"In the end, doesn't it all come down to you and your gun?"
Everything sounded hollow and tinny. What just happened? I stared at the red spatter, contrasting against the white of the snow. I couldn't move, my feet felt like they'd been encased in stone and there was nowhere I could go, nowhere I could run. Tyrk's shouts sounded so far away. My eyes were glued to Memphis' body, I didn't know if he was even still alive, his strained groans had stopped echoing through my head from my receiver. I felt the hand on my shoulder and the force of being pulled back behind a rusted steel pillar, even if I wanted to, I couldn't pull away from the Warlock as he dragged me into cover.
Memphis was the brawn of our group, I kept tracking distance, weakening the next until the Titan had finished off the last enemy. Tyrk got at the stragglers of the enemy teams, moving out of the immediate area to find the ones that were trying to get at our backs. Neither myself or the Warlock were built for fights like this without Memphis, and I didn't think this was a fight that we could win without him.
"You're supposed to help! Why are you just standing there?!" Tyrk's frantic screams pierced through my wall of thought, drawing my gaze up to him as his head snapped back and forth as he looked at the enemies spilling into the Cosmodrome and at Fireteam Oscar. From where I was, I could see that they had weapons trained, but they weren't fighting. They were waiting for us.
Shuffling sideways, I risked a peek around the pillar, trying to assess the situation by getting a look at our enemy...I wished I hadn't. This was going to be a massacre. We wouldn't go home.
They were armoured, red draped cloaks decorated their backs but it was their eyes that had my attention. Two glowing orbs on either side of their head seemed to burn holes wherever they landed, they had four arms, two on each side. These were the Fallen. I let my gaze travel through the swarm of enemies and found myself staring into the black hole in the wall. I wish I'd looked away then. I wished that we'd never left the Tower.
"This...Could be bad." My Ghost murmured in my ear.
The thing that crawled out was around four times taller than the armoured swarm. It looked just like the smaller ones but not only was he so much larger, but where the others had four blue eyes, this one had eight orange ones, what I presumed to be his helmet was pointed on both sides, his shoulders had three protruding spikes on each pauldron.
My head snapped back around as Tyrk continued to shout at Fireteam Oscar as they began to pick off any Fallen that came too close to us, though they didn't open fire freely. I stared at the Warlock, my glowing gaze narrowing as I listened to his relentless begging, my hands began to curl into fists. He was waving his scout rifle around like a toy, his other hand waving around as he tried to get Oscar's attention.
I needed to get to Memphis. I needed to make sure he was still alive.
My back stuck against the rusted pillar as I slid upwards, peeking back around to make sure I wasn't going to collide with any Fallen as I rounded it, firing off shots left, right and centre as I side-stepped towards Oscar's Hunter.
"Swap me," I shouted at him over the gunfire and offered him my hand cannon. I needed rapid fire to cut through the swarm to get to our Titan.
"What do I do?!" I heard Tyrk shout at me and I whirled around and jabbed my finger at his weapon.
"You have a rifle! Fucking use it!" I snapped at him and snatched Anka's auto rifle from his offering hands and pushed forwards, shouting streams of profanities as bodies fell in front of me and I began to see a path towards Memphis. I shouted his name and I could have sworn I saw movement. The large Fallen creature raised his weapon and began pumping shots out in my direction. I jumped and threw myself to the side, using the broken terminals and containers for cover. This would not be the end of my Fireteam. I risked a glance back at Fireteam Oscar and Tyrk and almost shouted with pride as they unleashed hell on the Fallen. Our Warlock was still on the sidelines but he was taking out enemies that got too close to me.
