Chapter 18: The Pit and the Shrine

"Venus? Are you sure?" asked Amanda Holliday incredulously. "Nobody has gone out that far in… well, I'm not rightly sure I can remember the last time."

Whisper nodded. "I'm sure. So, what do you think? Will it make it?"

Amanda looked up at the battered Arcadia class jumpship in the hangar's docking clamps with a skeptical frown. "I wouldn't count on it, not on a refurbished NLS drive. And not without a full strip-down and inspection of the internal framing. To be honest, I wouldn't have bet on you making the moon and back if I'd known you were going to try it."

"And if you could fix all of that, what would it cost me?"

"Between labor and any spare parts—assuming we have them—somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand glimmer, depending on how bad it is under the hood. Honestly, you're better off getting a new Phaeton long range jumpship, or even a Regulus 'near star' super long range jumpship."

Whisper winced. She had quite a bit less than that, even after the pay she's received from the Vanguard for her missions. Well, at least she knew why so many guardians ran side jobs now.

When Whisper didn't respond, Amanda looked at her speculatively, then spoke up. "Look, I know that's a lot of glimmer for a new guardian, so maybe we can… work something out, instead."

"What kind of 'something' are we talking, here," asked Whisper cautiously. She liked Amanda, but she didn't know her very well. For that matter, she didn't know anyone very well yet.

The pilot considered for a moment, the hand on her chin unconsciously smearing oil. "Here's my predicament. I have bits and pieces of dozens of jumpships of all different kinds brought in by guardians hoping for a bit of glimmer. Just for example, I have the parts for multiple Regulus jumpships, enough to make the Model 22a, 44b, 55, 66c, 77 and even a 99. Unfortunately, we don't have the specs for any of them, and reverse engineering only gets me so far without a heck of a lot of technical support I don't have. So if I find a part in perfect condition, I can install it and get it flying, but if it breaks, then good luck. The only ones I know inside and out well enough to fix with confidence are the 22a and the 55."

"That makes sense… but what are you asking for?"

"I'm asking, and to be honest, pretty close to pleading at this point, that you go out there in the Cosmodrome or wherever else you can think of, and find me the blueprints and technical readouts for any jumpships you can find, especially of the electronics. With that I can figure out how to get these ships back up in the air and maybe take the first step towards building our own, new jumpships. What a day that would be, huh?"

That sounded like a vital objective for the City, but the fact that it hadn't been done yet made her nervous. "Why haven't you asked anyone to help you with this before? Why me?"

Amanda grimaced. "Believe me, I have. But I can't afford to pay the kind of glimmer to hire a guardian, and I don't have guns to get guardians' attention, either. Not that I'm willing to part with, at any rate. I've asked the Vanguard, but they're worried about antagonizing the House of Devils and something about having other fires to put out." She sighed, and grudgingly added that "Zavala does have a point that there's still enough salvage out there to last for a few years. But it will be too late if we wait until then! Everyone is so confident that I'll be able to work it out, no problem, but it could take me years of working on it to make it work—I'm a pilot turned mechanic, not a miracle worker." A hint of desperation started to creep into her voice by the end.

Whisper could feel her worry that that day would come and she wouldn't be up to the task. That, alone, made her want to help. Throw in an overhaul on her jumpship, and it really wasn't a choice at all. "Do you have any idea where to start?"

Amanda smiled gratefully. "Try the Cosmodrome, like I said. I'm sure you saw those massive colony ships—they were part of something called the Exodus Project. They've been stripped of supplies, for the most part, but their computer systems held huge data banks. If you can access those, you might find something we can use. Plus, the Graveyard's always worth a visit to pay respects."

It didn't take much time checking at the library to realize that, for better or for worse, there was only one real option, and that was what Amanda called the Graveyard. The Cosmodrome was firmly under House of Devils control, and they tended to concentrate their forces around the ruined colony ships, slowly dismantling them. The one exception was to that was the Graveyard, or what it was officially called, the downed colony ship Exodus Blue. The Vanguard might not want to antagonize the Fallen, but Lord Shaxx didn't seem to mind. He'd led a small army of combat frames and secured the site for crucible matches just a few years ago. When he hadn't pushed for more territory, and had violently repulsed every effort to retake it, the Fallen had decided to let it stand.

Maybe, just maybe, she could find something there for Amanda. And she had to hope she did, too, because the woman had already proved her mettle as a mechanic. It didn't take long into her flight for the battered Arcadia class jumpship to develop an alarming rattle. Still, nothing seemed to be entirely broken yet, and it wheezed over into the Cosmodrome and settled down on the small landing pad next to the City shuttle for Crucible combatants. She didn't want to send it back up and risk Fallen anti-aircraft weapons, or having it just fall out of the sky and leave her stranded way out here.

The dropship door clanked open and she climbed out into the cold evening air as the combatants for the last Crucible match of the day filed back towards the shuttle. She held back, staying out of the way of the fearsome-looking guardians. Most moved directly for the shuttle, some hyped from a victory, talking energetically, while others grumbled quietly in defeat. Two held back, a hunter wearing a heavily decorated cloak. She couldn't tell what it all meant, but from what Cayde had said, the guardian had seen a lot. She doffed a helmet and stood on the edge of the landing pad next to a giant of a titan, looking out over the battlefield.

After a few moments she grimaced. "This place makes me angry."

The titan glanced at her, held tilted in curiosity. "Why?"

"Look around at what we once built!" she demanded, sweeping an arm out to encompass the scene. Whisper, took, looked out, and once again was stunned at just how enormous the Cosmodrome was. At its peak, it had been tens of thousands of square kilometers of multi-leveled, heavy construction. Even if every Fallen packed up and left today, trying to repair all of this would take centuries, and more people than the handful of million that called the City home. What humanity had lost was staggering.

The titan, too, silently took in the scene and contemplating the destruction.

The hunter signed. "I would've liked to have lived here, I think," she said more softly, allowing a hint of caring, of vulnerability to show. "This place must have been magnificent once. Can you imagine it?"

"I try not to," replied the titan brusquely. No hint of compassion, of investment, there.

"Uh huh." The hunter shrugged. "Do you ever think about our enemies' homeworlds? What about their cities?"

The titan sighed. "You just don't let up. Maybe they don't have cities. Maybe that's why they tear ours down." The hunter paused thoughtfully, and the titan pressed on before his companion could reply. "Come on, let's get out of here and you can keep wondering about things we'll never know in the shuttle." Together they turned and joined the others on the shuttle, which shut its gull-wing door and eased up into the overcast sky, leaving Whisper by herself.

She drew a deep breath and walked down into the site itself. It was… well, it was a mess. Exodus Blue herself had crashed here, and given that there were still recognizable parts of her, it must have happened almost immediately after takeoff. The big ship had scattered pieces for miles, but the biggest pieces were here, in the shadow of her own gantry that had once prepared her for her final, doomed flight. For what it was worth, and somewhat miraculously, most of that gantry was still intact, its massive frame overlooked the destruction.

Down on the ground, enough debris had been cleared to allow brutal, close quarters combat to take place, with a construction control tower serving as a sniper's roost. She frowned, looking across the scene. There was nothing especially unique about the arena that couldn't be replicated elsewhere. But Shaxx went to extraordinary lengths to keep this arena going, which made it a sort of message to the Fallen from him—you may be picking at the bones of our history, but we are still here, and we are still dangerous. Something like that.

She picked her way carefully towards the control tower, which seemed the best place to start, maneuvering through the rubble. It was a surreal journey, one moment standing in a mostly intact segment of colony ship, then stepping through a broken airlock and onto the grass in the shade of fluttering red banners that still had bullet holes in them. Climbing the steps once tread by bustling construction workers, she arrived in the ruins of the tower.

"Blabber?" The ghost materialized and looked across the wreckage glumly. Are you sure there isn't something else we could be doing? Something a little more… active?

"I'm sure. Now, help me get some power into these systems and we'll see what we can find. Assuming the crucible goons didn't blow it all up."

Blabber sighed glumly and they got to work.

Vistrek stood near the edge of the Hellmouth, looking across the way at Alice and the Praxics preparing to descend on the other side. It looked like everyone was going to get going soon. He checked his weapons one more time and tried to prepare himself, secretly wishing he was as calm about this as the unflappable warlock.

Privately, Alice held deep reservations about descending into the Hellmouth based on the word of the warlock Osiris, buts she wasn't about to raise concerns, not with Aunor Mahal of all people. On the bright side, the mission let her kill Hive, and that made up for a lot in her book.

The woman in question raised her gloved hand in signal, and the warlocks as well as the titans across the way began their descent into the Hellmouth. Progress was quick as they cut through scattered thrall and acolytes on the upper layers that still hadn't recovered from the raid to stop the Hive ritual. Inside, Alice felt a glow of pride that she had been part of that blow against the Hive. She pushed the thought from her mind and focused on her surroundings. It was time to strike another blow.

Vistrek awkwardly trailed behind Fireteam Family. The trio operated with a smooth, well-oiled precision that left him more than a little awed. Crimiq-5 led the way, an immovable rock of stability that brought opposing forces to a halt and sent acolytes flying. The warlock Sola Scath followed close behind, sending bursts of Light out to consume swarms of thrall that tried to swarm them, and further back the hunter Katake picked off priority targets with lethal precision.

They didn't leave much for him to do, and he was forced to acknowledge that trying to help would only get in their way, interrupt the instinctive flow in which each member of the fireteam knew exactly what the others would do.

He might not be able to help, but he intended to make full use of the opportunity. He watched Crimiq-5 closely as they descended further into the Hellmouth, how he approached corners, the firing angles he favored, how he covered for his fireteam members. He was so absorbed he almost missed Crimiq's hand sign to halt. The fireteam leader gestured across the way towards the warlocks. "They're breaking off towards their own objective. Keep aware of our flanks. Let's go."

Hiraks tried to ignore the itch where his docked arms used to be, then suppress the burst of rage at Captain Kaliks. Hiraks was as curious about the Hive as the next Eliksni, but how was he supposed to know the plan to invade the Hellmouth had come from Baron Frigoris when he'd called it stupid? And it was stupid. The Light warriors had not been seen on Luna in a long time, so maybe they wouldn't come back again. So maybe they could find new loot before the Hive came back. But did he want to risk his life for that? No he did not. And now he would have to take that chance anyway, only now with just two arms, a dreg cripple.

He didn't like it, but there wasn't much Hiraks could do about it just now, other than glare at the green-cloaked back of Captain Kaliks while he wasn't looking. And that was precisely what he was doing when the sound of primitive, but unquestionably effective, powder weaponry of the Light warriors echoed down from above.

Aunor's voice crackled through the fireteam channel as entered into the walls of the Hellmouth. "I'm picking up Fallen activity. Alice," she asked reluctantly, "do they normally venture this deep?"

"Not that I have seen," she replied, keeping her voice even.

"Then something must have riled them up. Or more likely, the opportunists thought to steal from the Hive while they reeled from our assault." The fireteam advanced steadily through now-empty corridors, the strangely tiled floors thick with the ashes of Hive and smears of Fallen blood. Minutes later they entered a larger chamber where battle still raged, scattered Hive throwing themselves on a Fallen rearguard. "Through them," ordered Aunor grimly.

Alice lanced out with a solar grenade of light, bursting a wrestling thrall and dreg into flames. The Fallen are invading the Hellmouth, where even guardians feared to tread for so long? Is it bravery or madness that drive them? The Fallen gave way quickly before them and Aunor drove them forward relentlessly.

Hiraks huddled behind an outcrop of rock overlooking the abyss that was the Hellmouth and tried to control his breathing as the sound of battle approached rapidly. The Lightbearers… he was about to face the great and terrible Lightbearers. Then the sound was upon them. He turned the corner and pointed his pathetic arc pistol, and found an armored human not one step away. He pulled the trigger, sending a bolt of arc energy into the human, where it was harmlessly absorbed on an energy shield.

The human's arm shot out and crashed into his chest with impossible strength, launching him backwards. His toes skid on the stone and then he was falling over the edge down, down, down…

Alice cleaned up the last of the Fallen rearguard, sending it over the edge, then regrouped with the others.

"If Bahaghari is reading the Fallen's transmissions correctly, this force is being led by a baron. They don't crawl out of their skiffs often. We will take advantage of this opportunity."

It didn't take long. They caught up to the main Fallen raiding party not a stone's throw away from the rearguard, but they were mostly dregs, with a few vandals and only two captains accompanying the baron, whose heavy armor stood little chance against the combined Light of four warlocks.

Aunor consulted briefly with her ghost, then pointed. "This way. Into the tunnels."

Crimiq-5 paused. "We need to get through this door." His ghost leapt into being. "On it! Hm. A triptych of Hive runes… said to be uncrackable." Small doorways began to move all around them, opening up to reveal more Hive.

"They know we're here now!" shouted Sola eagerly. The fireteam threw themselves into battle while Vistrek held the sealed doorway, making sure nothing snuck in behind them. For endless minutes the world was consumed by frenetic battle as thrall, acolytes, knights, and even a wizard rushed at them from every direction, only to break on Crimiq-5, who did not give even a single step.

"Got it!" shouted the ghost, and the door cracked open. Abruptly the Hive turned tail and ran. Vistrek couldn't say he was sorry to see them go, but… why?

"I don't like this," said Katake quietly, the first time Vistrek had heard him speak. "I've never heard of the Hive being afraid of anything before."

"Only one way to find out. Vistrek, are you ready?"

He nodded to the more experienced titan as confidently as he could manage. "Good man." Crimiq clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's get this done." He led the way downwards, further into the darkness.

The tiled floors and harsh Hive architecture gave way to narrow, winding tunnels carved into solid rock, illuminated by glowing crystals that cast everything into weird shapes and threw strange shadows as they passed. Down, down the tunnel wound, before emerging on an even deeper Hive fortification. A roar echoed as another Hive force, anchored by an ogre, charged to meet them. The guardians cut through them efficiently and pressed onwards, deeper still, passing over a bridge across a massive fissure in the moon. Looking out they could see other bridges dimly in the dark. How big is this place?

Another doorway opened and, to their surprise, they were back in the Hellmouth on a landing clinging to the wall. Far above, Vistrek could see a small circle that was the surface.

A Hive tombship shrieked into reality, heavy cannons launching destructive void blasts while it dropped off troops. They took cover from the ship, then leaped out to tear their way through the Hive. Down they wound again, once more entering the maze. Crimiq called a halt for a few minutes to catch their breath. Through the next door, they heard a roar that shook the stone itself. Whatever it came from, it was big. Very, very big.

"These tunnels go on for miles," whispered Alice's ghost, "we'll never explore them all." Alice nodded, then the entire fireteam froze as an incredibly deep, powerful roar echoed up from somewhere far below in the depths.

"I don't even want to know what they're keeping down there."

"Wizard!" warned Aunor abruptly, and a brief but brutal firefight ensued. An acolyte put a lucky burst of void energy through Taeko-3's skull, but by the time her ghost got her back up on her feet they had already mopped up the last of them. She nodded readiness to Aunor, who consulted with Bahaghari. "More Fallen signals ahead. Be ready."

"These Fallen are just as crazy as we are," muttered Marlenx-3, too softly for Aunor to hear.

They entered a large chamber with orange glowing crystals set into the ceiling and ran into the Fallen. They opened fire, and a swarm of Hive charged in from the far side of the room. Battle raged, but none could stand before the might of the Light. Once they were dead, they pressed onwards. Slowly the tunnel began to change, opening into larger tunnels lined with growths along the walls that looked strangely like cabling. The chamber opened further to reveal a large, circular central area with paneling built to emulate a broadcast antenna. Hundreds of those huge cables wound their way towards the center from every direction, while at its heart something dark hung ominously. More Hive were here, not wandering patrols now, but stationed guards.

They cut their way through them, until with a roar an ogre blocked their path. Aunor hurled a Nova Bomb, ripping through thick hide, and Taeko-3 fired a rocket into the gap, blowing it to pieces. "Keep going!" ordered Aunor.

The heart of the chamber was open to them now, and Alice got a good look. It was a sphere that glittered with black nothingness, as if it was holding the void inside it at bay. Beneath it hummed bizarre machinery unlike anything Alice had ever seen. Aunor marched forwards fearlessly.

The doorway opened and Vistrek's jaw dropped open. After endless cramped interiors they had found a huge space, kilometers long. A platform before them was elevated above the ground below, which positively writhed with thousands, no tens of thousands of encased Hive thrall wedged into hundreds of ritual summoning pits. More urgently, on the platform was a single, huge summoning ritual, and at its center was a Hive monster. It must have been an ogre once, but had been mutated and twisted into a behemoth four times the size. Diseased-looking yellow and green pustules spasmed beneath meter-thick hardened bone armor fused with some sort of metal.

The beast let out a deafening roar once again, and yanked at massive chains that tied both arms to the ground.

"This must be the place," Crimiq commented almost casually, and Vistrek felt himself relax just slightly at the exo's confident calm. "At least it's still tied up," he replied, trying to echo the confident tone.

Katame winced, and Sola let out a groan. "A good try, Vistrek, but never tempt fate, especially with the Hive," counseled the fireteam leader.

The monster roared again, and Vistrek heard the groan of strained metal, followed by the nap of the chains breaking. "Point taken."

"Let's get to work." They took a moment, focusing on reaching out to the Light in this dark place, then they moved in. What followed was the most violent, intense half-hour of Vistrek's life.

Katake picked off acolytes with incredible precision, while Sola soared through the air raining down destruction. Vistrek and Crimiq-5 assaulted the monster itself, blasting it with shotguns and battering at it with lightning-wreathed fists.

The Hive fought back with relentless power. It stomped on Crimiq, crushing him beneath its feet. Vistrek charged in to keep its attention while Crimiq's ghost struggled to gather enough Light to bring back his partner. The creature waved a fist and whipped its heavy chains into Vistrek, bashing in his armor and shattering his ribs. The blow launched him into the air and he smashed into the stone wall hard enough to snap his spine. His vision went black as the beast glared purple death at Sola, ripping the lightly armored warlock in half.

His eyes opened again as Crimiq went down once more, and he rushed back into the fray, battering the monstrosity with all his power, dodging blows, until another fist connected with his head.

Vistrek opened his eyes and attacked again. And again. And again. The guardians hurled themselves at the Hive over and over, weakening it a little more with each death. Their ammunition ran dry, armor crumpled, weapons broken, until all they had left was their fists and the Light, and still they battled.

Until, at last, the monster could take no more. It stumbled and dropped to a knee. Three deaths later, it fell to its other knee, both legs horribly broken. Two more deaths, and Crimiq and Vistrek together caved in its skull.

The fireteam gasped for air, with even the exo Crimiq looking spent. Slowly they gathered themselves once more. Their ghosts patched armor, rebuilt weapons, charged glimmer with power to construct more ammunition. And the battered Fireteam painstakingly gathered once more.

"Finally," said Crimiq-5 wearily. "The abomination has been destroyed. The Vanguard will be grateful." They watched the creature's remains consume itself in green fire, then Crimiq nodded. "Time to go."

Aunor and Bahaghari moved directly beneath the coiling sphere of nothingness that must be the Shrine of Oryx, where green light roiled from a power column. "It's tethered to a power far beyond the edge of the system."

"Yes," agreed Bahaghari. "If I can just find a way to break the link."

Marlenx-3 glanced at Alice, who wasn't quite eavesdropping, but wasn't hiding her interest. The Praxic warlock shrugged, then moved to stand beside her, risking Aunor's wrath. "I don't know what happened between you and Aunor, and I don't want to know. Whatever it was, I'm glad you're here. The more guardians the better when dealing with this kind of thing. And between you and me, I'm just happy we didn't get sucked into a trans-dimensional vortex or something."

Thunderous steps approached. "Uh oh. Looks like the Shrine has its own guardian." A massive Hive knight approached at a run.

"I am Sardok, Eye of Oryx!" it roared.

Alice hesitated. "Did it… did it speak? She nearly paid for that surprise, and barely leapt back as the knight's massive cleaver crushed the stone at her feet. The warlocks leapt into action, spreading out and hurling bolts of Light at the knight and unleashing their weapons. The knight was formidable, able to crush them in a single blow, but it had to catch them first, and the warlocks were faster. It didn't take long to bring it down.

"The shrine is weakened!" shouted Bahaghari. "Destroy it!"

Alice turned and hurled another ball of solar Light into the sphere of darkness. Arc and void energy joined in, and with a rumble that shook her very bones the sphere trembled, cracked, and then collapsed in on itself.

Bahaghari did a loop-the-loop. "We severed their connection. The shrine… it was communicating with something out there—their king? It's not clear. Well, not anymore. Whatever it is, it's still out there."

Aunor nodded. "Our battle with the Hive is far from over, but we have won a victory here today. Let's return to the City."

Hiraks groaned and slowly opened each of his four eyes. He tried to move groggily, then hissed in pain. Broken. Something was broken. How had he—

The memory jolted through him and he woke up completely and held his breath. The moon was silent as the grave, no sounds of battle, not even the distant chanting of the Hive. He needed to hide. Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself away from the open Hellmouth towards the nearest passageway. There was something that looked almost like a gatehouse, but it sat empty, no doubt thanks to the rampaging Lightbearers.

He finally reached the end of the tunnel. The Lightbearers had fought hard here. The deep seers of their Light were baked into the stone, and hundreds of bullet holes pockmarked the walls. But beyond it, at the end, was… what was this?

A/N: Apologies that this one is a little rough around the edges, but I didn't want to delay getting this out any more than it already was.

Referenced Lore:

Exodus Blue: D1 Grimoire
Ghost Fragment: Exodus Blue

Bond of the Cormorant Blade (for Bahaghari's name)

House of Exile: D1 Grimoire

A note about Hirax: Frigoris, Exiled Baron leads the House of Exile invasion of the Hellmouth during the mission Shrine of Oryx. Hiraks the Mindbender was at one point a Dreg in the House of Exile that fell into the Hellmouth. Given that the only time we know for sure that the House of Exile was present in the Hellmouth was during this mission, with a Baron to drive them to actually go down there, it seems likely that his fall occurred at this point.