“So that’s Phobos…” I said to Echo, looking at the moon in the distance. “Looks like just another floating ball of rock.” Scarlet chimed in over the comms. “A giant, Cabal infested, floating ball of rock, maybe.” Replied Echo. “Fireteam Epsilon, do you read?” Zvalla’s voice came amidst much static. “Copy.” Sierra and I said in unison. “We’ve intercepted a Cabal distress signal originating from Phobos. Could be Oryx, but be ready for anything.” The signal cut out. “Looks like were a little late,” said Sierra, “let’s get down there, fast.” She finished as we approached Mars’ moon. The Ghosts set us down a few hundred meters away from the base, just over a ridge. Sierra and I ran to the top of the dusty red hill. This moon seemed to have a lot in common with the planet it orbited. I looked over the top of the ridge, the base seemed fairly normal, several durable looking metal structures partially sunk into the ground. Relatively inactive actually. At the far end of the compound however, half a dozen Cabal transports were taking off, almost like they were fleeing. Strange, I thought, not like the Cabal to run from, well, anything. “Maybe they’re just leav…” I stopped myself off as I saw several Cabal soldiers running out of a doorway on the near side of the compound. “What the-” Sierra was cut off by the sound of a massive explosion, as fire burst out every door and window of the nearest building. I leapt over the top of the ridge, Sierra hot on my heels, and ran towards the base. We reached the nearest side of the compound to find the charred and smoking bodies of the Cabal who had escaped the building. The sound of gunfire came from the next building over, it looked to be an operational command, the most heavily fortified of all the buildings. Running over to it I pulled out my rifle. “Echo,” I called out, “Get those doors open, asap.” “Got it.” He replied, and before we even reached the doors, they were wide open, waiting for us. I ran straight in and raised my rifle, ready for whatever was inside. “You’re welcome.” Echo called in sarcastic annoyance. “Thanks Echo.” Sierra said as she too drew her weapon. The fighting had fallen silent, replaced by a familiar cold feeling. This time however, it was more… sinister. Like being pulled from consciousness into a nightmare, like frozen hell, filled with the whispers of the damned. Echo appeared beside me, shining a light into the relatively dark hallway ahead of us. We turned the corner into another locked door to the right. The hallway continued to the left, at the end there was a dull, flickering light, enough to see by. Echo shut his light off and we continued forward. A shadow moved at the end of the hall. Sierra and I both stopped dead in our tracks, quietly, we listened. The figure grunted, it was a Cabal. Slowly, we started walking again. The shadow moved again, quickly, violently, and let out a scream. A tortured, excruciating, horrified scream, like the Cabal was looking death in the eyes. The shadow flailed, as if trying to run but being held in place. Then, the screaming stopped, the shadow vanished. Cautiously, we turned the corner. There was no Cabal, but there was a ball, floating in the air. An orb about six inches in size of black energy, which seemed to tug at the world around it, drawing it in. It emanated dark green flames that moved in slow motion in all directions, as if ignoring the laws of physics. Small objects hovered in the air all around it, gradually drawing nearer to it, stones, scraps of metal, grains of sand. One scrap of metal, larger than the orb itself came ever closer. As it came nearer, it warped and twisted then simply vanished inside. The orb flared with green fire for only a moment before returning to how it had been before. I looked into it, the scrap was gone. Completely. I stood up and looked at Sierra, “Its almost like it’s a hole in reality.” I said, equally fascinated and terrified. “I don’t know whether it’s pulling things into another dimension or just obliterating them. I… Oh my god.” Under my helmet my eyes widened in horror. “It pulled that Cabal in too, didn’t it.” I whispered to Sierra. She looked back at it, I did too. The thought sent chills through me, “I-It Took it…” “Let’s keep going…” Sierra said to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, ok,” I replied after a moment of hesitation. “Echo, try and scan it, we’ll be up ahead.” Echo got to work on the orb, while Sierra, Scarlet and I moved on down the hall. “I guess it is Oryx…” Sierra said nervously as we came to another door “Guess so.” I responded as the door opened in front of us. It lead into a large circular command center. A light on the far side of the room was still working, the room was filled with displays and holotables, some smashed, some intact. There were three of the black orbs in the room and various small objects floated throughout the air. As we entered the room, there was a small clicking noise behind us and the single light in the room flickered out. Faster than I could blink, Sierra drew her revolver and fired a shot into the doorway. We stood in pitch black, weapons aimed at the door. An orb of glowing blue light floated cautiously around the corner and said, “Well that was unnecessary.” It was Echo. “Damn it Echo,” Sierra said, relieved but annoyed, “Did you really have to do that?” Scarlet’s light came on and shined at the Ghost sitting in the door. “Hey,” he said back to her, “I didn’t do the light, that was just bad timing. Or good timing. Depends how you look at it.” As he drifted over to me, I threw a rock at him. “I hate you, you know that?” he said to me. “No you don’t,” I said as I turned away to the door on the other side of the room. Scarlet was working on breaking into the computer, so I called Sierra over to help me get the door open. We both took a side and pried the metal doors apart. It was a short hall that lead to a door that opened to a clearing between two of the buildings. A Cabal gunshot flew past the door. Echo and Scarlet both immediately looked up and floated to our sides. I raised my rifle as a Cabal called out, answered by several others. A shadowy figure dashed past the door, followed by the screams of several Cabal. “That’s it! Go!” I called, we both sprinted forwards out the door. We were on a walkway a few meters wide, several meters above the ground. We leapt over the edge to get behind a rock for some cover. I peaked around the corner, there were maybe, seven Cabal, two phalanx’ and five legionnaires. They were all shooting different directions, as the shadow darted around them. One of them was trapped by a tendril of green fire, slowly pulling him into one of those orbs. I ducked back behind the rock before it got sucked in. I couldn’t watch. I turned to Sierra, “Run up to those boxes,” I said, gesturing to some crates about fifteen meters ahead of us, “Ill cover you.” I stepped out again and fire four bursts from my rifle as Sierra slid into cover, revealing my location, then ducked behind the rock again They noticed her and started firing at the crates she was hiding behind. Her voice came over my comm, “Toss a grenade to distract them, I’ll pick em off. Sync?” “Sync.” I echoed. I stepped out from the left side this time, and tossed a ball of arc light towards the group of Cabal. Lightning rained down around where it landed, taking out two of them. The rest of them stopped shooting to see what happened, only to have four of them fall to Sierra’s sniper rifle. I put three rounds into the head of the last legionnaire to finish them off. “Nice shooting” I said to her through my comm. “You too.” She replied. We both stood and left our cover. The shadow had stopped moving, instead standing among the bodies of the Cabal we had killed. It was nothing more than a dark outline shrouded in thick black smoke that seemed to linger unnaturally long. The feeling of ice grew even stronger with the presence of this…thing. It had three green glowing eyes, much like any Hive. It was Oryx indeed. Sierra slowly backed away, hand on the hilt of her hand cannon. I drew my fusion rifle, and held it at my side. We stood for a minute in this standoff, each waiting for the other to attack. Suddenly, it screamed, like a Hive wizard, but lower, more sinister. It vanished in a burst of green fire, leaving behind three Cabal phalanxes that shared the same dark green aura as the black orbs. They looked drained of color, and they let out a pained, angry scream as they charged towards us, firing wildly. “What the hell?!” I yelled myself, “Echo! Get us out of here. Now!” With that, we too disappeared from the surface of the moon. “What just happened?” I called into my ship’s comm as I walked into the cockpit. “They,” came a familiar, cold voice, “were Taken.” Prologue/directory [url]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/139146382/0/0[/url]