Chapter 1 – Interception

A lone Hunter sits atop his perch along one of the cliffs of the Meridian Bay on Mars. His communications device, while functioning, hasn't gotten any signals in weeks. He fears he may be left alone to die on this desert world.

"Alpha, getting any signals yet?" the Hunter asks, in hopes that his Ghost, Alpha, may have found anything.

"No, nothing. I'm not even getting Cabal frequencies anymore. I think they might've given up on us, too." replies Alpha, not at all surprised.

Mars had always been a wasteland. But, this stranded Hunter, Beta-5, is still curious to find things out before his servos fall into disrepair, with the Vex to probably come pick him clean. 'The Vex always did seem more interested in Exos' he thought.

"Wait, I got something!" exclaims Alpha, breaking Beta from his thoughts.

'What is it? What did you find?" asks Beta, extremely curious.

"It's from a Guardian! Just… not one I've ever seen before." replies Alpha, curious himself.

"What… what do you mean? There haven't been any new Guardians instated, it's only been a couple weeks! There… couldn't have, right?" wonders Beta.

"I can't tell, but something's not right about him."

"He's a Guardian, what could be wrong with him?"

"Beta, you know there's been plenty of Guardians fallen prey to the darkness. Dredgen Yor, Toland the Shattered, Kabr. All were great warriors, and then fell to the darkness. But this one… he's different. There's darkness, a lot of it… but there's still light. It's like he's been infused with them both, made into some abomination of light and dark."

Shocked, realization begins to dawn onto Beta. He quickly works to pack up the communication equipment, and runs towards the nearest Cabal outpost. Beta makes short work of the Psions and Legionnaries with his recently acquired Hand Cannon when he fought into the Vault of Glass, the Fatebringer. With all the Cabal at this outpost eliminated, Alpha finally speaks out.

"What was that? And what are you planning to do?"

Beta turns towards Alpha and says, "I need a ship."

And with that, Beta continues forward into the outpost, but finds his path blocked by a simple door. He pulls out his EXODUS Plan RS/1 Rocket Launcher and fires at the door. The door does open, and he moves inside. But as he makes for a second door leading to a hangar, another door behind him opens to reveal a Psion Operant and two Phalanxes. He throws his Swarm Grenade in the midst of them, and causes the two Phalanxes to stumble forward, revealing their bodies. He puts a few quick Fatebringer shots into them, and then moves on the Psion Operant. The Psion brings its hands together and forms an energy blast, and fires it at Beta. He immediately rolls out of the way to dodge the blast, but as he gets back up, the Psion begins to shoot him. He takes cover on the floor and throws his knife at the Psion's throat. However, he misses, and the knife merely hits it in the thigh. But he uses this to his advantage, and brings up his second knife and stabs it directly into its skull.

He retrieves his knife from the Psion's thigh, and continues toward the hangar. Upon entering the hangar, however, he is met with more Cabal resistance, and they're already shooting – but not at him. Three Vex Hobgoblins and five Vex Goblins have entered the Hangar, and are engaged in a firefight with the Cabal. Beta quietly makes his way past them, and avoids having to alert them of his presence. That is until he hops into the nearest Cabal Harvester and fires it up. The Cabal all turn towards Beta and the Harvester, but they quickly remember that there are Vex assaulting them. This distraction causes multiple Cabal soldiers to go down by the Hobgoblins, and Beta uses this time to escape. Upon exiting the hangar, he actually sees the other Guardian's ship fly past, and was unmistakable, as no other jumpship in the galaxy was shrouded in deep and complete black. Beta planned to follow that Guardian to wherever he stopped, and so with that, Beta flew out of Mars' orbit after the rogue Guardian.