CHAPTER 1
PRISON OF ELDERS
THE REEF, ASTEROID BELT
Alarms blared and the tight corridors of the prison were glowing red from alert lights. Seja's ship hovered above one of the executive landing pads. Seja, Ira, and Shur exited the ship and ran to the entrance.
All Awoken that were able to fight were called to the prison; somehow a massive breakout started with all of the prison's inmates. The entire prison was going crazy and Variks, the prison's warden, was nowhere to be seen. Neither was his Servitor.
The door that the Awoken came up to was locked and wouldn't open. Seja held out her hand and her Ghost, Green, appeared above it.
"Time to do what Ghosts are famous for," Green quipped as he floated toward the door panel.
Seja had been a Guardian a long time ago. At the beginning of the Red War she was brought to the Reef, back to her people. Seja wanted to help her people, and that's what she did, leaving the city and working for the Awoken of the Reef.
A blue beam shot out of Green's green eye, zapping at the door to get it to open. The door panels shifted and it opened. Green disappeared, and Seja felt him enter her pocket.
The three Awoken headed inside and ran down a tight corridor.
"Any idea how this started?" Shur asked after an explosion rocked the hall.
"No clue," Seja replied, "Variks would definitely know, but no one can find him."
Ira stayed quiet, as usual.
The three Awoken came up to another door and heard banging on the other side. They stopped and all aimed rifles at the door.
The door busted open and a skinny Eliksni wearing barely anything fell forward. Its skin was burned and melted, it had rags covering its chest, legs, and arms. The only armour it had was on its shoulders.
The Eliksni stood up and roared before charging at Seja. A burst from her pulse rifle took it down. The hallway past the now dead Eliksni was completely on fire.
"Looks like we can't go this way," Ira said.
Seja nodded and deployed Green to seal the door before they ran off to find the next.
"Petra, what's the situation?" Seja called Petra when Green returned to her.
"Cayde and his partner are almost here," Petra Venj's voice sounded in Seja's ears as she responded, "hopefully with them this will go a whole lot quicker. We're going to work on getting to the tighter security areas; you three just kill any 'former' inmates you see."
"Roger that ma'am."
Petra Venj was the woman who was put in charge of the Reef after the death of the Awoken Queen, Mara Sov. Seja thought Petra did a good job, but others doubted her leadership. Especially when the Vestian Outpost was attacked and destroyed a year prior.
As soon as Green closed the communications; the three Awoken came up to another door. It opened as they approached and it led out to a bridge. The three Awoken crossed the bridge that led further into the prison, and that's when they were able to take in the full chaos of what was happening.
Cayde's ship, Queen of Hearts, flew over a landing pad connected to the Prison. He and his partner, another Guardian, materialized onto the platform at the same time, and they walked forward to meet Petra.
"Petra Venj," Cayde said, putting his hands on his hips, "thanks for the invite. What'cha packin' for this party?"
"Meh. The usual," Petra smiled, unsheathing her curved dagger.
"Ooh! Do the thing!" Cayde turned to the Guardian at his side and pointed at Petra, "seriously, watch this."
The two turned towards her and she held out her palm with the dagger on it. The dagger floated up and started spinning, and then she caught it in mid air.
"That'll never not freak me out," Cayde shuddered, "do it again!"
"Later," said Petra, "maybe. Right now gen-pop is running wild. Fortunately, the main arena and lower levels remain on lockdown."
Petra turned away from the two Guardians and looked towards the prison.
"But if the core security systems fail," she continued, "containment is going to be… a problem."
She turned back to the two Guardians.
"Just another day at the office," Cayde smiled.
He turned around and pulled his hand cannon out of his holster. He began loading it as he turned to his partner.
"Alright partner, this is a Cayde riff in 6," he said as he loaded his gun, "watch me for the changes, and, uh… try to keep up."
Cayde winked and finished loading his gun. The Guardian nodded as Cayde stood backwards on a platform.
"Now let's go to prison!" Cayde shouted with a smile before jumping down to the platform below.
When Cayde landed, there was a group of Eliksni was waiting with their guns drawn. Cayde smiled and aimed at the head of the Eliksni closest to him.
Fires raged in the cell block that Seja and her Corsairs stood in. Eliksni were running around with guns engaging escaped Cabal.
"Where did they get guns?" Ira asked.
"Don't know," Seja replied, "but it's our job to take them away."
Seja fired a burst from her pulse rifle taking down a Vandal. Shur ran off towards the Cabal, and Ira went with her.
A Vandal lunged toward Seja and tried to cut her with a shock sword, which she was able to avoid. She grabbed the Vandal while its back was turned and sunk a knife deep into its neck.
Seja turned to see Ira and Shur gunning down the escaped Cabal before she turned towards another group of Eliksni. Dropping a Vandal caused two Dregs to trip over its body. Another Vandal came up behind her and swung his sword towards her but she ducked under it and stabbed it in the chest with her knife. She finished the Vandal with a shot to the head from her sidearm.
On the back wall Seja could see into the cryo pods that were attached to the wall. An explosion caused all of the pods to open and more Eliksni jumped out. They didn't have weapons and ran around like Hive Thrall, clawing at Cabal and other Eliksni alike.
Ira and Shur paused from killing Cabal to run over to Seja.
"Any word from Petra?" Shur asked, raising her rifle again.
"Nope," Seja said, shooting a burst into the head of a Dreg, "just keep killing."
"Right."
A piece of the ceiling exploded above a group of Cabal Legionaries and the debris crushed them. Light green Shanks floated down from the hole in the ceiling and began shooting at the escaped prisoners.
"Let the Shanks clean the place up," Seja ordered before motioning to a door on the far side of the room, "let's get through there."
Ira and Shur nodded and followed Seja up to the door. Green began work on opening the door as the Shanks gunned down all of the escaped prisoners in the prison block, burning holes into their bodies with arc energy.
The three Awoken entered a tight hallway lined with cryo pod cells. They walked slowly as explosions shook the hall.
"I scanned ahead," Green said to Seja, "lots of Fallen, and swarms of Hive too."
"Looks like we're going to have some fun," Seja said when they came up to the next door.
In front of Cayde was a large, circular cell block where fires raged and a battle waged. The Eliksni and Cabal were tearing each other apart in front of him, and as he entered a group them who were fighting with each other turned towards him.
"Oh, these guys really wanna dance," Cayde said as he drew his hand cannon.
He shot a Legionary in the head, and it caused an explosion that took another Legionary and a Phalanx with it. He dodged to the side to avoid a shot from a shock rifle and threw a knife into the head of the Vandal who shot at him. He then jumped, and fired off three quick shots with his hand cannon, hitting three of the enemies in the head and killing the rest from the explosions.
"This riot has to end here," Petra said over comms, "If these killers get out, the Reef will be overrun."
"So we split up and take them out!" Cayde shouted back across comms, "and a one, two, three!"
A Legionary suddenly broke off from its squad and thrusted forward towards Cayde. Cayde rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the Legionary, and jammed a knife into its back. More Cabal turned towards him and fired, but he used the Legionary he just killed as a shield to block all of the bullets.
Cayde peeked around his Legionary shield and shot another Legionary in the head. The ensuing explosion took down a Centurion's shield and Cayde shot it in the head as well. Three Phalanxes walked past the dead Centurion and set their shields down, forming a wide barrier.
Cayde dropped the Legionary and shot the middle part of the Phalanxes' shields, which temporarily deactivated them. He shot the Phalanx in the middle in the head, and the explosion killed the other two.
"How did these guys even get guns?" he asked.
The Eliksni that were in the cell block had eventually finished off the rest of the Cabal, and were now heading for Cayde.
"You, my friends, are not the brightest," he said to the Eliksni before his hand cannon suddenly exploded in a burst of flames. But despite it now being on fire, Cayde still held onto it.
Cayde spun his Golden Gun and fired it six times, killing six of the Eliksni attackers in rapid succession. He threw a knife into the head of a Dreg, and another into the head of a Vandal. Another Vandal hit him in the hip with a wire rifle, only fazing him for a second, he then fired his hand cannon three times into the body of the sniper Vandal, killing it.
"Deck 45's clear. How's everybody doing? Having fun? Anybody need to pee?" Cayde asked into comms, looking around at all the dead bodies. A massive explosion coming from directly beneath him suddenly caused the cell block to shake violently.
"Woah! Who's blowing stuff up without me?" Cayde asked into comms.
"I'm going to get eyes on that explosion. You two join me when you can!" Petra ordered Cayde and the other Guardian.
"On our way Petra," said his partner's Ghost.
"The faster the better. That last blast knocked a few more cellblocks open."
Cayde found a door that opened as he approached. He stepped into a narrow corridor with Shanks zooming around in it. He felt the corridor shake as a tram went past above him.
"That explosion took out security on the lower decks," Petra said over comms when Cayde's partner met with her, "I'll check the high value prisoners down there. You and Cayde head to the security hub. Get security back online."
"Ok, pal. This crowd isn't gonna just let us stroll into the security hub. I'll go high, you go low," Cayde said to his partner.
He found another door and opened it. He entered a large corridor filled with cryo pods, Eliksni, Cabal, and Hive. He saw his partner enter the corridor and begin fighting with the escaped prisoners.
Cayde turned and ran down the upper level of the corridor. Thrall ran towards him and tried to claw him, but he took them down with ease, shooting them all with his hand cannon. Four more cryo pods opened and each one released an Acolyte into the corridor.
Cayde took two hits from an Acolyte's shredder, and dodged a third before firing at the head of one Acolyte. The explosion killed the rest of them. There was Cabal running across a bridge further down the corridor and he watched each of their heads explode from his partner shooting at them.
"Nice shooting pal," he called before continuing his rampage against the Hive.
More Thrall ran down the corridor only to meet their fate by the barrel of the Ace of Spades. Cayde eventually made it past the bridge where his partner took down the Cabal, and saw yet another bridge in the distance.
His partner was taking cover behind a crate and popped up to kill a Phalanx who wasn't paying attention. They proceeded to take out a Hive Knight with one shot that was underneath the other bridge.
"What a shot!" Cayde called to them, he then toned his voice to sound emotional, "I think I'm gonna cry."
There wasn't much more Hive on the way, but the corridor ended right by the bridge, forcing him to cross it. When he did, a door opened on the other end and released a giant Knight that was wielding a sword that was bigger than the Knight itself.
Cayde spun his pistol, quickly forming it into a Golden Gun and fired three times as the Knight jumped to attack him. After the three shots, the Knights body burned away into solar energy.
"Can I just say, I am having the time of my life right now," Cayde said before dropping an incendiary grenade into a group of unsuspecting Cabal behind him.
Ira grabbed a Thrall and threw it onto the floor of the prison before crushing its neck under her boot, and Shur gunned down a swarm of Thrall that were advancing towards her.
Seja jumped into the air and spun. Her body became engulfed with fire, and she hurled about 20 knifes into the body of a massive Hive Wizard. The knifes impaled the Wizard, and then exploded, killing it immediately.
Seja dropped to the ground, landing perfectly on her feet, and her two squadmates came back up to her. Once the Wizard fell the corridor became quiet, though they killed still hear the distant sounds of the battle happening all across the prison.
"Where to now?" Shur asked.
"We're supposed to be near some Vex cell blocks," Seja said, "but I haven't seen any Vex. Why don't we go find some?"
"Roger that ma'am."
The three Awoken continued down the devastated corridor and entered a large cylindrical space underneath the Vex arena on top of the prison. However, it was quiet.
"Strange," Shur commented, "think they just teleported out?"
"I don't think they left at all," Ira responded.
"What makes you think that?"
"I was reading about the prison when I was bored one time," Ira sighed, "I discovered that the Vex in this prison came here willingly, I don't think they would want to leave."
Green appeared next to Seja and turned into a ball of blue light with his eye at the centre, and the rest of his shell floating around it in multiple pieces. He stayed in the air for a few seconds and went back into his normal form.
"She's right," Green said, "I'm detecting Vex signals all over the place."
"Well you better lock and load ladies," Seja said, raising her pulse rifle.
"Are they going to attack us?" Shur asked.
Bright spheres of pulsating electricity formed in the air in the centre of the cell block, and dark blue fog began to emanate from the spheres. Once they electricity disappeared, seven Vex Harpies began to fly about.
"I think you just said the magic words," Seja said, turning back towards Shur for a second.
The Harpies were red with black spikes on their wings, and their eyes were a deeper red than other Vex, they looked rather unique compared to the rest of the Vex around the system.
"You know these guys, Ira?" Seja asked.
"They're called the Aphix Invasive," Ira explained, "they came here to try and take the prison over."
"Well, let's get rid of them."
The Harpies stopped moving and spread their wings, stabilising before being able to fire. The Harpies began barraging the Awoken with fire from their slap rifles. Seja got hit three times, but her shield absorbed the fire.
Seja aimed down the scope of her pulse rifle and shot a Harpy directly in the eye. Ira fired off a few shots with a sidearm and destroyed two of the Harpies. Shur destroyed two more with her auto rifle, and Seja threw a grenade into the air at the last two. The explosion burned the Harpies, leaving nothing left of them.
"It's unlike the Vex to just send some Harpies at us and nothing else," Ira said, keeping on guard.
More spheres of electricity formed along the path, releasing more Vex in front of them, Goblins this time, five of them. They slowly marched along the path towards the Awoken, leveling their slap rifles to fire.
Though the Vex prepared, it was the Awoken who shot first. Ira fired past Seja with her sidearm and hit the front Goblin in its mind core, causing the Goblin the fall apart while leaking radiolaria onto the metal floor.
"Stay behind me," Seja ordered as the Goblins fired back.
Ira and Shur didn't have shielding, and they didn't have the unique healing capabilities of a Guardian either. They lined up behind Seja while she took the fire from their slap rifles. Seja fired back with her pulse rifle, putting the line of Goblins down as they marched forward.
The final Goblin took Seja's shield down, but it wasn't able to get another shot off before Seja blew it to pieces by hitting its mind core.
The three Awoken continued walking along the wall of the dark cell block, past the ruined Goblin chassis and pools of radiolaria.
"Yeah," Shur began, "I was wondering how Vex can even be imprisoned since y'know they can teleport and all."
"Pretty sure Variks didn't even care," Seja said.
Alarms began to ring and the dark cell block lit up with red lights. The whole prison started to shake and the prison intercom turned on.
"Warning," said the Variks's servitor, the Warden, "security offline. Prison lockdown in-"
The Warden's voice got cut off with a short burst of static.
"That can't be good," said Shur.