“It seems they are moving again.” Churchill commented, watching the various ships converging on the bunker.
“Yes, we can only hope that they find a way down to me before our enemy notices.” Elizabeth said.
“I’m sure they will manage it. They seem resourceful, possibly more so than our designers.”
Elizabeth didn’t say anything to that, opting to just watch through the WarSat feed. Zooming in on the craft revealed them to be far more advanced than the ones she had seen centuries ago.
“Looks like humanity has progressed without us.” She said, looking over a black ship.
“It has, though I can’t really say whether that is a good or bad thing.”
“I would say it’s good. Yes, we were forgotten, but this planet has a chance with allied forces on the planet, and you in orbit.” The AI explained in a happy tone.
“I guess you’re right. But, when this is all over, what will we do?”
“What do you mean?”
Churchill paused for a moment before continuing, “With the threat planetside eliminated, are we just going to go back to standby?”
“That isn’t something I can really answer right now, but I think with forces on the planet, they may be able to keep us maintained. If they can, we could remain active.”
“Then I hope that is the case. I would like to be able to remain online as this planet rebuilds what was lost.”
His attention shifted as a new beacon came up on one of the feeds. The frames that were sent had begun spreading through the city, receiving little resistance from the ponies. It seemed they had become used to the new things amassing on their planet, enough so that if the new thing wasn’t shooting at them, they were probably friendly.
“Should we move some to our allied forces?” Churchill asked.
“It may be a good idea. They are likely swamped with work as it is, having backup may help them to focus on other things.”
The Warmind gave a hum in agreement, moving his camera over to the wreckages of the two alien ships he had destroyed. The other had left the area in a hurry, leaving a trail of broken metal in its wake.
“There are survivors among the destroyed ships.” He pointed out, watching as a few aliens crawled away from the burning craft.
“Should we let them be?”
“Yes. If they try to assail the city once more, the frames will make short work of them.”
They both went quiet for a long while, switching between watching the frames split up, a few hundred moving towards the bunker, and considering the problem of the survivors. They were clearly incapable of combat, but if they healed, they would become a problem for the allied forces.
“Perhaps we should alert the ground forces? The survivors could decide to join them.” Churchill proposed, the camera feed at maximum zoom, watching as five aliens desperately crawled for their lives.
“I’ll alert them as soon as I can, though I am unsure as to whether they will even consider joining them. The damage they caused to the city tells a lot about how little they care for the planet and its inhabitants.”
“It’s worth a shot. Any allies are better than no allies.”
Elizabeth gave her own hum, switching to the feed that Churchill was using. Three of the aliens had died, while the remaining were still trying to crawl.
“Let’s just hope this doesn’t end badly for us.”
- - -
It had taken an hour to completely set up in preparation for the dig. Thovog had arrived shortly after Kervis, and had been tinkering with the device he had been carrying on his back. Exodus and Procor were moving the ponies gathered from the Empire and the camps to where they needed to be.
Elana, meanwhile, was posted on a hill some distance from the site. With no way to contact the Warmind barring actually flying up there, they had to use eyesight to check for threats. And with Elana being the last sniper in the team, she chose to move away, keeping a close lookout for any Cabal craft that were not with Thovog.
“We should be nearly ready,” Exodus said, moving a small group of ponies towards the site.
“A few of them have plotted out where the bunker is, only thing left is to get down there,” Procor said as he walked over.
“Good. Then let’s get started. How long do you think it might take?”
Procor gave it some thought before responding, “At most? A day. Even without vehicles, these ponies have magic and flight. They can work just as quickly.”
“Then that’s even better. Where’s Kervis?”
“He’s going to help dig, grabbed a shovel as soon as he arrived.” Procor said, pointing to a spot on the hill. The Titan could be seen driving his shovel into the dirt and loading it into a wheelbarrow.
Exodus sighed as he watched him, “Poor guy. He is likely doing this to help him forget.”
“I honestly had no idea. He showed no sign of love until she died.”
“He couldn’t figure out how he was meant to show it. He brought Kalis up from day one, so she saw him as more of a brother. He, on the other hand, gained more of a bond than just that.”
Up on the hill, Lemon could be seen giving him a towel, Kervis taking off his helmet and thanking her, wiping the sweat off of his brow.
“I hope he can get over it quickly then,” Procor said.
Exodus chuckled, watching as Kervis went back to work, Lemon staying beside him with a smile on her face, “I think he’ll get past it soon enough.”
- - -
Another two hours passed before a cry was heard. They had been digging the entire time, Kervis being the only one who hadn’t taken a break. He slowly walked over to where the cry was heard, and found a few diggers brushing dirt aside. Under it, a clean metal surface could be seen.
“Good job, all!” Kervis shouted, moving down to where they were.
Exodus and Procor soon joined him, Kervis trying to clear more dirt from the metal.
“That’s the first step done,” Exodus said, kneeling down and sliding a hand across the surface of the shining object, “Now to get to the door.”
“Easier said than done, we have no idea what section this is, or even where we are in relation to the door.” Procor said.
“Then we keep going.” Kervis replied, standing up, “We can’t let up until we’ve found that door. Without this bunker, we have no hope of winning.”
Procor laughed a little at that, “What made you think I was giving up?”
The green Titan smiled at that, “That’s the Procor I know.”
“The one and only.”
They continued to work after that, slowly moving the masses of soil from around the sides of the bunker. As they worked, more of the metal surface could be seen, making it out to be a multitude of rooms, instead of just one. This didn’t deter the workers though, as they worked tirelessly into the night, Elana’s scope becoming a beacon of light on the distant hill.
As the moon reached halfway across the sky, another cry could be heard. The Guardians raced around to find a doorway illuminated by the work lights they had set up. There was a broken keypad to the right of it, but the door seemed to be in relatively good shape.
Seeing this, Exodus open his comms to the Warmind channels, “Elizabeth? Are you there?”
“I am. Have you managed to reach my bunker?” Came the reply.
“We have, but the keypad for the door is broken. Are you able to open it from that side?”
“Give me a moment.”
That moment ended up being nearly ten minutes, before a loud creaking came from the large door. It opened towards them in two segments, shining light into the corridor behind it for the first time in centuries.
Not wanting to risk anything, the three Guardians drew their rifles, pointing them down the hall.
“All right, everyone. Wait out here until we come back. If we don’t come back in an hour, bury the door and get out of here.” Kervis commanded, receiving reluctant nods from the ponies behind them.
They moved forward, Kervis taking the front, with his two companions taking his flank. Exodus had summoned his Ghost as they entered, the little machine shining a light into the various rooms they passed.
Most of the rooms were filled with old weapons, and servers for the Warmind. There were a few rooms seemingly dedicated to the old workers, of whom there were none left alive. Their skeletons were scattered around the bunker, many still wearing decomposing clothing.
They reached another door after a while, this one similar to the Warmind bunker doors they had seen on Earth.
“Elizabeth, we’re at another door. This keypad seems to work, do you have a code?”
“91723,” The AI said in response, prompting Kervis to punch in the code that was given.
At the final digit, the keypad bleeped, and the door opened in the same fashion the first did. The room on the other side was extremely familiar to the Guardians. A large circular room spread out before them behind a window, a column of devices in the middle. This column was falling from a huge metal construct, large wires feeding into it.
“Huh, almost identical to Rasputin,” Procor said, walking towards the window before them. The room they were in was smaller than the one behind the glass, a small console in front of it, and two doors to the left and right that lead into the main room.
“Why change something that already works, right?” Kervis said, going over to the console.
“Doors are locked.” Exodus pointed out, looking at the door on the right. The lights on it were shining a bright red.
Kervis looked over the console for a moment, before pushing a button on it. The door lights turned green at his command, opening at the same time.
“Got it,”
Exodus laughed and walked in, pointing his Tlaloc down, “I honestly expected you to get angry with it and punch it.”
“Hey, I might be a Titan, but I can be gentle. Sometimes.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
They strode into the room, Kervis sweeping it with his rifle. There was barely enough light to see, leaving them relying on Exodus’ Ghost to give them the vision they needed.
Reaching the console on the other side, Exodus got to work on it, looking up statuses and logs.
“Bunker is still running on reactor power, but everything unimportant has been shut off to prevent power loss.” He said, looking over the data the console gave back to his touch.
“Can we at least get some lights in here? It’s dark as hell,” Procor questioned, trying to peer into the darkness, not wanting to potentially risk his Ghost by using it as a light.
The Warlock nodded and pushed a few more buttons. A few seconds later, lights across the bunker flickered on, his Ghost returning to invisibility.
“Much better.” The bronze Titan said, jumping over the railing before him, and walking towards the column of devices.
“There are quite a few things we can make use of here.” Exodus started, still looking over the console, “Storage crates filled with glimmer, weapons, ammo, armour, ammo synths… and there are the beacons you mentioned, Procor.”
“Great. We’ll need pretty much all of that.” Kervis said as he looked over Exodus’ shoulder.
“Seems like this bunker was definitely built during the Golden Age,” The Exo said, “Its creators likely found this place the same way we did, but they would have also found a way back.”
Procor turned around, “So there’s a chance we could go home?”
“Due to the fact that the humans that built this place would have needed communication with Earth, there is almost undoubtedly a way back. But we still have a job to do.”
“Right. So where do we start?”
“Well, we need to refuel the ships and get a layout of the bunker first. Then, re-arming and checking up on the state of the rooms would be a good follow up,” Exodus said, finally looking up from the console.
Kervis nodded, stowing his rifle, “I can do a quick run over of the rooms. I’ll get back to you with anything of interest.”
With one Guardian now leaving the room, Procor followed up, “And I’ll start refueling our ships. Gonna need them down on the surface, though.”
“While you do that, I’ll go alert the ponies and continue researching what’s on this console. There’s a trove of information on this thing, but a lot of it has been corrupted over time.” Exodus said, walking around towards the exit of the room. Procor quickly followed him, also stowing his rifle.
“Sounds good. See you later.”
The Warlock nodded and made his way back to the entrance, the sight of multiple ponies looking into the hallway greeting him.
- - -
Kervis slowed to a stop outside the third room he had checked. So far, all he had found were server rooms covered in spider webs, something he didn’t even want to touch. He was a fighter, not a technician.
He gave the third room another look. The webs were spread out enough to cross the gaps between the server blocks, their lights managing to glow faintly through them.
“Kervis!” He turned to find Lemon trotting up to him, a small smile on her face, “There you are! I’ve been trying to find you since Exodus told us it was safe to come in.”
“Sorry, we needed to learn the layout of the bunker, and what sort of rooms are in it, so I thought I’d offer,” Kervis said, kneeling down to be at eye level with her.
“Can we look together? I’ve never been in a place like this.”
“I don’t see why not, though I don’t think there’s going to be that many interesting things,” The human said, standing up again and looking behind him at the corridor.
“That’s okay! I don’t mind.”
Kervis smiled and moved on to the next room. This one appeared to be a dorm, beds against the walls and a single table in the centre. On the table, a few crumbling pieces of paper could be seen, with two faded mugs beside them.
Lemon immediately raced in, looking around carefully at the things around the room. There were a few belongings under the beds, pictures and other trinkets that meant something to their owners. She spent quite a while looking at them, but she could tell the meanings behind them being there, leaving her unwilling to touch any of them.
Kervis, meanwhile, had moved over to the papers, hoping to find something on the bunker’s origins. The writing on it was nigh unreadable from the centuries it had remained there, but a faint logo near the top read “The British Space Association”.
“Huh, gonna have to mention that to Exodus...” He muttered, looking around the room. Other than the personal belongings of the previous scientists, there was little else in there.
“We should probably move on,” he said, breaking the silence that had formed when they entered. Lemon nodded at what he said, standing and moving towards the door, taking a last look at the boxes and objects near the beds.
The next few rooms were server rooms, almost identical to the first ones Kervis had seen. He still gave them a quick look over for anything of value, Lemon adamant on staying outside the room, even after claiming she wasn’t scared of spiders.
Another half an hour of searching brought them to a room lines with crates, a few in the middle of the room slightly open. The lights revealed small white and green boxes filling the slightly opened boxes.
“Oh, fuck yes.” Kervis said, tearing the lids off fully and revealing crates filled with Special Ammo Synths.
The next few had a variety of things. One filled with shining glimmer, another with suits of basic armour used by the Tower guard. But there was a larger box that caught his eye, and after opening it, its contents gave him a ray of hope. Inside, beacons were lined vertically, filling the entire thing. They didn’t seem to have deteriorated too much, thanks to their stay within the sealed box.
“What are they?” Lemon asked, peeking over the side of the box.
The Titan pulled one of them out, the familiar shape of it bringing back memories of simpler times, “The beacons we needed. With these, we can call direct strikes down on the Cabal ships. Just gotta figure out how to get them on board.”
He put the beacon back in its box, pulling it away from the wall so the others could get a good look at them. With his main priority found, he continued to search for anything else of use to the Guardians. There were a couple of old weapons, desperately in need of repair and cleaning, that he knew Elana would be able to make use of, as well as quite a few Primary and Heavy Synths, meaning they wouldn’t need to worry about ammo anymore.
“If all of this is packed into a single store room, do you think there are more?” Lemon questioned, poking at a Primary Synth.
“Probably. There wasn’t any food packaging in here, which means they will have other rooms dedicated to storage. Not a far stretch to think they would have extra munitions.”
“Then we should keep looking! If there are more, we’ll need them!” She exclaimed, running out of the room. Kervis simply smiled and shook his head, following her out into the hall.
The rest of their walk was relatively uneventful. They discovered a couple more dorms, and another storage room, but it was their find at the end of their walk that topped it all. They stood before another Warmind-styled door, a keypad to its right.
“Elizabeth, we’re at another door.” The human called out.
“The code is 19283.” Elizabeth said, cutting out right after talking. Kervis entered the code given as she said it, the doors opening with a hiss.
Inside, a staircase led down further into the earth, a strip of lights coming on within the ceiling.
“This is either going to be absolutely amazing, or absolutely horrifying.” Kervis said, drawing his rifle and pointing it down the stairs.
“Which are you betting on?” The mare queried.
He took a moment to respond, “Knowing Warminds? The latter.”
The Titan started walking down, his rifle always pointing ahead of him. Lemon followed closely, her eyes not able to focus on the walls around her. A minute of walking passed before they entered an enormous hangar, the contents of which caused them to stop dead in their tracks.
There, lying on massive racks, were dozens of shells, each nearing the size of Exodus’ ship. At the back of the room, a few construction vehicles were parked in front of a hole. It looked like they were fixing it when the bunker was still manned.
“W-what are these?” Lemon asked, walking over to a shell.
“Shells for the Warmind. Likely ones left for reloading, though I don’t know why they stocked so many...”
Kervis decided to take a look at the hole they were digging, as the shells were nothing he truly understood. That was something for the Warlocks, he just knew how to fire one. The back of the hole stretched further back than he was expecting, his Ghost summoning itself and lighting it up.
As his eyes crossed the back of it, they widened, “Ghost, get the others down here. Now.”
He nodded, immediately calling for the rest of the team, “They are on their way.”
Kervis’ mind was reeling at what he was seeing. No matter how hard he tried to understand it, nothing came up. There, at the back of the hole, was a skeleton, nothing he hadn’t already seen. But it was what was in its hand that caused his mind to crash. Within the crumbling bones, a small white machine could be seen. It had eight pyramid shapes attached to a central ball.
A Ghost and a Guardian had found their way into the bunker, through the mound of dirt and masses of security measures. And something had killed them.
- - -
“You’re telling me not one, but two fireteams are now missing?” Zavala questioned, pacing in front of the table that they had become so acquainted to since they first entered the Tower.
“Seems so, and the Guardians in them were all pretty good.” Cayde said, looking down at a map. It detailed the zone the two fireteams disappeared at.
“Then have we, at the very least, tried to figure out where they went?” The Titan asked, turning and placing his hands on the table.
“Multiple times, but nothing comes up. We’ve sent Guardians to all the planets in the solar system searching for them, with no luck. I don’t believe they are even within this solar system anymore,” Ikora explained.
“Then what are we going to do? We can’t keep losing experienced Guardians into the unknown like this.”
“Why not send one of us?” Cayde offered, looking up.
“No, I can’t risk losing one of you.”
“Then the only option is to research the starting point to their disappearance.” Ikora stated, “When we have a starting point, we can work on getting them home.”
“How quickly can we do this?” Zavala questioned.
“Depends. This entire situation is revolving around the Vex, there could be any reason as to why five Guardians went missing.”
“Well, we have a plan. We need to figure this out before more Guardians are lost, hopefully no more have fallen victim to this...”
Ikora nodded and stepped back, looking down at a tablet, “Well, we should get to work now. We don’t want to miss our opportunity.”
“Agreed.”
Cayde sighed, shaking his head as the other two members of his fireteam walked from the room, “Can we not just go one day without some weird mystery messing everything up?”
- - -
“They have reached the ammunition storage room.” Elizabeth said, watching as the duo scoured the room. They were dwarfed in comparison with the size of the shells, making them look tiny when viewed from an angle.
“Good. Are they in a condition suitable to fire?” Churchill said in response.
“Two of them will need fixing, but the other forty-eight will be ready to fire when loaded.”
“Then there is nothing in the way, have they found the beacons?”
“Yes. They found them earlier, along with the other munitions stored with them.”
“No matter. We are relying on those beacons, not the ammunition neither of us can use. If it helps our end goal, I see no reason to deny it,” Churchill said. He was still watching the burning wrecks, the fires now finally dying down.
“So where do we go now?”
“We wait for our allies to prepare. They need us, and we need them. If we are going to remove these hostiles from the planet, we will have to work in unison to get the job done.”
Elizabeth gave a pause, before responding to him once more, “And what of our allies?”
“They may not be with our creators, but it is clear they want the same thing we do. We can focus on what we are to do with them when the major threat has been taken care of.”
“And if they cause issues for us later down the line?”
“...Then I’ll kill them all.”