until she had no choice but to step out into the bright white lights that were lined up over the entrance.

Just inside, Eris' voice broke the silence and Wren flinched.

"Something has drawn us here. I can feel it."

Wren hesitated at the sight of the ceiling being on fire. Pipes, tubing, and thick wires hung overhead, some burning, others melting into long globs while the flames and smoke rolled across the metal interior of the entrance area. She kept low and ran, barely avoiding an electrical wire swinging free, sparks flying.

The door opposite her slid open and Wren proceeded into the base. The walkway went to the right, while ahead was an open area large enough to house Cabal ships. A hanger maybe?

"I've asked Eris to monitor this channel," Zavala said.

"I hear… whispers in the dark," she said, her voice trembling.

Wren gritted her teeth at Eris' words and pushed farther into the base, expecting cabal to emerge at any moment but all was quiet. Empty. The only sounds around her were of machines trying to keep basic functions going while the roar and crackle of distant flames sought to consume all.

Darkness weighed heavily on her and she mentioned as much to Zavala.

"Maybe we should back out," Cayde suggested. "We know the base is lost, may as well cut our losses."

"Proceed with caution," Zavala said, ignoring Cayde.

"Understood," Wren said, easing around a corner. She leapt back when a strange black and white ball of light streaked into the corridor she was walking toward. "Uh, Commander?"

"What the hell was that?" he said and Wren's heard dropped.

If he didn't knwow hat she was walking into, what would happen? Shje caught herself wishing Cayde was making jokes, even if she didn't get the references.

The hallway was oddly dark, as if all color had been drained out. Pieces of metal, cement chunks, and other items she couldn't place floated around a dead Legionary that lay motionless at the end of the hall. But the thing that caught Wren's attention was the substance splashed across the floor, ceiling, and left wall. They were black masses outlined in white light and swirling with what looked like a galaxy of stars. She neared one but couldn't tell if it was liquid or perhaps a hole to another place and time. She'd never seen anything like it and was unwilling to get any closer to investigate.

"Fingertips on the surface of my mind," Eris said.

"Yes… thank you for your input Eris," Zavala said. "Wren, can you scan that anomaly?"

Kiran floated over one of the masses and did a full scan of it, then of the dead Cabal which was laying partially in one of the spots.

"What do you think?" Wren asked.

"This membrane is attempting to form a bridge between dimensions. But I think it requires a living host."

"So don't touch it."

Kiran gave a curt nod before he vanished.

Wren steered clear of the anomaly and headed to the next room. A glass wall overlooked what she thought might be an elevator shaft with a ramp walkway around the outer wall. When she got a little closer she realized she was right when an elevator dropped from above, its open sides revealing a Legionary who was desperately trying to escape through a hatch in the ceiling. It barely reached the top when the elevator let loose and dropped, the Legionary's gurgling cry echoing through the shaft.

Wren headed for the ramp instead, peering down but being unable to see the bottom of the shaft or what happened to the panicked Legionary. Seeing a Cabal that scared was unnerving.

At the top of the ramp to the first landing was another anomaly and above it a beam of the same black and white light she'd seen dart into the hallway earlier. Something had been standing there only moment before but she didn't get a good look at it before it disappeared.

"I don't like this," Kiran said.

Everywhere the anomalies were, the color from the area was drained and objects, debris, floated around as if gravity had been distorted.

Before she reached the top of the next ramp a sharp scream sent chills to her bones, but she had to keep moving. At the top, lights flashed in the open area, the electrical system failing. Behind her a door slid shut, tried to reopen, then malfunctioned entirely.

"With these fires were going to have big problems with the electrical systems," Kiran said.

"Great."

"The whispers are louder," Eris said. "I will endure."

Irritation itched the back of Wren's brain at Eris' words. She would endure? She wasn't the one in a Cabal base that was on fire with electrical issues that might trap her here while she had to deal with the weird anomaly that needed living hosts. She used that anger to push her onward.

When she turned the next corner and saw the area was highly affected by anomalies. They were larger here than those before and debris hovered in midair, cluttering the space. She raised her hand cannon when she saw a Cabal scrambling away from a beam of black light, then it disappeared in a flash.

"Did it…. Did it absorb the Cabal?" Wren asked.

"Well, it needs a living host," Kiran said.

Wren didn't funny understand what that meant for this anomaly. What became of the host? Or hosts? What concerned her was that the Cabal wasn't close to one of the anomalies. The light was coming out of a place on the wall. Keeping clear of the membrane didn't seem to matter. She tiptoed around the debris in the corridor when Eris' voice came through.

"They speak a word," she said. "A name."

The oppressive feeling of Darkness intensified as she stepped into a circular room with no windows, and one door toward the back wall.

"He is here!" Eris cried; her voice thick with fear.

Wren froze as a face and shoulders materialized from smoke in front of her. Three Hive eyes stared down at her from its huge, horned head and a light grew in the middle of his chest.

"Light," the head spoke, his voice gravely and seeming to come from all around the room at the same time. "Give your will to me!"

The mass in the middle of his chest grew, bubbled, frothed, then exploded, materializing the body of a Knight as well as Psions before the smoke figure dissipated.

These enemies weren't like any she'd seen before. Their bodies, their shapes, were all too familiar, but they appeared to be made from the same substance as the anomalies from before. Their bodies were dark, swirled with stars and constellations while their legs glowed white and their eyes had been turned into piercing, bright light.

Her hesitation was enough to draw their fire and when a shot wizzed past her ear, she snapped back to reality and moved, dodging behind a crate and wondering if it was even worth it to shoot at them. What if her bullets went right through?

"Get moving kid!" Cayde yelled an instant before flames from the Knight's weapon drove her from cover.

Psions had begun to surround her position but when she shot at one, its body split apart and both of them advanced on her.

"Commander?" she yelled, killing the two Psions as other nearby also split, multiplying faster than she could kill them. "What do I do?"

"We're still here," he replied, though his tone was strained. "Keep in cover and don't get too close to them until we know what they're capable of."

"That might be easier said than done," Wren said as a wall of flames drove her farther to the left side of the room. A loud clanging sound drew her attention back to the door she'd come through which was now rapidly opening and slamming shut as the electrical systems continued to fail.

These new enemies didn't seem to be as resilient as their true counterparts and despite their growing numbers, Wren realized that a head shot was enough to kill them. Their bodies exploded, only for their core to implode, leaving nothing behind to show there was any enemy at all.

It was the Knight that gave her trouble, forcing her to keep at range with her scout rifle and exercise patience she wasn't used to.

Through her shots she could hear Cayde and Zavala arguing from far off, as if they'd stepped away for a moment to speak but they hadn't gone far enough away. Cayde was demanding to know why she'd not been told to can the mission, but Zavala insisted it was his call, not Cayde's. Their arguing was making her anxious and when the Knight was finally gone she ran without waiting for guidance. The way back wasn't accessible anyway. The only way out was to keep moving.

"You have seen His face," Eris said, all panic gone from her voice, replaced by an intensity and Wren could swear, excitement.

Zavala returned to comms, but Cayde was silent. "This mission is scrubbed," he said. "Get to your ship and get out of there."

"Already on it," Wren said. She killed a Phalanx and noticed a strange scream emitting from its body as it imploded. More of them emerged as she ran as well as Knights and Psions, all dropping from pulsing black and white lights like portals.

While focused on a Knight, a Phalanx appeared beside her, its shield bursting with a shot that slammed her into a wall. Pain flooded through her as she hit, then dropped to the floor. The Phalanx approached, and she fired two shots into its chin as it raised its shield.

She scrambled to her feet and took off, winding blindly through corridors, under flickering lights, through broken, sparking doors, past windows that poured in orange light which might have been from fires burning deep inside the base.

There was no way of knowing if she was going the right direction or if her random course was getting her hopelessly lost. If that was the case, this was in for her. Parts of the building were beginning to collapse, shaking the floor under her boots. Her back and side throbbed with every step but she kept pushing forward.

"The base is a loss," Zavala said. "We have reports of these "Taken" across the system. Go, Wren! You have to get out now!"

Wren turned the corner at the bottom of the ramp to narrow hallway where the power was out entirely. It was nearly pitch dark and cramped, with flashes of sparks raining down and immediately her legs began to shake and her palms became sweaty. A lump in her throat rose, making it hard to breath and she froze, staring wide eyed down the hall.

"Hey kid, listen to me," Cayde said, trying to keep his voice calm. "I know what you're thinkin', but you're close to makin' it out. It's just a hallway. You're almost out."

Wren took a deep breath and ran as fast as she could through the darkness, feeling at any minute it would swallow her whole. She slid down the bottom of the ramp and tripped on her way out of the passage and into the aerodome.

"Atta girl!" Cayde said.

A streak of light caught her attention out of the corner of her eye and something struck the base on the other side of the aerodome. The shockwave nearly knocked her off her feet but she was able to regain momentum and keep running.

"Our ship is landing across the airfield," Kiran said as her ship flew low overhead, then turned sharply toward where the explosion had just been. "Hurry!"

Wren came to the end of the platform where below some Taken were engaging Cabal that hadn't made the evacuation. She jumped over them, dropping a grenade behind the Taken as a distraction so she could avoid combat that might slow her down.

She leapt across a destroyed section of a bridge, killing Taken Phalanxes that appeared there. Beyond that point, there were more enemies than she could handle. Psions split, left and right while anomalies dropped more of them as well as Phalanxes that immediately aimed their shields at her. One shot from them and she'd be launched off the aerodome platforms and done for.

"Keep moving, you'll make it," Cayde urged.

Her body ached as she pushed on, trying to leap and dodge to avoid combat but the Taken seemed to know what she was going to do next and several of their shots hit her. Their rounds had burned and numbed at the same time, like when her fingers and toes were too cold, then were exposed to hot water. The areas the shots hit sent flashes of pain through her and all she wanted to do was go home.

"We're almost there," Kiran said and Wren took the last corner to see her ship hovering over a fallen tower that billowed flames and smoke.

When she was close enough, Kiran transmatted her in and they were off, speeding away from Phobos.

"Zavala, we made it," Kiran said as Wren yanked her helmet off and threw it to the floor. "We're headed home."

"Good work, Hunter," Cayde praised. He was relieved, Wren could hear it.

"Very good indeed. Return and we'll discuss next steps. I feel Eris might have some… insight for us."

The comms cut off and Wren put her head between her knees, taking deep breaths to calm herself and stop the shaking. That dark hallway had almost done her in. If Cayde hadn't pushed her to move, would she have been able to? It was embarrassing and yet… she knew she owed him. Big time.

The comms went silent and Zavala immediate turned on Cayde, fire burning in his eyes though he kept his composure. Ikora's gaze darted between them but she put her hands behind her back and waited. Cayde knew what was coming so when Zavala leaned against the table on his fists and stared Cayde down, it wasn't a surprise.

"You had nothing to do with this mission," Zavala said.

"Uh, that's my Hunter out there. I have everything to do with this mission."

"I said before that your judgment was clouded with Wren, but I believe that was an understatement. You had no place in this mission and you know it. With anyone else you wouldn't have interfered. If you can't retain your professional distance from her and treat her like any other Hunter, I will be forced to take over her command myself."

"What is your problem?" Cayde yelled, but Ikora stopped him.

"Eris Morn is on the way. It's bad enough she had to witness your outburst earlier, we can handle this later. For now, we have more pressing matters to attend."

"That's another thing," Cayde pointed. "I get the feelin' that Eris knew way more about what we were going into than she told."

"Cayde," Zavala snapped.

Cayde flipped a switch and a hologram of the Dreadnaught lit a bright orange in front of him.

"My contacts near Saturn say the weapon fired only once," Ikora said, redirecting the conversation. "From what I gather, the Awoken tried to head the ship off and… to my knowledge there aren't any survivors. I have some Warlocks assigned to monitor distress signals, but none of them can get close to the Dreadnaught."

"It's unlike the Queen to attack a superior force," Zavala said.

"How could she have known? How could anyone?" She paused. "We need a Warlock inside the Dreadnaught."

"Oh, here we go," Cayde sighed.

Zavala stepped away from Cayde to confront Ikora. "Our first priority must be to protect the City. Wren got a good look on Phobos. Whatever it was turned Cabal against Cabal. You say them scrambling to escape. It wiped out their base in minute. How long would we last?"

"Until we understand what we're dealing with—"

Ikora was cut off when Eris Morn extended her hand, shooting her glowing green rock out to stop the hologram of the Dreadnaught. Cayde side eyed her and crossed his arms. She had a lot of explaining to do. He had a hard time believing she didn't know more going into Phobos and he had this feeling she'd used them and Wren to figure something out…

"They are Taken," Eris said, edging closer to the table in that strange way she had, almost like a stray cat skulking closer to a meal, unsure of if it was to be trusted.

"Eris," Cayde greeted. "Get your rock, off my map."

She ignored him. "It hasn't spoken since Crota fell. It speaks now because Oryx has arrived," she said, circling around Ikora's back. Ikora stiffened and kept her guard up. "Come to fulfill the final covenant of his son."

"But why fight the Cabal?" Ikora asked.

"Not fighting. Taking. Controlling their will." A silent snarl exposed her teeth as Cayde pulled her rock off the map and the hologram of the Dreadnaught once again filled the room with an orange glow. He stared at her, defiantly. She did know more than she'd let on.

Cayde played with the rock, slapping and squeezing the strange green substance that surrounded it. It sounded like glass when met with force but it had an oddly giving surface when applied with pressure. He could feel her eyes on him the whole time and he hoped she was as worried about her precious object as he had been with Wren, watching her through her Ghost as she tried to escape Phobos.

"So we focus on his army," Zavala said. "Kill these Taken until he's all that's left."

"Whatever you kill, Oryx will replace," Eris said.

"The Dreadnaught, then," Ikora said. "How do we get past that weapon?"

"Without ending up like the Awoken," Zavala added.

They sat in silence and it clicked with Cayde… a way around the weapon. He looked up, all of them stuck in a moment of thought, then he threw Eris' rock back to her.

"I gotta… go see about a ship."

"Cayde, our discussion is not yet concluded," Zavala said and Cayde could hear him take a few steps in his direction but he had no intention of turning around.

"I know. That's why I'm leaving."

Now the fun part. Finding a Hunter for the job.