The pale-yellow rings of Saturn came into view and at first all seemed well. It was hard to believe that the Awoken fleet had been practically wiped out here. When the Dreadnaught came into view, Wren could understand the scope of the situation and her hands tightened into fists around Eris' ship's controls.

The site of the blast was enormous and everything Wren had expected to see was completely wrong. The ship itself was large enough, but the cleared area in Saturn's ring drove home the thought that she might not make it back.

Cayde had tried to play it off when he explained what they were doing next and what had happened here, but she could tell he was anxious too. He had a hard time looking her in the eye and distracted himself with fidgeting with things in his toolbox, trying to find a mission object he never found before sending her off to Holliday.

Debris from the blast drifted slowly around as Wren maneuvered Eris' ship through asteroids and pieces of Awoken ships. It was almost like the Reef, but there was a fresh feeling of death here. This graveyard was new and as she flew closer to the Dreadnaught, she felt more isolated than ever.

"One shot," Kiran said solemnly. "That's all it took."

"When you're done, it'll never fire again," Cayde said. "Once you can get that transmat link in place we can get other Guardians in there with you. Just lay low and you'll be fine. Not everyone has a ship with a stealth drive and also… well, it smells like Hive."

A dead Awoken drifted overhead and Wren turned her head away from the scene. Bodies were everywhere and Wren's stomach twisted.

"I don't like this," Wren muttered.

"I'm right here with you, kid."

"Activating stealth drive," Kiran said and the ship's hull shimmered.

From the cockpit Wren couldn't tell a difference and as they neared the side of the Dreadnaught, she had to hope that Cayde was right and the systems worked the way they were supposed to. She tensed, her palms sweating in her gloves.

"I'm picking up fluctuations in the power conduit," Kiran said and Wren shot him a look.

"Is the stealth drive failing?"

"Relax, I modified the tech myself. Probably just Saturn's radio interference," Cayde replied.

"That's not comforting at all."

A red flashing light filled the cockpit and a siren blared into the small space.

"It's malfunctioning!" Kiran said.

"Are you trying to get me killed?" Wren yelled, then punched the accelerator as the Dreadnaught's weapon began to charge. Two parallel lines of green light raced toward the weapon, circling the outer edge as it built up power. They were right in its line of fire, a mere speck compared to the larger ship and Wren was nearly standing as she pushed the ship to its limits.

Wren jerked Eris' ship toward the right side as a ball of Taken energy formed, growing larger by the second. With one hand she snatched her helmet off the floor and pulled in on her head an instant before the weapon fired, blinding her with white light.

Kiran was able to transmat her out of the ship and onto the outer ledge of the Dreadnaught where she rolled across the ground until she came to a halt on her back. She blinked away the light but her ears rang so loud she couldn't hear what Cayde was saying. Slowly she sat up and shook her head, the ringing still there but subsiding enough that she could finally hear him.

"Is everything alright? Can you hear me kid?"

"I'm fine," she winced as she stood. "But we're stuck. The blast got the ship and we have no way to transmat back."

"You made it to the Dreadnaught?"

"Yeah. If I didn't know better, I really would think you're trying to get me killed."

"And you have no idea how wrong you are. Look, I'll see what I can do to get you out, but for now, you should be alright to get around and shut down that weapon. Chances are, whoever fired it thinks you died when the ship exploded."

"I really don't want you taking bets on my life," Wren said through gritted teeth as she shakily checked the Better Devils.

"I didn't mean it like that. Besides, I already owe ya, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah. My life for a few dumplings."

Wren looked around at the Hive ship. If she didn't know better she'd swear it was the same as any other Hive ship with it's strange columns and pale green glow. Barnacles crunched under her boots and torn black banners lined the area she thought might have been where the parallel lines of energy had come from.

She wandered along the outer corridor until she found a ball of white light floating in front of a doorway.

"That looks familiar," she said. "Pretty sure we saw one of those on Phobos right before we found the Taken anomalies." She slowed and proceeded with caution, but the light almost seemed to be waiting on her to approach before it darted off down the hall.

"Could be a probe or something," Kiran said. "Expect trouble."

"Always."

The hallway was short, connecting the exterior of the ship to an interior corridor so wide she couldn't hope to jump across, even with her boost, and so long she couldn't see where it ended. Overall, she felt like an ant that had wandered into a mole's tunnel. Small. Insignificant. But there was a bridge of flat stones floating between her side and the other.

Again the ball of light waited for her, this time she was sure of it. Something about its nature made her feel like she was being watched. She neared the light, and it disappeared along with the rock bridge.

"Now what?" Kiran asked.

"What's goin' on?" Cayde asked.

"There was a bridge, but it vanished."

"Hold on, lemme ask Eris. Okay, she says it's a resonant spell? So just… don't trust anything."

Wren went to the edge and looked down, then walked along the length of the platform until she came to a flat stone protruding over the chasm.

"Let me take a look," Kiran said and he floated over the stone. "If you come closer I think something's there."

She eased out onto the stone and as she got to the end of it, another spawned close by in a wave of golden light that arced across its surface. She tested it and it seemed solid enough, so she kept moving, trying not to think about the drop until at last she was safely on the other side of the gap.

There were a few Thrall awaiting in the next hallway, but Wren took them out quickly. In the next area there was a hole in the wall that was blocked off by thick iron bars and spikes. She could see through to the other side, but the gaps weren't wide enough for her to move through. Many of the pillars here were broken or knocked over and a thick, fat worm slid across the floor.

"According to the World's Grave, the Hive ingest those," Kiran said. "Not for sustenance but for survival."

Wren killed the worm, then noticed a hole in the wall a little way away. She knelt and looked in and seeing that just beyond the small opening it became large enough for her to stand again, she shuffled through. Her heart pounded in her ears and she had to stop.

"What's wrong?" Cayde asked but Wren was reluctant to answer.

"It's a little cramped and dark," Kiran said.

Hearing him say so made her throat burn but she knew she had to keep moving forward, no matter what. This place was dark and lonely, and she felt she was the only being in the universe but Cayde was on Earth. He was in the Tower. In the City. If the Dreadnaught wasn't stopped, he….

"You got this," Cayde said. "I'm right here, got it?"

"Yeah."

She walked on through empty corridors with only one way to proceed, feeling she was being led into a trap. It was hard to believe she was on a ship at all and not in a tunnel deep below the surface of the Moon. Where were the Hive? Where was anyone?

"Any luck with that weapon?" Cayde asked as Wren entered a long, open area with a bottomless pit below and the ceiling so high it was pitch black. One of the same flat stones she'd used to walk across earlier jutted out over the empty space. What kind of creature needed spaces so large? She shuddered to think.

Not far off was a bridge between two platforms where a few Thrall ran from one side to the other like lurching shadows. They hadn't noticed her. Not yet anyway.

"We've barely scratched the surface of the Dreadnaught," Kiran said.

"Hm. Well, Hive tend to keep most of their vital operations at the core of their architecture," Cayde explained. "You're gonna have to dig deep and get your hands dirty on this one."

"Where do I go?" Wren asked, easing to the edge of the narrow stone.

"Over there," Kiran said and she felt the urge to turn her head slightly to the left where she caught the faintest glimmer of gold shimmering in mid-air. "You're going to have to trust it and jump."

She took a few steps back, went for a running leap, and as she neared the shimmer, a platform appeared. She used it as a stepping-stone and launched herself toward the left side platform. The Thrall were defeated easily, and she kept to the left side, passing through a barnacle filled opening to the next area which held a crooked pillar carved with intricate detail and pulsing with the same black and white light she'd seen on Phobos. The center of the pillar appeared to be glass, or something similar, with a power source within.

"Woah, that has to be part of what we're looking for," Wren said.

"Let's see… you're right. That energy powers the weapon. Cayde? What do we do?" Kiran asked.

"Hold on, let me ask Eris." He went silent a moment and Wren investigated the pillar more closely. What she had thought was glass before was merely an energy field of some sort acting as a protective barrier around the orb within. She raised the Better Devils to take aim when Kiran stopped her.

"What are you doing? That thing could blow us sky high!"

"Okay I'm back," Cayde said. "Eris keeps going on about "breaking the necrotic—" aw hell, just shoot it."

"Oh jeeze," Kiran sighed as Wren smirked. "You're a terrible influence on my Guardian."

"How's that? Did she wanna shoot it?"

"Yes."

Cayde feigned a sniffle. "I'm so proud."

"Let me get the shield down," Kiran said, sounding over it all.

Wren waited until the shield dropped before unloading the Better Devils into the energy source until it imploded and the pillar went dark.

"It's down," Kiran announced. "But I'm getting other channels to the weapon."

"You'll have to track them all down," Cayde said. "If you don't that weapon will likely still be able to fire."

Kiran led her deeper into the Dreadnaught, through passageways and halls, over bridges, up ramps, and across platforms until she was utterly lost and relying on his readings to get her from one place to another. At one point she thought she even saw something like an arena in the distance but she wasn't close enough to see in detail.

Thrall were replaced by Taken but with a ship this size and with what it was capable of, she had anticipated far more enemies. The ones she encountered were small, weak. Most were Taken Thrall or a few Acolytes here and there. Nothing that made her feel overwhelmed, but it did add to the suspicion that this was all a trap.

They found the next power source and destroyed as they had the first. When this pillar went dark a rumbling shook the ship under her feet and there was a sound that Kiran explained what the weapon cycling down.

"Let's find another," he said and Wren followed his direction.

The next one was in a grand hall of sorts with high ceilings and smooth walls that looked like pillars set side by side, lines of green light flowing upward. They reminded Wren of some of the ornate temples in the City in the way that they were elegant, refined, and carried the weight of purpose. The column holding the energy orb stood in the center and a round platform stood on Wren's right, high enough that she couldn't see over the low ledge that sounded the outer edge. A sort of bridge spanned the distance between this platform and the one where the pillar was and Wren ran for the steps.

A Wizard noticed her immediately and screamed, raising its arms high. Instead of launching energy at her as most Wizards did, this Taken on spawned Thrall that were not flesh and bone, but nor were they Taken. They were running shadows with sections of their bodies missing. They were easy to kill, if it could be say there was anything of them to kill, but they didn't stop coming.

Wren focused instead on the Taken Wizard, trying her best to leap away from and above the shadow Thrall that slashed at her with half formed hands. Some caught her cloak, their claws tearing shreds or holes in the hem when they leapt up to grab at her.

The shadows disappeared when the Wizard imploded, her shriek echoing from the high chamber and she was free to destroy the energy source. The same rumbling and sound from before was amplified here and the Hive chandeliers swung with the force of it. Wren stumbled and held onto the pillar for support until the floor became stable under her boots.

"That's it," Kiran said. "The weapon is down. What next?"

"We still need a transmat zone," Cayde said. "There's a massive hull breach near your location. Go check it out. Might be your best bet."

"A hull breach?" Wren asked. "When did that happen."

"Not sure yet. Just watch your back. We don't know what caused the breach but with as big as it is, there has to be something there that ploughed through."

"This place is spooky enough on its own," Wren said as she passed through the hall at the top of the upper platform between rows of tall statues that looked to be Hive, but not quite, with bony arms straight down at their sides and glowing green symbols emblazoned across their chests.

"You'll be outta there in no time, kid," Cayde assured.

"Hold up," Kiran said. "You're headed the wrong way. Go back."

"Dammit, Kiran," Wren sighed. "I don't know where I am."

"I know, I know. It's not a "near" as Cayde said but I'll show you the way."

"Well 'scuse me," Cayde scoffed. "It's hard to tell this far away."

Kiran continued to lead Wren through the seemingly endless interior of the Dreadnaught until they came about a sight that made her stop in her tracks.

"Uh…. Cayde?"

"Yo."

"So… that breach… it uh… it's a Cabal ship. Just… a whole ship."

"It must have been one of the ones escaping Phobos," Kiran mused. "It has Skyburner's colors."

"Wait, Cabal?" Cayde sounded genuinely surprised. "Deal with them later. Transmat zone first."

"Got it," Wren said, taking in the damage caused by the ship.

How had it been able to get so close without the weapon firing on it? Other than damage from its crash landing it didn't look to be in too bad of shape, which was more than she could say for the hole it had ripped through the hull of the Dreadnaught. Metal pillars were pushed and cracked in half, beams curled toward the Cabal ship like long grass in the wind. Some of the broken pieces still glowed red from impact.

Hive and Cabal fought around the wreckage, none of them noticing Wren and if any of them did, they didn't care about her presence. She ran to the She ran to the breach overlooking space, when three Hive tomb ships came into view, headed to bring reinforcements to aid those fighting the Cabal.

Wren planted the beacon as deeply as she could close to the edge of the breach.

"Transmat link is activated," Kiran said. "Our ship is inbound."

"Hey Zavala, wanna see what a transmat zone on the Dreadnaught looks like?" Cayde asked.

"You landed a Guardian on the Dreadnaught without authorization?" Zavala said.

"Oh right, can I have authorization?"

"I'm assuming it's Wren."

"You bet."

"Excuse me," Wren butted in. "I'm sorry but there's a tank coming out of the Cabal ship."

"Take out that tank," Zavala said. "The transmat zone will be useless otherwise. In the meantime, I'm going to cut the feed to handle some Vanguard business."

"I'll be back, kid," Cayde said, but somehow Wren knew he wouldn't.

Cayde didn't have to wait for Zavala's response to what he had done. As soon as it was confirmed that the comms to Wren were shut down, he rounded on Cayde, eyes blazing though his expression was barely a frown. Cayde crossed his arms and stood a little taller, unwilling to let Zavala intimidate him. After all, they were equals. Vanguard. And he, well, he was their wild card. Always had been. This time was no different.

"What were you thinking?"

"That we needed the cavalry on that ship before it could kill anyone else."

"And if it would have cost Wren her life? Hm? Was that a sacrifice you would have been willing to make?"

Cayde clenched his jaw so hard if it would have sparked it wouldn't have caught him by surprise. It was a low blow and Zavala knew it, but it was also the truth and that hurt way more. He'd done what he could to remain optimistic while guiding Wren but in reality, he'd gripped the edge of the command table so hard he'd been afraid he'd left imprints of his hands in it. Especially when the weapon fired and he thought she was gone for good.

"If I would have been able to leave the Tower, I could have done it myself. But no, you had to lock flight clearance."

"Don't turn this around to be my fault, Cayde. What you did was reckless."

"What's going on?" Ikora asked, joining them at the command center table.

"Cayde has gone and landed Wren on the Dreadnaught."

"And gotten the weapon disabled and a transmat zone opened," Cayde said, unwilling to let the mission be seen as anything other than what it was; a success.

Ikora couldn't hide her impressed expression. "Wren did all of that? She should have been a Warlock," she smirked.

"Pft, well she's my Hunter and you can't have her."

"We're getting off topic here," Zavala said. "You put her life at serious risk."

"You said my judgment was clouded with her," Cayde snapped. "Which is it? Do you want me to keep her here and coddle her or treat her like any other Hunter?"

"That makes it worse. You'd take the chance of getting her killed for good to prove a point?"

"Enough," Ikora said, stepping between them. "Cayde, I'm sure you didn't do this to prove a point. We know you care about your Hunters, that isn't the question. As for Wren, there are no rules saying we can't fraternize with Guardians. You know my stance on that so I don't think it bears repeating. Zavala, what's done is done. She's on the Dreadnaught, the weapon is disabled, and we have the transmat zone needed to get her some help up there. I suggest sending in Beorn and Franz, as I wanted Warlocks on that ship since the beginning. If needed, we can send in the rest of Cerulean. But I believe Wren is owed our gratitude, no matter the means in which she was put aboard."

Zavala took a step back and focused himself. "You're right. Wren has exceeded expectations and should be acknowledge appropriately. Prepare Beorn and Franz for first transmat and put Rorick, Sisre, and Flak on standby." Zavala began to turn away, then paused. "I put strict flight restrictions on the hanger. How were you able to get Wren off world?"

Cayde shrugged. "Trade secrets."

"You see, I suspected you might do something like this so I would know if any of your… favorites were logged for flight and I know none of their ships left."

"I… might have… uh, borrowed someone else's ship."

Zavala pinched the bridge of his nose and took a couple of minutes before he was willing to ask. "Whose ship did you steal?"

"Steal is a very strong word. I had every intention of returning it. Before…"

"Before what?"

"The uh… well, the stealth drive went on the fritz and crashed, and the Dreadnaught fired its weapon and… boom."

"Boom?"

"Boom as in, no more ship," Ikora sighed.

"Cayde, if there isn't anything left, then it's theft. Go tell Eris what you've done. I expect you to help her acquire a new ship to her exact specifications," Zavala ordered.

"Sure let me just tell Wren—"

"I will handle the rest of this mission. You handle Eris."

Cayde wanted to argue but he didn't. Something about walking away and leaving Wren out there on the Dreadnaught with Zavala to command her didn't sit right with him. He'd put her on that ship, he should be the one to lead her home. And what if she panicked again? What if she got caught somewhere dark and cramped? Zavala didn't know her lingering fear. She'd had to talk to him after the incident with the tank but he was sure she wasn't totally honest with their Commander as to the long term effects. The nightmares.

But what could he do?

"Sure," he muttered and went to speak with Eris. At least that would keep him preoccupied for a short time. Damn he wasn't looking forward to that conversation. When he was in the Courtyard he spoke to Sundance. "Keep a check on Kiran would ya?"

"You know how much Wren hates in when you butt in without letting her know."

"I'm not listenin' to her, I just… want a status update here and there."

"If you say so."