Vault of Enders
"This can't be happening…" said Azariah.
"Look, before you ask, I don't get it either," said Blytz.
"So… We're seeing the same thing, then," said Soren.
"Yes," said Enki. "That thing is falling… Out of the wall."
The buried Ketch they'd just escaped was sticking out of the cavern wall, high up and far away. Displaced rocks and pieces of the Vex construct were falling sideways as well.
"Motion!" alerted Kaara, running to the left and sliding to sit with her back against a knee-high chunk of the construct. Enki took a knee right next to her, firing his auto rifle in bursts as red bolts began to burn through the air.
"We've got Vex, people. Looks like the Protective," said Enki.
The others found cover behind pillars or low chunks before returning fire.
"The Hezen Protective? I thought they were only on Venus!" said Soren, peeking around the corner and nailing two Goblins with precise shots to their mind cores.
"The Cabal Exclusion Zone hasn't exactly been down for a long time. We haven't had - Haven't had time to fully explore the planet yet. For all we know, there could be things here just like in the Vault."
Enki spoke calmly even as he fought and managed his shield's recharge against his risk of damage.
"They guard Vex secrets, yes? Then we must report!" said Morik, using his shrapnel launcher.
"Yeah, right," said Azariah, reloading her hand cannon. "We were so far below the sand before that we had no signal. We just fell into some giant cavern full of Vex signals and static. There wouldn't even be enough wavelengths left in the air if we DID have a clear sky."
Enki sat down to let his shields fully recover, at his Ghost's signal. It manifested and spoke in a cool, robotic tone one might expect of a Reef Frame.
"If you can find an open conflux, I may be able to use previous data and relay our message using the Vex network. A distress signal including your names, our Raid mission, and our current estimated location."
It vanished back into Enki immediately after its statement.
"You heard him," said Enki, "We need to find a conflux on this thing."
"Two armored Hobgoblins, on those pillars," reported Kaara.
"I got em!" said Azariah, drawing her sniper rifle. She spun out of cover and hit the floor on her stomach. She aimed, fired, aimed, fired again, and jumped to her feet. Both the Hobgoblins had cracked cases, but their reinforced frames held. They both had gone into temporary stasis while the remaining Goblins redoubled their assault.
"When they loosen up, just fill em with holes!" said Azariah.
Two Harpies spun around a corner and started firing wildly to suppress the Guardians. They all had to stay in cover.
"Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the Vex for actually having good strategies?" said Soren.
"At least a dozen times," said Enki.
"Oh," said Soren as a line rifle shot seared the air next to his shoulder. "Good."
"We need some breathing room," said Blytz. "I'll toss a Scatter at the lesser enemies to shake them up. Might get rid of quite a few too. Morik, Enki, you wanna lay down some fire on those Harpies? Then Soren and Azariah can finish off the Hobgoblins."
"Ready when you are," said Enki, reloading again. "We're gonna need to transmat some of these Vex for ammo."
Blytz leaned around the chunk he was behind and thrust his open palm forward and up at an angle. A ball of Void light spun through the air in an arc and burst into many small fragments, each of which exploded into more Void light. Several Goblins lost large chunks of their frames and collapsed, while the rest stumbled and stopped firing for a second. Enki popped up and shot at one Harpy, Morik leaned out of cover and turned the other to scrap in just two shots, and Soren and Azariah followed up. Kaara appeared out in front of one of the remaining Goblins, shoving her knife into its mind core, kicking it away and spinning to take a knee and aim, and a few shots of her scout rifle put down the last three Goblins.
"There'll be more soon. Let's get moving. We've got to find a conflux before they wear us down," said Enki. Everyone checked over their weapons, used their Ghosts to gather ammo, and started looking.
"Hey, guys! I found something!" said Soren over comms.
"A conflux?" asked Azariah.
"Looks like the very top of one, but it's on top of this huge thing we're on."
"You mean, like, the top-top, or just over another side of it?"
"I mean the real top, where the top should be if gravity wasn't insane on this construct. There's two Minotaurs guarding it too."
"We'll make our way to you," said Enki. "Everyone, how's your light?"
"Charged," they reported, one by one.
"Good. Regroup on Soren, then."
It took a few minutes for the spread out team to make their way over the lumpy construct. By now they knew that the entire thing was mildly rectangular, if all the distorted chunks sticking out of it were ignored. It made for good cover, varied terrain due to height differences, and was easy to map.
"See it?" said Soren, pointing it out when everyone caught up. Morik and Kaara watched behind the team while everyone else peered over the edge.
"Stay here. Revive me if this goes wrong," said Enki.
Without a second's hesitation, he stepped over the edge… And flipped to stick to the new floor seamlessly.
"Enki?" said Soren.
"Hmm?"
"I think the reports are right. You are insane. You've just learned how to live with it."
"Just shut up and get down here," said Enki, shaking his head and aiming at the two Minotaurs.
"They haven't spotted us yet, and they've always got shields. Let's try to get close and tear em up before they can call for help."
The fireteam charged over the construct, leaping over low chunks, vaulting over larger ones, approaching from the Minotaurs' left. One scanned left a bit and spotted the Guardians only seconds before they opened fire. Morik was in the lead and he fired his Siegfried Rising, focusing on the far Minotaur. Enki threw a Magnetic grenade at the closer one, the grenade slapping against shields and holding, charging to explode. Morik shifted his fire and the closer Minotaur went down in flashes of Void and Arc energy. The remaining Minotaur's shields had failed, but Morik had shifted too soon to critically damage it. Kaara, Soren, and Azariah fixed that. Blytz was already emerging from cover right next to the conflux.
"It's definitely a conflux… But the base is inside the construct. We'd need to drop into it."
"Isn't this thing more than ten times bigger than the Ketch?" said Azariah. "And you want to just jump in? We'd never get out! It'd take the entire Vanguard to get us out!"
"We've messed with Vex gates before. Maybe we can use the conflux to activate one nearby and warp out?"
"He's got a point," said Soren.
"Or we could use ramps," said Kaara, marking one nearby with her Ghost.
Azariah turned, saw it, and was silent for a moment. "Better than any plan I have. Let's do it, then."
The conflux' base was in a large room, burnt orange lights tinting the room with just enough light to see. While Enki and his Ghost stood in front of the conflux, the rest of the team looked around the room.
"We're boned," said Soren.
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Enki, looking over his shoulder toward him.
"It means we're boned. We're gonna die down here. Plain and simple."
"Will someone go see what he's talking about," said Enki.
Morik was closest, so he walked into the smaller chamber Soren was in and looked around.
"Corpse. Guardian. Exo. Ghost next to it, also dead. Impossible to say how long ago."
"So why does that mean we'll die down here?" said Azariah. "That Guardian could have come out of a different gate or something."
"Weapons are unidentified. Not old models. Armor is highly advanced as well. Seems to be from the future, yes?"
"I don't care where or when he's from," said Soren. "This means someone else was here, someone else probably had the same idea, and they didn't make it. Like Morik said, his stuff looks far more advanced than ours, and he still died down here. It's not like he was shot to death, either. He sat down here, probably after fighting a lot and finding no way out, and just died."
"Scan him," said Enki. "Wake up his Ghost. Maybe they've got data for us."
"Yessir…" said Soren.
Morik knelt and focused his light while Soren manifested his Ghost.
"Preliminary scans are…" began Soren's Ghost, "Troubling. No known cause of death. His systems are all intact, his armor wasn't breached, he has ammo for his weapons. Access to memory… Is worse. There's a lot here the Tower needs to see, like future events we should be preparing for, but the most relevant is that he was not in a Raid fireteam. He was part of a Strike on Mars against the Vex. As part of the battle, a Gate Lord appeared, and its resulting attacks knocked him through a nearby portal. He was transported here with no way back. From there it's just a lot of fighting, wandering around this construct, trying to get a signal out, trying to manipulate the gates, and eventually giving up. His shut-down was sometime after the Collapse."
The dead Ghost's lights flickered on and it rose, but there was no conscious reaction.
"Ghost is revived, but will not respond," said Morik.
Soren's Ghost moved to interact with the newly revived Ghost.
"It's been overloaded," said Soren's Ghost.
"Overloaded? What's that supposed to mean?" said Soren.
"This construct is a closed network. Once you get in via the Vex network, you are in a closed loop. The portals don't lead out. They can't. This Ghost attempted to force a way out, carve a new path in the network. A Vex Mind responded, and the resulting rebound of data, data from the Vex collective mind, overloaded the Ghost. There's a lot of residual, usable data, but the indexing is all wrong. Given time, I could probably learn a lot. We should at least bring it with us, but it won't be of any help in any other way."
"And the Guardian?" asked Enki.
"Without a reaction from his Ghost, he won't be getting up. At the Ghost's current runtime, that could be years from now."
"Wonderful. Well, no luck with the conflux which, given your report, isn't much of a surprise. We'll have to find another way out of here."
"Wait, wait," said Blytz. "If this is a closed network, where are all the Fallen?"
"We're on a construct ten times the size of the Ketch they barely occupied anyway. I'm sure they're here," said Azariah.
"Dreg scouts will scour the surface," said Morik. "We find them, we find main force. There is still the mission."
"That's a good point. But then there's our way out of here," said Soren.
"The whole thing must have been made to guard something. It reeks of desperation from the Vex," said Enki.
"Aside from the closed network, what makes you say that?" said Azariah.
"The closed network wasn't the start of that. Look at the size of this place, under the planet's surface. The distorted gravity, the network, the Protective. That's not even the extent of it. This has been here a long time, right? Our dead Exo shut down sometime after the Collapse, already down here, and he was here for a long time. That means this construct had to have been here during the Collapse, if not earlier. If it was here before the subway system, and the subway system almost broke into the cavern at one place, any other time the Vex would have attacked proactively to defend their interests. That they didn't means this is a secret worth protecting until there is absolutely no other choice. The gate to the Black Garden itself wasn't guarded this closely."
"Technically," said Blytz, "It was. You needed a Gate Lord's eye to enter. If you didn't have that, going in there was useless."
"No, it wasn't. You could get out."
"Goooooood point."
"So… What do we do?" said Soren. "We've got to hunt down the Fallen. But when that's done…"
"We find out what this place is hiding. We can worry about getting out after that."
"I have an idea," said Azariah. "Vex can't teleport in if this is a closed network and there aren't any portals. While we hunt down the Fallen on the surface, let's destroy every portal we find. Then we can head back down here, one layer, and do the same."
"Systematic, I like it. I'm for it," said Enki.
"Agreed," said Morik.
"Yeah, sure," said Blytz.
"To the surface, then," said Kaara.
The moment they destroyed the first gate, the air filled with static and the construct shimmered. The Vex retaliated with unusual malice, forcing the Guardians to use several advanced abilities to survive the counterattack. Once the large force was defeated, however, things were quiet again. Even after destroying several more gates, there were no further attacks. After covering all six sides of the uneven rectangular construct, the fireteam rested near a descending hallway.
"Anyone have any Exotics? We could use some weird weapons. I'm willing to take chances at this point. I've already been wearing the Heart of the Praxic Fire," said Soren.
"I have a Hard Light experimental build," said Enki, swapping for it to show.
"I have a Truth rocket launcher," said Blytz.
"I have an Icebreaker I try not to use, although that's because I got sick of the warnings from other Vanguards," said Azariah.
"Patience And Time," said Kaara.
"Like no one saw that one coming," said Soren.
"Goes without saying, yes?" said Morik.
"Well, I guess we're going to be packing a bit of extra firepower. Just be careful. Praxic Fire could overextend your light, my Hard Light's rounds ricochet twice and pass right through anything not as thickly armored as a Cabal shield. No drawbacks to Patience or Truth, but I've heard…"
Azariah, her helmet off, looked at Enki hard, her glowing eyes intense.
"Right, well, you all get the picture."
There was silence for a while after.
"This place needs a name…" said Blytz.
"Well," said Enki, "the Vault of Glass was named for the splintering illusions of time at the end, and how its guardian entity seemed to be made of glass. We haven't seen the center of this place yet, but a preliminary name would help in case we never do…"
Everyone went quiet for a moment.
"Any colonists who lived beyond Earth's orbit were called 'Enders' during the Golden age," said Soren. "No one knows where the term came from, but it became widely used. Until we know more, how about Vault of the Enders?"
"Given that anyone who ends up here is probably not leaving, I'd say that's fitting," said Azariah. "Speaking of seeing the inside, we should get moving again soon."
"Mapping report," said Kaara.
"Shoot," said Enki.
"After traveling the exterior and using the openings to scan the interior, there appears to be a hollow section exactly in the center. It's quite large."
"Define 'quite,'" said Soren.
"Large enough to hold the bulbous section of a Ketch."
"That is quite large," said Blytz.
"The mapping also shows rooms full of Fallen crates and equipment on the upward facing sections of the construct. They seem uncomfortable with the shifted gravity."
"That will change. They will use Dregs to test the boundaries, then cross," said Morik.
"We should head inside, start clearing the gates until we reach them, then wipe them out. We can rest when they're dead," said Azariah.
"Everyone charged?" asked Enki.
Positive responses all around.
"Then let's get to it."
The group headed down into the hallway, Morik ducking a bit to avoid scraping his helmet on the ceiling or hitting his head on any uneven chunks. He was a head or so taller than a Minotaur, and certainly more physically strong than one, but the construct was built to accommodate only Vex. The team destroyed several gates on the way to the Fallen-occupied rooms.
"Fallen confirmed," said Kaara. "Three Servitors, seven captains, too many Vandals and Dregs to count. Shanks are being dismantled and offered to the Servitors."
"Desperation," said Morik. "This construct will yield no ether, even if they tear panels from the walls."
"What about Vex bodies?" asked Enki.
"Moderate."
"No Vex in the room," said Kaara. "No parts either."
"How are we going to kill em all?" said Azariah. "I mean without them killing all of us at the same time."
"Are the Servitors armored?" asked Soren.
"No," said Kaara. "But the captains are."
"Azariah can handle the Servitors in one shot, then," said Blytz. "So the biggest issue is going to be the sheer numbers and the captains."
"Morik and I can deal with numbers," said Enki. "Soren, Blytz, you two focus all you've got on those captains. At least soften them up. Kaara, try and get inside and hide. Make sure none of them escape."
"Yessir, way ahead of you."
"Blytz, you open," said Enki.
Everyone lined up at the corner, Blytz first, then Enki, Soren, Azariah, with Morik off the wall and ready to charge around the corner.
"Morik, any shots with your scorch cannon?" asked Enki.
"A full ten and no more."
"Open with it. Careful shots, try to kill as many as you can with each. Don't worry about any heavy targets, you and I are on crowd control."
Morik nodded.
"Everyone ready?" asked Blytz.
"Green light," said Kaara.
"Go!"
Blytz popped around the corner, jumped, blinked higher, and tossed a Vortex Nova Bomb toward the center of the room, close to four captains and a Servitor. Enki rounded the corner as Blytz jumped, bashing a Vandal in the face with the butt of his rifle and opening fire. In the following seconds, everything went just as planned… Until Vex started teleporting into the gaps in Fallen ranks and shooting them in the back. Kaara took the opportunity to empty her clip into the four captains hit by Nova Bomb. A Hydra appeared at the other end of the room, blocking exit between itself and the Guardians at the other end. Boxed in, the Fallen were all dead in seconds.
"Change of plans, in case you couldn't tell!" said Enki, already firing on the Vex Goblins in the room. Several of the Vex's frames cracked and shattered, but they never hit the ground. The air around them shimmered and suddenly they were back up and firing again.
"Tell me that didn't just happen!" said Blytz.
"That didn't just happen," said Azariah and Soren at the same time, both firing hand cannons.
Blytz reloaded his pulse rifle. "You two… Are you sure you're not rela-"
Azariah's head snapped to him and he stopped mid-sentence.
"Focus!" said Soren. "These things are individually time traveling or something. We can't hurt them. There's gotta be a way to stop it. Something in the room maybe?"
"Oracles?" suggested Kaara, looking around.
"None that I can see," said Enki.
His Ghost broadcasted over comms. "There is data on this from the Ghost we revived. They never discovered how to stop it either, but it is related to being on the interior of the construct. If the Vex are lured to the surface, they can be killed reliably."
"That Hydra is blocking the way too," said Soren. "Better that we just get out of here. Like the data says, if they follow us outside, we can waste em. We're just going to have to fall back and rethink things. Besides, that's it for the Exiles here. None escaped. If we keep any stragglers off the surface, these immortal Vex will eventually pick them off."
"Come on, Kaara. I'll Spike the doorway to give us time," said Enki.
Kaara jumped down from her perch high in a corner, where she'd been standing on a chunk sticking out of the wall. She ran past Enki and he threw a Spike grenade on the wall.
"Time to go!" said Enki.
The fireteam headed for the surface of the construct, thoroughly confused and trapped by the mysterious Vex…
Broken Mind coming soon...