Jayla Rin, a Striker Titan hurtled thru space in her ship with the two other members of her fireteam, Reno-13, an Exo Titan and Darren Vol, a human warlock. They were headed to Saturn's ocean moon Titan, to aid in the fight against the Hive there.
"Just routine ops for Sloane today?" Jayla's ghost, Orrin asked her.
"Just routine." Jayla confirmed. "Funky Hive activity, per usual. Those crispy bastards never give it a rest."
" 'Crispy bastards'; i like that." Reno-13 laughed.
"I wish we were given more time and information to study this specific activity." Darren said, in typical studious and cautions warlock fashion.
"What's to study?" Jayla asked. "The Hive like death and we're here to make sure death likes Hive. Simple as that."
She could almost hear the warlock roll his eyes. "You titans think you can just head butt every problem, don't you?"
Reno laughed again. "Most problems!"
The fireteam transmatted down to a large chunk of floating dock, Siren's Watch. On the surface of the ocean, as far as eyes could see, there was Golden Age cities, adrift ships, storage units and failed attempts to restore any substantial power generation.
There were occasionally Fallen scavenger parties lurking around, but mostly the moon was overrun by the Hive.
Siren's Watch was where Deputy Commander Sloane and her teams were based. Sloane was a human titan. Jayla had worked with her on several occasions before. Saturn's moon was an inhospitable living situation, between the salty, freezing water and all that lived below the surface, furious bone-chilling winds and hordes of Hive, but Sloane was an anchor in this storm. Jayla considered her a true titan.
"Commander!" She called as they landed. Sloane looked up to greet them, and gently punched Jayla's arm.
"Good to see you again, Jay! Thanks for being here, fireteam."
"Happy to." Reno-13 smiled. "We didn't have much else going on and we like to get our warlock's nose out of a book at least once a day."
Darren shivered and pulled his robes tighter around himself. "C-Commander." His teeth chattered as he held out his hand to Sloane. She shook it and smiled gently at him. "Chilly?"
"Just a little bit." Darren admitted. "What's the situation?"
"We've been keeping a watch on the New Pacific Arcology since...since we lost a few teams to the Hive down there. I'm sure you heard."
Jayla nodded sympathetically. At least 3 fire teams had never returned from the arcology. The hive had been harvesting their light, and using it in rituals. A guardian unlucky enough to be caught and their light drained hadn't yet survived.
"Long story short, the readings are growing in power...and concerning. We seemed to have slowed down, but not stopped their progress when we destroyed the shrieker, Savathun's Song. Whatever they're summoning now, we can't allow it to get here. However." She looked every one of them in the eye. "This is preliminary recon. No risks. No interference. Take readings, report back. Get in, get out. You understand?" Sloane sighed. "I was hesitant to ask you to do this at all, but i'm running out of options. This issue is becoming a foothold of the Hive on Titan, and we need to cut it down."
Jayla nodded. "Yes sir, we understand."
Sloane turned away from them, and looked out across the water. The fireteam waited awkwardly for a moment.
Finally Jayla moved to stand next to Sloane and looked out on the horizon with her.
"We've lost so many guardians to the Hive here, Jay." She whispered. "The Hive are ruthless. This is...this situation is a wound; a wound we keep filling with dead guardians…"
"Commander." Jayla interrupted her gently. "Please...it'll be alright. Recon, just recon, we promise. We'll be back in time for dinner, hopefully with some answers for you."
Sloane nodded, turned back around and shook herself a bit. "Of course. You've never let me down, Jay. You'll do just fine. I'm glad you're here."
Jayla smiled and patted her elbow. "Ready to roll, boys?"
Sparrows hummed as the fireteam entered the arcology. They parked and entered thru what had once been a large broadcasting screen, but was now shattered into large pixels. Jayla activated her helmet and HUD. "Recon." She reminded them as they walked thru muddy water and dead foliage, to a large sliding door, rusted open. Reno-13 shook his head. "You're one to talk, Ms. Queen of the Headbutt!"
She rolled her eyes and shoved into his shoulder, but smiled a bit herself. Reno was also one to talk, as a titan himself and quite a fan of the method: "hit it until it works".
Darren stole ahead, his Ghost, Merin out, and his soft silent boots making no sound, even thru the muddy water, crusty Hive gunk, and dead plant life. The two louder titans brought up the rear.
Finally, he brought his hand up in a closed fist. Halt.
Reno and Jayla froze behind him.
Darren knelt down, and Merin scanned a chunk of Hive crust. "This was a setting for a void crystal." He said finally.
"How can you tell?" Jayla said, kneeling down too. "Void crystals are what they've been using for the summoning." Darren nodded.
Jayla moved closer and realized how he had been able to distinguish the setting from any other piece of Hive funk.
The setting was embedded with ghost fragments.
Orrin shuddered from his position behind her ear. "Not a good way to go."
They walked on, thru doorways, and around corners of molding carpeted hallways, even falling thru holes in the ground dug by Hive.
Jayla groaned after falling thru the second hole into a pit, crunching Hive remains as she went. "Okay...I've had enough Hive for a while after this."
She turned to Orrin, who had just floated down after her.
"You're keeping a map of all this, right?"
"Of course, so we can show Sloane." He answered.
"I was actually thinking more so we can get out of here after." Jayla admitted.
"Really can't stomach the Hive, huh?" Reno asked. "I would have thought the huge worm/dragon that lives under the ocean would have been a bigger concern to you." His voice lowered to a whisper and he looked around warily. "We are pretty deep under the water…"
Jayla shook her head. "You better cut it out, cuz if i get the willies, we're scrapping this whole thing."
"Cut the chatter, fireteam." Sloane said firmly over their radios.
"Apologies, Commander." Darren said. He turned around and mouthed "You infants!" Silently at them.
Jayla stood up and rubbed Hive crust off her mark and gloves. "Onward!" She motioned. Reno pretended to cough to disguise his laughter.
They walked to the edge of a pit where a ritual was beginning. The three laid on their stomachs and watched as a wizard ignited a purple void crystal with green fire and laid it in the center of a glowing circle of drawn characters.
There were stinking green fumes and the hushed whispers of incantations.
Reno dispatched his ghost, Elsa, to take readings of the area. "Hopefully this will tell Sloane something." He whispered.
They got up quietly and moved on, as soon as she returned to avoid detection.
"Blocked."
20 minutes later, they were looking at a sliding door with a Hive lock on it.
"I got it." Orrin floated over. "Could take a minute or two tho."
Jayla reloaded her Thunderlord, even tho she had yet to shoot at anything.
"You're getting nervous…" Reno told her.
She shook her head and strapped the heavy machine gun on her back again. "Hive aren't my favorite. They're like bugs, crunchy on the outside and squishy on the inside. Damn, they're just gross, man!"
Reno laughed and unsheathed his enormous broadsword, Crown-Splitter and leaned against it.
He opened his mouth to answer, but then was almost hit with an arc bolt from out of nowhere.
"Orrin!" Jayla grabbed her ghost and stuffed him in her hip pocket.
She leaped behind a cylindrical pillar on the right side of the door, and Reno was close behind her. Darren ducked behind the matching pillar on the left side.
"Commander Sloane", Merin said over the radio. "The Hive have found us."
"Abort mission, fireteam." Sloane ordered. "Get out of there, now. Whatever data you've gathered will be enough.
"I've found us another way out." Merin said.
"I'll make a hole." Reno said. He looked at Jayla "What time is it?" He smirked.
"Oh, Puh-lease," Jayla said. "We're getting SHOT AT…"
Reno leaped into the air and there was a clang of iron.
"It's Hammer time."
The fire in his hand, burning but not consuming it, formed a giant, flaming hammer. He threw it at a group of thrall and they incinerated. As he threw one hammer, another appeared.
"Lets go!" Jayla and Darren followed behind, gathering orbs of light that fell in his wake.
Reno's super ability ran out at a very inconvenient time.
With Hive behind them, they had to figure out how to get UP, as opposed to going down as they had been. The secondary route Merin found for them wasn't quite as favorable as the first.
They were at the bottom of a pit; it was almost a straight-down slide. There were some footholds but mainly they would have to jump straight up. Jayla could hear the hissing of the thrall around them.
"Okay guys. High jumps. We can do this." We have to do this.
Darren's light feet caused him to arrive at the top first. "I'll pull you up." He called down to the titans.
The Hive chatter was getting louder.
"Jayla, lets go!" He called down. She ran, jumped and reached for his hands. She missed, and landed hard on the ground. The Hive noises were closer.
"Try again! Quickly!"
Reno pulled her to her feet. "You've got this, Jay. Quickly now."
He laced his fingers together, and she stepped into his hands. She jumped, and he launched her into the air as an extra boost. She made it that time.
She clung to Darren's hands, and kicked up the wall the rest of the way.
"Reno!" She lay on her stomach, and held her hands down into the pit.
Reno took several steps backwards, shook out his hands, got a running start and
-CRACK-
It wasn't hammers this time.
The wall to their right gave way, shaking the pit, and causing the straight wall they had climbed to crumble. Thrall like zombies rolled in an endless tide of crunchy exoskeleton and claws.
Jayla screamed.
Reno missed.
The huge Exo fell backwards into the sea of thrall.
"RENO!"
The floor crumbled underneath them and sent them hurtling back down into the pit.
Darren caught himself in free-fall and cast his Nova Warp. Thrall fell left and right, but Reno wasn't among them. Jayla managed to land on her feet, hit the nearest thrall with a pulse grenade, and sprayed and prayed hard with her Thunderlord.
"Reno!"
In front of her, the way they had come from, she heard the clang of steel. Crown-Splitter.
She doubled back. Reno's back was to her, beating down tens of thrall and acolytes at a time.
"Reno! Come on!" She called. She looked back at Darren, who had one good warp left in him; hopefully it thinned the herd enough for them to get past and up.
She punched two thrall out of her way. Reno turned around and Jayla gasped.
The whole right side of his face was crushed, and one eye bulb was out.
"Jayla, there's too many of them. You need to go, now." He said.
Jayla didn't believe her ears. "What the...you can't be serious!"
Reno hit down 8 more thrall, but there was a knight and a wizard rounding the corner.
Jayla stumbled and realized there were two acolytes clinging on her back, and 8 thrall, 4 on either leg, knocking her flat on her back. She turned from Reno to Darren, who was dead. Merin was working hard to get him back up.
With tension on each of her limbs, the Hive pulled her supine, suspended in the air.
The knight, glowing green and enraged, brought his sword down across her chest in a blow that would have shattered her ribs and spine, and the landing would have cracked her skull, had she been mortal. Instead, it destroyed her HUD and deactivated her helmet. Dazed, she sat stunned for a moment, waiting for her brain to stop rattling.
The wizard had taken Reno by his torso in one hand, and with the other, started pulling a stream of purple void light out of his chest.
Reno's screams as the light left his body shook her back to reality. They would haunt her for the rest of her lives.
Arc light crackled in her eyes and she curled up and smashed the ground, taking out all the Hive in a 6-foot radius. She then leaped on the wizard's back, and, with her bare hands, bent it's head backwards, grabbed it's throat and tore it's head off.
The dismembered wizard dropped and there was a rush of purple void light that dissipated. Darren rushed to Reno's side as Jayla dropped the rest of the Hive in the immediate area.
Finally she settled, crouched with her fist in the ground. She breathed heavily, arc light still crackling from her eyes, hands and ends of her hair.
"Jayla!" Darren called to her.
She shakily stood up and ran back to her fireteam.
"Elsa'ZZZZZ dead." Reno's voice was buzzing slightly. He was lying crumpled on the ground, but trying to sit up, his sword still in his hand.
Jayla held up her ghost. "Come on, honey, what can you do for me?" She asked him, her voice trembling. Orrin scanned up and down Reno's body.
"I'm sorry Jay. There's not enough light left for me to do anything with; not without Elsa."
"Reno...Reno, stay with me." Jayla whispered brokenly as she patted his arm and cupped his face in her hand.
"Jayla, take Elsa," He said. "She scanned that ritual; maybe SSSSSSSloane can still access that information. It could bbbbbe helpful; sheZZZZZ- " his voice cut out.
He nodded his head to the opening the Hive created in the wall. "G-Go, now. I'll keep them busy." He pushed his dead ghost into her hand.
"Reno, no...please…" Jayla's mind raced. "There has to be another way; something else we can do...Orrin, is there any quicker way out of here?!"
"Jayla."
Reno's one functional eye flickered. "I'm losing Cccontrol of my extremitiesZZZZ. I won't be of help to you both much longer."
Jayla looked up to see 3 knights rounding the corner.
Reno pulled himself to his feet, leaning on his sword. Unsteadily, he straightened and laid the sword across his shoulders. Without his light, he shouldn't have even been standing, let alone swinging the Crown-Splitter. Facing the oncoming knights, he looked back and smiled at Jayla one last time. "Be brave." He told her.
Jayla couldn't believe this was happening. Darren took her arm, and started to pull her backwards. She wrenched out of his grasp and unloaded her Thunderlord on one of the knights and started to switch to her primary.
"Jayla, GO. NOW!" Reno brought his sword down on the other two.
Darren wrapped his arms around Jayla, pinning her arms down down as he dragged her to the opening the thrall had made in the wall of the pit.
"RENO NO!" She screamed. "RENO!"
This can't be happening…!
Never in all her lives did she imagine she'd be abandoning her best friend.
Her broken heart fought Darren with all her strength...but her mind knew as well as his did, that there was no other way.
When they rounded the corner, Darren released her, but took her hand, and they started running. The last they heard of Reno-13 was the Crown-Splitter hitting the ground, crunching Hive. Again, and again, and again.