Till It's Over (A Destiny 2 Story)

In the Streets

And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken

And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died

American Pie – Don McLean

-

May 07, 2957; The Last City, Earth

It was pure chance Azra was in the City that day. Chance! Later, she would look back and wonder, perhaps, at fate. Out of all of the nights they could have chosen, the Cabal picked one of the rare ones she spent within the walls. Her ship needed repairs, and there was a gunsmith that Shiro had insisted she visit...

And then it started raining. Not a big deal, but big enough to make her consider spending the night indoors instead of Sparrowing off to find shelter outside the Wall. She and Cayde went out for dinner. Then he was called away by some sensor malfunction, and Azra thought to get some Dawning shopping done early.

She was inside a shop, actually, when the Tower exploded. She was too familiar with the sound of far-off ordinance. It didn't even track first that something was unusual- she noticed the telltale rumbles, distinct in tenor from the thunder, and dismissed the sound as not immediately important. It was miles away.

The mismatch didn't hit her until she looked up to ask the shopkeeper a question. He was staring out the window in concern. Azra watched the confusion on his face melt into fear as a particularly loud salvo rolled in, rattling the windows and shaking dust out of the ceiling.

Wait, she thought, artillery in the City?

The room was full of startled faces. That told the story enough. Azra simply dropped the necklace she'd been admiring and bolted for the door.

The narrow street blocked her view of the sky. She made for the roof. Everything was slick with rain, but it could not stop her scaling window ledges and balconies. She pulled herself up on the peaked surface.

There was fire in the distance. It wasn't the defenses that were hit, not right off the bat. The Tower itself was still under a barrage of missiles. The explosions flashed like heat-lightning in the clouds of smoke. The actual lightning flickered, revealing the harsh outlines of Cabal ships hidden in the storm clouds. The bombs just kept rolling in, wave after wave. Anti-aircraft fire was beginning to fill the air now, golden traces lancing across the brown-gray darkness.

It always seemed to be like this. Peace held and held and held until it just shattered, and you went from a normal day to the world turned on its head with startling speed. Everything had been quiet. It had been peaceful. Now the Cabal were attacking the Tower, and attacking it successfully.

Azra was nothing if not quick on the uptake. She took stock. There were people in the streets. Before the walkways had been nearly empty because of the rain. The explosions had brought everyone out of their structures and filled the spaces with jostling and yelling. Confusion reigned. Azra spared a last glance for the Tower, which was now starting to burn.

Then she turned her eyes back down and fired her Sidearm twice in the air. It did the trick to get the crowd's attention.

"Hey!" she shouted in the sudden (relative) silence. "Head for your evacuation points." She tried to put as much authority into her words as she could.

"We're evacuating?" one of the civilians asked. He was an Exo, teal and red.

"Maybe," Azra said. "They're more defensible than this place, anyway. Headstarts are good."