First Blood: A Destiny Story Styx disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled her sniper rifle. For the eleventh time today. Her Captain, a "Titan", entered the cabin. "We make landfall in ten min-- Oh," he said, as he noticed her fidgeting at her weapons, "First time in real combat. Don't worry about it. Anyway--" "Landfall in ten minutes." "Ermm... Affirmative," he stated as he went out the door. Styx had been in her fair share of scrapes. But taking out a Cabal base was more than a scrape. This was war. After a tense ten minutes, the ship landed softly amongst Mars' vast dunes. The orange dust made a spectacular sunset, but Styx was to worried about the fight to come to notice. "Buckets on, everyone!" called the Captain. Styx put her helmet on and twisted into place, sealing it against the atmosphere. As the fire-team walked outside, into the dunes, Styx pulled out a pair of enhanced binoculars and pointed them at the horizon. Ahead, she saw a ruined complex of buildings. The Martian winds had taken their toll, shattering windows and even causing some buildings to collapse entirely. "All right, everyone. Here's the plan of attack. Styx will climb the tallest building she can find, and try to pick off targets. I'll draw fire with the chaingun, and Lars, you-- use your.. "space magic" to take out any groups you see. Let's get going." The Cabal were bigger than Styx had expected. A lot bigger. Once the team arrived at the complex, they instinctively split off each finding their own niche in the battlefield. Styx found a tall building and began to climb. Once at the top, she found a vantage point amongst the rubble and lay down, pulling out her sniper rifle. Then she looked through the scope and selected a target. The Cabal member was staying still, off by himself. She took aim, putting his head in line with her targeting reticule, reached for the trigger... and hesitated. This shot would spark a war with the Cabal. How could she... She shook herself out of thought, aimed again, and fired. The first blood is always the hardest.