Author's note: More action in this one people. Enjoy it all, the lot of it. Please leave a review, share with your friends, or whatever. Thanks to Arbiter08 and DawnStars1247 for your reviews, means a lot! I would also suggest that you checkout "Destiny: The Three Musketeers" by shadowsamurai77. Enjoy this one!
Chapter 7: The Moon
Dorian was expecting the Moon to be… Well not what it looked like now that he had seen it up close. Seeing it from a distance drastically changed it. He was expecting more craters and less actually terrain. From the earth, the moon looked as if every inch of it would be covered with craters and then flat otherwise. The surface he looked at now looked more like rolling hills you could find earth, or a desert dunes—all that remained true about his original impression of it was that everything was grey.
And the surface was strangely dark, if one were to see the moon from earth one would expected some sort of glow or radiance to the surface. However other than the sun burning bright over them, the ground didn't glow like he had expected it too. On the contrary, from where he stood the Earth shone almost as brightly as the Moon did from Earth. The experience was enlightening—no pun intended.
While he was busy admiring the scenery, his other Fireteam members were slightly annoyed at having to wait for him as he walked all the way to register his Sparrow at the station on the moon. Why couldn't they just ride down from jumpships in the Sparrows, instead of having to get to the local station and link it to the station.
Tax soon answered the question, "If you didn't register with the sparrow station on the surface, you wouldn't be able to teleport it to and from your Jumpship, which is a safer option than leaving it out in the open, and takes far less time than having it literally fly all the way up and down whenever you needed it." Dorian only grunted in acknowledgement and trudged on the uneventful trip.
Until they saw the Hive.
The pale and dead creatures walked area around the Sparrow station. Thralls and Acolytes, seemingly doing nothing. Only walking in circles—dormant was the word that came to mind. Dorian guessed they had come up with the strategy just to wait at the station for some poor Guardian who had to register his Sparrow at the station then ambush him. Dorian readied his Pulse Rifle.
"Go! Rush in and get your Ghost started on the registration routines. We'll cover you."
"Why do I have to be the one who rushes into the middle of the field helpless, while the rest of you stand back here."
"Because it's your sparrow that needs to be registered. We have been around much longer and therefore have higher authority." She shot back half-sarcastically. "We'll cover you. Now run!" Dorian hefted his pulse rifle up to his shoulder and then sprinted into the lines of the Hive. He raised his rifle and got a couple of bursts out but it didn't help with anything. Meanwhile running he heard a sniper roar behind him, Elsynn, it had seemed had begun to do her work. The compound was what remained of what must been a mining and research colony out on the Moon. It's side was torn abort by what must have been a massive attack or a crash.
He channeled more of the Void Energy and then leapt up into the air. At an inhuman height, he allowed the energy to vent downwards and glided along until he reached his destination. Once inside he spotted a couple of acolytes himself and dispatched them with the help of his pulse rifle. When two Thralls spotted him and rushed him, he blasted one away with the sheer force of Void Energy and then shot the other in the head.
"Start now and be quick about it," he snapped, summoning his ghost and releasing it to do its work.
"Don't rush me." The Ghost said and flew away before he could say anything else. Dorian had better things to do, like dealing with the two acolytes running into the compound. Dorian aimed his pulse rifle and fired four bursts at them.
His radio lit up with Elsynn's voice. "We're cleaning up out here, do you want us to come to you?"
Dorian glanced back at his Ghost doing its work on the station, "No, I'm fine." Another acolyte crept up the entrance—making the mistake of popping out its head first. Dorian dealt with him quickly.
A reassuring beep came from his Ghost followed by its chirpy voice. "Your sparrow awaits!"
"Summoning!" Dorian ran towards the entrance then jumped up, boosted slightly by Void energy. Then as he came down, summoned his sparrow. He hit the boost as he was about to hit the ground, launching him forward. "I've got my sparrow." He said snidely.
"Show off…" he heard Elsynn say, but ignored it—and the considerable pain in his groin—and chose to revel in the small glory of pulling off that stunt.
"Where to?"
"The coordinates show the cave lies somewhere 4 klicks west of here." Tax said, pointing a certain direction while looking at the map his Ghost had brought up. "Let's go." Whatever stunt he confidence had gained pulling off his small stunt, wore off as both Tax and Elsynn hit their boost and zoomed off. Do they have to go at such high speeds all the time?
It took them five minutes of going over the pale gray dunes of moon dust to get to their destination. The Cave where Bell-17 lost his Fireteam "There they are." Tax said looking upwards. Three dots in a triangular formation hung in the sky, like over-sized stars. But Dorian knew what they were. "The jumpships. Locked in geostationary orbit around the moon. Well Lunar-stationary orbit to be precise."
"We promised him we'd bring them home, didn't we?" Dorian asked.
"We'll set them on autopilot and link them to ours." Elsynn said, "Then they'll tail us all the way home."
The opening of the cave was two and a half metres high and several metres wide. The cave's entrance showed the high amount of activity that the cave facilitated. Dorian didn't need to look inside to know he probably wouldn't like it. The entrance itself looked uninviting and misanthropic. Definitely not somewhere he wanted to go. Dorian looked unsurely into the mouth of the cave, then glanced back at the dunes behind them. Wishing he could simply stay outside where—despite the vacuum and lack of life—the environment didn't look bent on their misery and death.
Then he saw it
A glint of light, coming from something that might have been—a sniper's scope! "Contact, six o'clock!" He said alarmingly.
Elsynn jumped out of the cave and arrived right beside him, "Where?"
"There over the crest of that dune."
"See anything, El?" Asked Tax who kept his eyes fixed on the darkness inside that cave with his belt-fed machine gun, as if something inside was just waiting for him to turn away and jump on them. The unnerving thing was that something actually might be.
"I see something that might have been a scope, or a set of binoculars, but I can't be sure, not at this range—wait. I think it just moved." Elsynn raised her pulse rifle and eyed the hill in the distance. Then without another word, she ran, jumped, and landed on her materializing sparrow.
"Dorian go!" Tax commanded, and though he was yet to match Elsynn's grace and speed he quickly mounted his sparrow and sped behind Elsynn. She rode her sparrow hard, her sparrow practically bounced up and over the dune. But she managed to catch the man spying on them. He was on a sparrow as well, a dark red Warlock's coat flowed behind him as he moved at high speed. But Elsynn was faster. She hit the boost and then flew over a ramp of moondust. She was gaining on him, but he pulled his hand cannon out and began to pelt her sparrow with bullets. Without him realizing it, his shooting was costing him even more speed, and also without him realizing it, Dorian flanked him from the other side.
When the man on the sparrow depleted his bullets he turned back forward to reload them, and there Dorian was, a metre away from his Sparrow. He pointed the hand cannon at Dorian, however Dorian was faster—meaning he gave up common sense sooner and leapt unto the fleeing man. It was perfect tackle, he caught him center mass and knocked them both off the sparrow and into the ground. Thank the Traveler for the Moon's low gravity. The two of them hit the ground hard and spun several time on the soft moondust dunes. If there had been rocks Dorian's bones would have been done for. He landed on the ground next to the Warlock. He didn't know who gained his bearing s first, but as Dorian was able to tell up from down and left from right, he got to his feet and pointed his pulse rifle at the Warlock.
"Move and I'll shoot! And if you don't want any extra holes in your chest, don't make a move." Elsynn's Sparrow made a large tuning circle before stopping by Dorian and the Warlock. The Warlock dropped his hand cannon and raise both his arms disarmingly. Elsynn moved in quickly and kicked the gun away from him, putting the barrel of her weapon right on the nape of his neck. Tax's sparrow stopped right by them and he hand his machine gun out and aimed at the fleeing Guardian.
"And who might you be?" Dorian said breaking the uneasy silence that lay between them. "Answer the question! And what the hell were you doing shooting at a Guardian."
"Bastards…"
Dorian fired his rifle close to the Warlock's head. "Watch it! Answer the question, unless your name really is bastard. In which case, it befits you nicely."
He muttered something in his helmet, which none of them could catch. Finally he spoke, "Lucius. You can call me Lucius."
"And what might you be doing, sneaking around the site where two other Guardians are killed." Dorian watched for a reaction in the man's body language, a change in posture a dropping of the shoulders, anything. He found nothing. "So you do know about the dead Guardians. What the hell do you want with a cave on the moon huh, traitor?"
"I don't ask the questions. I just carry out the orders. That's what I do, and those who question orders don't tend to live long."
"Neither do traitors."
"Neither do failures."
Tax grunted, then asked with a curious tone. "What does that mean?"
"Aw shit." The man swore than his posture slightly relaxed. "You know what happened here last week don't you? Then believe me when I say, I'm positively buggered. But if you help me, then I can help you…" the Warlock said hopefully. Elsynn issued a scoff that all but said pathetic. But the Warlock's tone darkened and desperation crept into his voice, "How long do you think I have left? I compromised a big operation on the moon. A op I was in charge of, and I hold responsibility for. If I go back all there's going to be is punishment, probably death too. In the end."
"What makes you think we'll trust you?"
"You don't have to, but you need me, that's the problem." Lucius's posture straightened. "Do you know where Thane keeps his supplies stashed? Do you know his safe house locations? I guessed not. That's what I'm offering. I don't even care if you put me in cell after you take me back to the Tower. As long as I'm away from Thane. I can help you, like it or not I can help. I can help you navigate that cave, and I can help you stop the Hive ritual that's waiting for you at the bottom of that cave."
Elsynn muted her mike and spoke through comms only. "He has a point. Though I still hate him."
"I don't trust him at all." Dorian said.
"For now we'll have to see he leads us, the moment we smell something fishy, I'll shoot him myself." Elsynn ventured.
"What's to say you won't lead us straight into an ambush once we're down there?" Tax asked aloud.
"What good could I possibly gain by killing you anyways? They'll just send more Guardians, when they stop hearing from you. You think I can just pull up the stakes, roll up the tent and set up shop somewhere else? This op's burned. I'm burned. As soon as Thane finds me, I'm dead. I have a better chance with you, and your Traveler."
"And if we don't believe you?"
"Then kill me," Lucius said, his voice resolute and barely masking the twang of madness. Probably caused by desperation. "I'm dead either way." He spread his arms, as if welcoming death.
"Start walking," Tax said, gesturing with his weapon. "Two metres ahead of us, any sudden moves then you'll get to see how fast we can pull our triggers."
"Can I at least have a weapon?" He asked.
Elsynn scoffed.
"You do know there are Hive defending that ritual, to them it's still business as usual."
"How many?" Tax asked.
"At least a hundred strong. With Wizards and Knights. And if your luck really isn't that good, Goblins and Minotaurs too."
"Vex?"
"Thane, you see, is quite a convincing fellow. Whether through rhetoric, subterfuge or sheer show of force."
"So there really is no place left for you to run is there?" Dorian asked.
"Well he's not friendly terms with the Cabal, but they hate everyone in-general. So I don't see how that's a viable option for asylum.
"How bout your partner, that hunter?"
"Reylani? She wasn't in charge when things fell apart, she probably denied she had anything to do with it. Frankly the blame is mostly on me anyway. If I was her I'd be hunting me down, or hiding in the reef somewhere. Benefits of being an awoken, I guess, more places to hide. Bottom line, she's gone and there's nothing I can do about it. Now, are there any other questions you'd like to ask, or are we actually going to get something done today?"
Elsynn tossed his hand cannon back to him, but her rifle was aimed at his head almost the instant that he caught it, "I'm watching you, keep that in mind." He raised his hands up, conceding, before holstering his hand cannon.
"How deep into the Cave are the Hive set up?"
"Twenty or thirty metres give or take. This is quite a valuable thing to them, so they'll protect this to their last man. It helps to have mindless soldiers you can throw at the enemy."
He was right, twenty five metres into the Cave, the Cave opened up to look less natural formed, and more like it was carved into the rock. There the first Acolytes awaited them. Their skin was as pale and dead as the surface of the moon. They seemed to lack eyes, and a properly functioning mind as well. The life in them was gone. The absence of any environmental aid or life support systems, seem to point only at one thing. They weren't alive to begin with.
He explained the dozen or so Hive soldiers waiting in the next chamber. "I'm attacking," Lucius said, less of a statement, more asking permission. Dorian didn't think he got it until he ran forward and Tax didn't shoot him. His performance outside might have been hampered by his having to drive and shoot at the same time, but with a hand cannon in a enclosed space where he had firm ground beneath his feet, his gunplay really came to a head. He fired off three shots in rapid succession then leapt over his cover and fired three more into the next acolyte. The final acolyte he blasted into the wall.
Dorian felt very glad all of a sudden that Lucius had decided to join them. Fighting him would have been one hell of a task. "C'mon!" He said, going down a set of stairs, "Each lesser Hive unit reports and has a link with a Wizard. If any of them are in distress—or dead—there's a good chance the Wizard will notice. The earlier they know about us, the more time they have to fortify down there. The more time they have to prep, the uglier it gets."
Dorian looked back at Tax or Elsynn to verify everything Lucius just said, "Everything he said checks out. But I wouldn't completely trust him just yet." Tax mentioned over a secure frequency.
The next room had more Hive in it, the Wizard might not have warned them, but the gunfire from the level above did. A line of Thrall charged at them the moment they arrived at the foot of the stair case. They all leveled their weapons in unison and cut the Hive down with their rounds. Keeping it in tight bursts, Dorian handled the acolyte with ranged weapons in the back, while the Lucius and Tax dealt with the Thrall who threw themselves at their lines, nearly continuously. Hoping to overwhelm the four even though they wielded only clubs and machetes. After two minutes of fighting they cleared the room and sent any surviving Hive running to the lower levels.
If that Wizard hadn't been aware of them before, he was now. And that prompt them to rush down the stair and into the large antechamber hoping to still catch the Hive off guard. At the bottom of the stairs, however, awaited a line of seven figures with brass like armor and singular red eyes.
"Shite, Vex!" Lucius moved so fast, it briefly made Dorian panic. Lucius grabbed Elsynn by her shoulders and dove to the side as the staircase lit up with gunfire—and the spot where once she stood was vaporized. So those were the Vex, Dorian thought to himself.
"Shoot the energy cells, in their abdomen!" Dorian followed the order without thinking. He pulled out his shotgun and fired into the center mass of the first vex unit in his sights. The goblin jolted backwards and then made small explosion—his energy cells so damaged they ruptured and exploded. He continued down the stairs, overly confident, trying to take them out on his own when a Vex projectiles rippled across his armor. He was taken aback metaphorically, before Tax grabbed him and pulled him aback literally.
"Watch it kid. No need to be a hero on this one. Caution."
However the moment the last goblin was down, it was clear Lucius didn't share Tax's opnion, "Charge!" He leapt out of his cover and his figure glow with an arcane green glow. Like the Void had a dark malevolent twin, and Lucius had it in his hand right then and there. The Power danced around him as it gained "momentum".
"Supporting fire, give it, now." He was still trying to guess what the man was up to, Tax had no choice but to support Lucius.
"Minotaur in the back!"
"You can't take one of those on your own, are you crazy?"
"Maybe," Lucius said and leapt in the air, then the energy he wielded coalesced around a his right arm and shot down into a minotaur. The rest happened outside Dorian's line of sight, but he caught the purple glow nonetheless. He also caught a glimpse of scorched and green machine parts flying off. Not long after that however, he saw Lucius run back to him. Swift and panicky, he jumped behind cover.
"I may have miscounted the number of minotaurs back there. Stand your ground! The last Fireteam… they were pushed nearly all the way to the cliff," A electronic roar confirmed what he said. Elsynn's large launcher materialized into her arms. Lucius chuckled, "Oh I like you girl. Feisty!" He said regarding her launcher, before his own launcher materialized.
"Dorian, my fusion rifle, take it for now." Elsynn said. The rifle materialized next to him and he picked it up. "It fires in rapid bursts of seven, remember to charge up your shoots and watch the recoil."
"Gotcha'," Dorian let the weapon nestle under his cheek and aimed down the sights as the Minotaurs came into view.
"Ready…" Tax started, "Steady…" the Ward of Dawn appeared over them, just as acknowledged them. "NOW!" Their side of the cave lit up with the back blast of two launchers, a machine gun's muzzle flashes, and a fusion rifle's energy. The Vex's side of the cave lit up in the explosive forces of each respective weapon. A minotaur teleported across the space between them. They focused their fire on the Minotaur as it drew closer—thankful that the Ward of Dawn deflected all other gunfire. The one minotaur began to light up with the various explosions and fall to the ground as smoldering hunks. Another Minotaur fell the same time the Ward of Dawn dissipated. They pushed. Dorian glided in the air to gain a vantage point then tossed a Vortex grenade. The grenade landed behind the Vex and the power of the light kept them in pain. They were boxed in for the short amount of time the grenade lasted.
Elsynn jumped atop a rock and fired another missile before switching to her Pulse rifle and began to deal heavy damage while moving from rock to rock. As the Minotaurs tried to track the elusive Elsynn, Lucius and Dorian drew forward and dealt with the Minotaurs at point blank. Lucius with his hand cannon, Dorian with his Shotgun. By the time his Vortex grenade wore out they had pushed the final Minotaur, and vex units to the cliff. The two Warlocks seemed to understand the message. A blast of Void energy was all that took to nudge them over the edge and into the abyss of the moon. Dorian stole a look over the edge, but it would have warranted the name abyss if it didn't seem bottomless. He couldn't see the bottom of this one. He kept staring into the darkness when Lucius's voice brought him back
He was still tired and panting but worry most of all littered his tone. "Shite," Lucius swore, Dorian asked why. "We took too much time," he answered. "The Wizards will have time to fortify their position now. The care a lot about that ritual of theirs"
"What is this ritual, Lucius?" Tax asked warily.
"You really wouldn't want to mess with it. It's a powerful one. But it's worse if you leave it alone." He said, "It's a ritual that drains the Travelers of its Light."
Author's Note: Sorry to end on a cliffhang-ey note. I kinda struggled to decide whether I wanted a really lengthy chapter or cut it into two. In the end I decided on the latter, seeing that they were both quite action-intense and putting you through too much of that might actually bore you. So, sorry if you wanted to see more, but no worries there'll be more next week. Have a great week!
