Destiny: The Planet Crackers
Disclaimer: Destiny and its associated universe, characters etc, are property of Bungie. All original characters etc are my property.
Prologue
Much has come and gone since humanity first landed on Mars, first invoked the Traveller's Light and ushered in their Golden Age. The Darkness came, destroyed our civilisation, and pushed what remained back to Earth, where the remnants now cower in the shadow of the Traveller, which sacrificed itself to help us.
Then the Guardians came, blessed with the Traveller's light, heading out across the galaxy, pushing back the armies of the Darkness with bullet, knife, the Void, and even brute strength, giving us hope for the future. Eventually, a brave fireteam of Guardians travelled into the very heart of the Black Garden, and dispelled the evil which dwelled there. And then on the Moon, the son of the dreaded Oryx threatened to devour the realm of Light, until his soul was scattered back into the Ascendant realm, and then his physical form was pursued there and utterly destroyed.
And then the Taken King came himself, on his Dreadnought of immense power and accompanied by an army of Taken slaves. He stood poised to drown our world and everything else in this galaxy in the Darkness, to claim vengeance for his slain son. But he too was denied on his own ship, and the king fled into the Ascendant realm like his spawn before him. But he too – thanks to the efforts of the City's Guardians – was tracked down and destroyed.
Humanity is once more saved, but danger still lurks out within the stars and planets of the Milky Way. The Taken King's servants remain behind, spreading their blight across every planet they walk upon. The Fallen remain as persistent scavengers as they look to rebuild their former glory, the Hive continue to seethe and fester on the Moon, the Vex spread their influence across Venus and Mars, and the Cabal resume their relentless mission to conquer the Red Planet. There is still much for the budding Guardian to accomplish.
But now a new threat approaches. One that threatens to shatter our galaxy entirely.
Chapter 1: On Patrol
Ocean of Storms, the Moon
Even with the threat of Crota gone, danger still lurked up here on the dusty surface of the Moon. For instance, on this very day, at this very moment, a band of Fallen searched through the empty shell of a small residential facility that lay within the shadow of the massive accelerator that dominated most of this part of the orb.
They were of the House of Exiles – mainly Dregs in their threadbare clothes and docked lower arms, though the group was lead by a mighty Captain in a shimmering arc shield, its swords sheathed at its waist. In its peculiar clicking language, it commanded the Dregs to fan out and search the slope just beneath the building, while a pair of Vandals with Wire Rifles stood guard on the roof.
Four hundred yards further up the slope, they failed to notice the cloaked figure who crouched behind a pair of large rocks, the extended barrel of a sniper rifle pointing down the slope. The viewfinder clicked and whirred as it zoomed in on the figures below. The Dregs, digging through rocks and trash like stray dogs as the Captain stood over them, clicking away.
"You ready guys?" the figure spoke into his comms link.
"Ready," came a male voice.
"In position," chimed a female voice which sounded artificial. "What's the signal, Logan?"
"When I take my shots," the cloaked figure replied, settling in for the shot. "There's a pair of Vandals on the roof, with Wire Rifles. I know how much you hate them, Griff."
"Don't remind me," growled the other male. "Let's get this show on the road, Logan."
"Patience is a virtue, Griff," chided the female voice, though she didn't get a response as Logan prepared his first shot. He settled the glowing crosshairs over the helmet of the leftmost Vandal, as it took one hand off of its rifle and raised the weapon up into the air. Logan smirked and held his breath for a couple of beats.
He squeezed the trigger, and the helmet of the first Vandal erupted into the white flash of ether being unleashed, its piercing shriek ringing out across the Moon's atmosphere even as Logan fixed his second target and fired again, destroying a second skull. And it was at that moment the other members of his Fireteam chose to strike.
From further down the slope a Titan in his bulky, implacable armour burst out from behind a huge boulder and tossed a grenade into the middle of the largest group of Dregs, the blast tossing a couple of bodies into the air and sending the others scrambling for cover and shrieking. The Captain drew his blades, bellowing a challenge.
Then a Warlock in purple robes came out from the nearest corner of the building, firing a hand cannon which discharged with a booming retort at every trigger pull, sending Dregs sprawling away. And then she was leaping high above the heads of the remaining Fallen, dropping a Fusion grenade that stuck to the shield of the Captain and then detonated, collapsing the arc bubble and leaving the creature badly wounded.
And then the Titan was jogging sideways, firing an auto rifle from the hip, cutting down a few more Dregs. The last one was trying to throw a shock grenade, but took a hit to the chest and twisted away at an awkward angle, the grenade sailing out of its hand and out of sight. Then the Titan caught up to the Captain and smashed his right forearm into the centre of the alien's chest as it tried to swing its swords. There was a sickening crack as its breastplate and sternum cracked, and it stumbled back as though pulled by a chain, chittering as it went.
The Warlock landed gracefully, then swept her arm around, firing off the last of her hand cannon shells, dropping the last two Dregs with a single shot each. As she was reloading, the Captain was scrambling back to its feet, a growl building in its throat. Then a third sniper round blew off its head and its body crashed into the Moon surface, its cloak fluttering limply after it.
"All clear," called Griff the Titan, as he kicked at the nearest Dreg corpse, and then reloaded his auto rifle.
"Nice shooting, Tex," chuckled the Warlock as she began to search through the bodies for any valuable loot, turning up a set of Ether Seeds on the Captain's corpse.
"Why thank you El," replied Logan from his sniper perch, watching his companions through the scope. "Just don't go saving all of the good loot for yourselves, right?"
"No promises," replied Griff as he turned up a blue engram sphere that had spilled out of one of the fallen Dregs and had nearly been lost in the cracks between some smaller rocks. "Oh, some more goods for Lord Rahool."
Logan didn't reply to that as he played his scope left and right, searching for any potential threats that were creeping up on his comrades – he'd had enough close calls with the stealth tech of the damned scavengers. He didn't see any of the distortion that marked the use of stealth technology but he did see something else.
He could see the very slight tremors which disturbed the cluster of moon rocks he was spying on with his scope. He plied it to the left and picked a new pile, which was also vibrating. And then further beyond that, he could see a small, darkened opening into the side of a large mound. And see the lights coming up towards them.
No, not lights. They were eyes exuding a malicious light.
"Guys, heads up!" he called, settling his scope on the fissure already as the lights grew brighter. "Looks like the fight riled somebody else up!" The other two Guardians dropped what they were doing and swept up with their weapons drawn as a new sound reached their ears – a screeching, hissing note of pure malice.
And then the wraith-like, clawed figures were pouring out of the fissure, screaming towards the Guardians en mass.
Hive. Figures though, being close to the Hellmouth.
Logan's first shot exploded the skull of the leading Thrall in the group and pierced straight through the two behind that one, leaving crumbled piles of ash as the creatures died. And then his companions were opening up, cutting down more and more of them in an instant. Thralls shrieked and crumbled as bullets tore through them, spinning some off of their feet or knocking others flat onto their backs.
Then behind the Thralls, Acolytes were coming out into view, firing their weapons as they raced for the nearest cover. Logan nailed three more with expert headshots until his rifle clicked on empty, and then he was grabbing for a spare magazine only to find that he was fresh out.
"Shit!"
"Uh, swear jar Logan," called a cherry artificial voice. "I do keep telling you to top up on your ammo synthesis supplies before we head out on patrol"-
"Can it," snapped Logan, putting the rifle away and grabbing for his scout rifle instead. He pulled back the bolt to load a round and he was vaulting over the rocks, rushing down in the direction of the mayhem.
The Warlock had taken cover as she snapped off shots from her hand cannon, but Griff was advancing straight at the Hive forces, firing his Invective shotgun as he advanced. Each booming retort tore through ash and bone, Thrall and Acolyte alike screaming as they were torn apart. His shield flickered and warped as purple shots impacted, but he didn't even slow down. A Thrall lunged at him with its claws bared, and he bought his forearm up, the claws scrabbling against the smooth surface of the forearm plate. Then with a grunt he turned his body and tossed it against the nearest rock, breaking most of its bones with a brutal crack.
"Well this turned into a lovely day," he remarked flatly as he spun his shotgun around and loaded fresh shells into the breech, taking cover beside a rock as he did so. By then the Thralls were almost wiped out and only Acolytes were pouring out of the fissure. But by the Traveller, there were a lot of them.
"Just keep shooting!" yelled the Warlock as she reloaded her cannon and resumed firing. She tossed a Fusion Grenade and it stuck to the chest of a screeching Acolyte which stumbled away in its haste to escape and took several of its fellows with it as it disintegrated. But the others continued to fight on, as the last Acolyte was followed by a floating nightmare of rag and bone.
"Wizard!" she cried.
"I got it, I got it!" cried Logan over the comms. Then the Hunter was sliding to a halt behind a fallen water barrel, the barrel of his scout rifle aimed over the top. He fired off a few shots and the Wizard's solar shield flickered, and then the creature was floating away out of his line of sight, so Logan readjusted his aim and dropped a few Acolytes with headshots, and he was vaulting the barrel, chasing the Wizard down. It was typical of Logan's combat style – constantly on the move. "Cover me!" he called as he ran on, darting in between a pair of Acolytes that swivelled rapidly to track him.
"Covering!" the Warlock called out sharply, thrusting an open palm into a Thrall's chest and throwing its body back as it slowly disintegrated from the Energy Drain. A short distance away Griff was out of shotgun shells so he was wielding it like a club instead, smashing the stock into the side of Acolyte skulls and ribs, sending them flying from the sheer strength of the impacts. Then once there was some space cleared he was rushing forwards again, around the side of a rock the Acolytes were cowering behind and smashing into their flank, tearing a few of them asunder with his bare hands.
A hundred yards away Logan dove to the side as crackling bolts of arc energy lashed past his head, the Wizard rising higher as more Thralls were being drawn out by the dark magic, pulling themselves free from tears and fissures in the moon rock. Logan drew his curved knife in his free hand and slashed left and right, cutting open the neck of one Thrall and planting the blade through the chest of a second. He ripped it free and dropped into a roll to avoid the next blast of Hive magic and he fired off a few shots, all of them hitting the target but being absorbed by the Wizard's shield.
"Come on, come on," he willed quietly as the ammo readout showed he only had three shots left, but he saw the creature preparing to launch another volley of bolts. He set the crosshairs and fired.
The first shot shattered its shields and made it shriek. The second shot caught it high on the forehead above its right eye, distorting its skull. The final shot hit it in the exact same spot and its skull just distorted entirely, and with a pained shriek it crumbled like all the others.
"Wizard down!" Logan barked into his comms.
"Well that's good," the Warlock answered, "because things have just gone from bad to worse." Logan glanced back over his shoulder, and judging by the amount of gunfire he could hear that wasn't just an idle statement.
"Crap," Logan said, and then realised that the Wizard had dropped some green synthesized ammo. "Perfect," he whispered, snatching it up and grabbing for a fresh sniper rifle clip as it formed from out of nowhere. He slammed it home as he ran back towards the battle.
He came upon his two companions in the middle of battling a trip of Knights that had emerged from the Hive tunnel since Logan had been taking out that Wizard. Two of them were armed with swords while the third was launching starfire from its Boomer as it hid behind a larger outcrop. The Warlock hit one of the sword wielders with three shots to the stomach, but then it threw up its shield and she unloaded the rest of her ammo towards the Boomer Knight. It stumbled and roared as the heavy rounds punched through it, leaving it staggered, but then the sword Knight had dropped its shield and was advancing again.
"Griff!" she called out, backing away frantically and unslinging her fusion rifle. "Little help!"
"Bit busy myself Elena!" he shouted back as he wrestled with the second sword Knight which was trying to bring its blade down on the Titan's head while he pushed back against its solid forearms, feet planted in the dust. The blade came down lower to his helm, and the Knight let out a growl of sick pleasure.
There was the crack of a sniper rifle, and a tracer round punched into the side of the Knight's head and it grunted as it jerked sideways. With the force slackened, Griff pushed back and the Knight stumbled, and then he snapped its forearms with a sideways jerk of his arms, snatched the heavy blade from its hands and sliced it through the Knight's neck, turning it to ash. Then he was hefting the blade up and slashing through the bodies of two Acolytes as he ran to help Elena.
But the sniper rifle cracked again and the second sword Knight had its head taken off in a burst of light and it crumbled to ash like its brother, as Elena finished reloading her hand cannon and snapped the revolver shut. With a sigh she just shifted her aim and shot off the head of the third and final Knight as it came out of cover.
"Thanks for the assist, Griff," she said sarcastically.
"Hey, I was almost there," the Titan protested, though he was busying himself in hacking through the remainder of the Thrall presence. "I swear. Some Hunter had to ruin my fun though!" he added, preparing to split another Thrall from head to navel until another sniper shot punched it off its feet and the blade harmlessly thunked into the dust.
"You're welcome," Logan said cheerfully over the comm as he hunted for his next target. He settled on the grimace of an Acolyte and took its face off with a single hit.
There was another minute or so of auto rifle chatter, the crack of a sniper rifle and the aggressive bark of a hand cannon, and then it was all quiet as the last remaining Hive were cleaned up. Logan walked into view from behind a large rock, reloading his sniper rifle and storing it away at the same time a small point of light formed into the form of a Ghost, its shell painted with the Vanguard colours. It fluttered this way and that in the air beside Logan, its blue beam scanning as it went.
"Detecting the presence of a fresh Hive tomb just under our feet," it stated after a moment. "Those Hive...you'd think they would lie low for a while after two of their Gods were killed."
"They need to rebuild even more than ever after that," Elena reasoned as she checked for any good loot, turning up a twinkling blue engram sphere. "Their Gods were shattered but they still have their faith."
"Good for them," said Griff bluntly as he searched over the remains of the Knights and found a blue engram of his own. "Just means we have more to stomp when we get bored again."
"Well yes there's that," Logan reasoned as he walked in. "You guys alright?"
"More or less," the Warlock, Elena, answered.
"Okay well let's do a quick sweep and get back home," Logan ordered, taking up his scout rifle.
"But...what about the Hive tomb?" asked his Ghost as he spun around, the plates surrounding his core clicking and whirring as they formed a questioning expression. Or as close to a questioning expression that a small floating ball of machinery and Light could achieve.
"Send the data to the Vanguard, Kal," Logan ordered, shaking his head. "We got surprised here and were lucky it wasn't a bigger force that attacked. I don't want to go down that tunnel without knowing what we could face. Let the Vanguard decide – they'll probably put up a bounty up anyway.
"As you wish," Kal responding, floating away to send the data on. Behind the tiny Ghost, the rest of the Fireteam sifted through the wreckage of the fight and anything else left over, turning up a few items of note, but not much. Elena glanced at Griff, who just shook his head, and then they looked at Logan.
"All done?" asked Logan. They both nodded.
"Then let's go home, people."
Within seconds all three of them had transmatted up to their ships in low orbit of the Moon, reforming from a burst of white light to become nestled into the worn leather of the pilot seats. In his own ship, Logan let out a short sigh of relief as he reached up and removed his visor, setting it into the depression on the left side of his seat, taking a moment to regard his reflection in the glass.
He would have been in his early thirties at the time of his original 'death' centuries ago, and thanks to the Traveller's gifts he would always look that young. His hair was light blonde and mid-length, the outline of a goatee beard starting to form on his chin, his eyes a light blue. 'Blue as the ocean', an old friend had once told him. A now departed friend, but a veteran Guardian had many of those.
"Everyone set?" he asked into the general comms link, peering at the display which showed the relevant positions of his comrades who both hung behind him, forming a loose triangle formation with Logan's ship at the very front.
"All set," chimed the Warlock.
"Aye," said Griff, his voice tight and clipped.
"Alright then," nodded Logan, hitting some keys on his control panel. "Entering slip space. Course set for the Tower. Move through on my lead."
"You got it," Elena replied, and within the next second all three ships were rushing into a small tear within space, entering slipspace. They were headed back to Earth, back home.
Back to the Tower, where the fight continued.
A/N: Hello everyone! So this is just the first quick chapter of my planned Destiny fanfic. I played a HELL of a lot Destiny over the last couple of years, and after finishing off The Taken King expansion I was eager to write something on it. I am aware of the general makeup of Destiny's universe, though of course there is bound to be some mistakes here and there, so I would appreciate some help in rooting the inconsistences out. Otherwise, please R & R, let me know what you think.