The small squadron of Jumpships that carried me and the accompanying strike force snapped out of hyperspace in orbit of the moon. I was piloting my Arcadia, but the others had a wide variety of jumpships among them. I spotted a Agonarch Karve (a popular premium model before the collapse) with heavy modifications; a CX20 "Slipper Misfit" (one of the 'family-brand' ships marketed to families looking to take a 'roadtrip around the solar system') with very few visible mods other than a few extra fuel tanks bolted beneath the wings; and two Ceres Gallliots (actual military-grade jumpships) painted with the vanguard logo. Altogether, only two of the ships actually had armament, and even then it was rather lacklustre. The others were repurposed civilian vessels, or (in my case) military variants of a civilian model with the weapons stripped out by Amanda for the combat-ready ships back at the Tower.

"Look at that…haven't been here before," said Gem over the radio. "I never thought I'd be this close to the actual moon. Ha! Look at me…reminiscing about fights not fought!"

Anna spoke up. "Gem, you do realise that we're going to be the first guardians to step onto the moon in a century…well, other than Ace that is."

I frowned, and turned to Ghost. "Ghost, is that true?"

Ghost clicked a bit, and then tilted forwards in a nod. "Yes, Ace. The moon has been off-limits since the last time the Guardians tried to control more than the territory around the tower. From my limited records of the time, it appears that over two hundred Guardians attempted to route the Hive and Fallen from the satellite. Only about ten percent of them made it back."

I blinked. "Out of two hundred immortal warriors, only twenty or so made it back to Earth alive?"

Ghost beeped. "I wouldn't say alive…at least for the most part. The attempt was really to try and recover the bodies of Eris Morn's fireteam, who were the first Guardians to go there…only Eris made it back out of them. The moon is not a friendly place for humans…not anymore at least."

I frowned, and concentrated on bringing my craft in. The five ships came in in a tight group, the hulls glinting in the bright lunar environment. We brought our crafts to a hover in the cover of a shadowy crater about a kilometre from our target. Transmatting out, we quickly moved to the secure the area with fluidity. Or at least, the fireteam I was partnered with did the fluid part. I was still struggling to act within their structure.

"Ace, which way to the 'Temple'?" asked Anna.

"About a click to the northeast," I replied. "Near one of the old lunar research facilities. There's Fallen between us and them though. Hang on a moment…Ghost?"

"Yes?" replied my small friend.

"Would you mind bringing up a map?"

"Sure thing, Ace."

With that, Ghost projected a holographic map into the space in front of me. It was highly detailed, with the outlines of abandoned structures and the varying elevations of the land marked out on it. Hell, it even showed a pentagon of five green dots moving off to the west where our Jumpships were heading to orbit to wait for our return. This was all supplemented by the mapping data I had collected on my scouting mission the previous day, which included enemy troop movements, locations of interest, and other such bits of tactical information.

"Alright. The Temple is located here," I said, pointing to the location on the map where the entrance was located. Ghost helpfully provided a glowing red dot to mark the place when I removed my finger. "About 100 meters uphill from the entrance is a fallen encampment. This gully leads to the encampment, but there are regular fallen patrols on their sparrow-analogues. Before then, there's another encampment in this mining facility here. We're currently located about four or five hundred meters to the northwest from the mining facility. Between the facility and the temple is a larger crater which we have no way of scaling, and there's very difficult terrain between the temple and the other side. We're going to have to go through the gully."

Grim cocked his head. When he spoke, his voice sounded like his lungs had been filled with broken glass. "Why can't we fly overhead?" he rasped. "It would be quicker than traversing the distances between."

I sighed. "Because there's a honking great big Fallen air-defence facility located to the south-east. We're lucky that this crater is out of range, because otherwise we'd be toast. Burned toast at that. If you want your talkative ass to be blasted out of the sky, be my guest. Just don't expect me to come retrieve you when you revive."

Anna chuckled, and clapped her hands. "Right people, you know the drill. Grab your sparrows, and mount up. Ace, you lead the way. We're going straight to the temple. Ignore the mining facility. The Fallen know we're coming anyway. Let's move people!"

The others nodded, and mounted up. I quickly transmatted my sparrow and mounted up. I bought up the navigational system, and started the engine. Forming up with the others, I gunned the throttle, and zoomed forwards across the lunar surface, throwing up a small cloud of dust around the thrusters as I did so. I looked back to see the dust elevated in plumes, settling so slow that even after a minute it was still mostly suspended in the lunar atmosphere. I had never quite gotten the reason for the atmosphere. The moon already had a 'dust atmosphere' before it was colonised during the golden age. This was known even as far back as the 20th century. Basic elementary school stuff. My memory on the reasoning for the installation of a 'breathable' atmosphere was shaky: you couldn't actually breath the atmosphere without filters. Lunar dust- unlike earth dust- is extremely jagged. The moon has no air moisture to smooth the particles like Earth after all. As such, the particles were shaped like small caltrops. Breathing it tears up your alveoli and causes sickness. That same dust is suspended in the moon's artificial atmosphere. So, therefore the atmosphere itself unbreathable. Presumably the atmosphere was intended to prolong EVA missions, with the astronauts refilling their main tanks with heavily filtered intake air from the surrounding atmosphere, thus allowing you in a sense to breath the air- just not directly. Ghost had told me all this during one of his worry-wart briefings on the way here. I really needed to inform him about the human concept of 'annoyance' very soon. Otherwise I'd need a new Ghost.

In any case, I didn't have to worry about regolith poisoning. All of us were wearing fully sealed spacesuits, and thus did not have to worry about it. The dust did get all over our suits though, and coated our bikes, boots, weapons…my awesome cape…I swear I felt grit sticking to my skin just thinking about how much cleaning I'd have to do when I got back to the tower.

"When this is over," I said. "I'm taking a long shower, and throwing my armour in the wash. God, this dust gets everywhere."

"You and me both, buddy," laughed Rena. "God, this stuff is just sticking to my cape. It's going to take a full three washing cycles to get this stuff off my armour. Either that or a soak in GibOff."

I snorted. I was about to make a witty reply when I realised that I'd just interacted with my new friends without being entirely awkward. I thought about actually replying, and thought against it. Instead, I coughed and focused my attention on piloting. We eventually glided up to the cover of a rock downhill from the old research centre which we would have to pass through to get to the Hive temple. Anna chopped her hand forwards, and motioned for us to stay stealthy. Gem pulled out a machine gun, and huddled in cover behind the rock we were behind. Taking some initiative, I pulled a mirror from my belt, and peeked it out from behind the rock.

"How many do you see?" whispered Rena.

"Why are you whispering?" said Anna. "The Fallen can't hear us. We're talking via the radio."

"Oh, right," replied the smaller Hunter, chagrined. "Again, how many are there?"

I chuckled before replying. "I see about twelve Dregs…wait, fourteen. All armed with shock pistols. They look like they're scrounging through a pile of rubbish near the main building. There's four Vandals with Wire Rifles on top of one of the raised platforms, and another three with Shrapnel Launchers in the ruined observatory. I see another three stealthed ones carrying shock blades patrolling the eastern crater rim. Oh, wait. I see another one…oh crap."

"That does not sound good my little friend," said Gem, shifting anxiously. "What does the 'oh crap' refer to?"

"There's four Captains with them. And a Kell."

Author's note: Happy Halloween people, and Wow! This month has been really productive for me and my writing. By the way, I should have noted earlier that this month marks one year of Outbound Hopes! Shit, it's been a year since I started writing this. Hopefully, I can continue writing this and fleshing out this story. Thanks to all the guests who have reviewed. If you like fanfiction so much, I recommend creating a account here so that you can keep track of your favourites. I'd also prefer it if I knew who was reading and reviewing, so if guests could post a tag to their reviews with a pen name, that'd be great. By the way, Outbound hopes is now the 62nd most favourite and the 56th most followed Destiny fanfic, out of around 1.3 thousand stories. Not the best, but still within the top 100 stories in the category. Great, considering I've only been publishing for about two years now.

Thanks to everyone who has stayed with this story since it's conception a year ago, and thanks especially to KnightsKing, who was the very first reviewer, as well as SuperedX, Dekuton, withaM16 and TheHyperDragon, my second through fifth reviewers right back at the start. Happy holidays people, and have a great day!