[Short Story] The Supervisor: Capture From A Corpus Viewpoint

[Hawthorn]

Greetings Tenno.

This is a short piece that I have composed. I write for recreation, and have taken a course in composition, so it should be reasonably well-written. I was going to submit this story for A Quest Unknown, but it is too long, and includes no screenshots. Also, if by some magical turn of events a Dev reads this, I'd love to hear whether I portrayed the Corpus correctly.

The story is in spoiler tags, enjoy.

The Supervisor

Known to the Tenno as Capture, Zagan: Europa.

Lunch break, I thought, lunch break on my first day as a supervisor. No more welding and joining, no more scrubbing cargo containers, and no more endless patrol duty with only security cams and proxies as friends. Now I can watch my crewman underlings do menial tasks while I watch from the comfort of the control center.

I looked out of the control center's large wraparound window, watching the blue, grey, and tan-suited crewmen wandering off to lunch. Turning away from the window, I crossed the control lectern-filled room to the hallway door, intending to collect my own lunch. The automatic door whirred open, and I strode into the locker-lined hallway. I found my locker amidst a row of identical containers, entered my security code into its access panel, and watched as its indicator light flashed a happy green. I pressed the locker's open button, but cursed "damn!" as its entire contents clattered onto the floor around my booted feet. These lockers are the silliest piece of engineering I've ever seen, I thought, and I shoved the jumble of credit chips and Detron clips back into the locker, then gathered my thermos and lunch cylinder.

After collecting my lunch, I made my way back into the control center and seated myself at a computer lectern next to the window. Uncapping my thermos, I poured a healthy pool of steaming tea into a metal cup. I leaned back in my chair, sipped my tea, and inhaled its aroma. There's a bonus to being a supervisor: being able to enjoy my tea in quiet, out of the noisy mess hall.

As I sipped my tea, I browsed security-camera footage on the computer terminal. Everything seemed normal, until one cam suddenly went dark. Needs maintenance, I thought, as I messaged a crewman to go and fix the faulty cam. "Crewman Horus VII," I said into the intercom, "go check securicam one-nine-nine, it's gone dead." "C'mon Morris, I'm still having lunch," replied Horus, his voice garbled by chewing. "Attacking Grineer don't care if you’re on lunch when they shoot you," I said. "You don't want them to sneak past security, now, do you?"

With a few more grumbles, crewman Horus went to check on the faulty security camera. I watched his progress on the computer and kept the intercom open. As I watched the holo-monitor, I took another gulp of tea, but choked as I heard Horus inhale sharply. "What's wrong, crewman?" I spluttered, staring at the orange-glowing monitor. After a short pause, he replied. "Um, the dead camera, there's a, hum, arrow in it." A cold shiver ran down my spine, and I took a gulp of tea for comfort.

All of a sudden, a blaring alarm went off, and the control lecterns around the room all flashed the same message:

security breach: insurgents detected, security proxies dispatched. Oh damn, I thought, as I turned to the control-pad and frantically entered the emergency lockdown code. That should hold them for a while, I thought, as all the doors on the facility locked. I sunk back into my chair, and ran through my panicked thoughts. The Board said there was no chance of Betrayer incursion on Zagan. I found my heart rate quickening with anxiety, and my breathing becoming panicky. I picked up my teacup, but found it empty. Filling it clumsily from my thermos, I took a comforting draft. Our proxies should be sufficient to deal with a single Betrayer, especially with the new Oxium Osprey models in place. With that comforting thought, I strengthened somewhat, and looked back to the computer console. "Horus VII, report" I said over the intercom. Frantic breathing greeted my ears: Horus was running. "Dammit Morris, there are Tenno in the station, four of them. Four Betrayers! They just took out an entire group of MOAs, and now they're just looting and shooting unstable barrels for fun. Me and Tybalt got away 'cause of the lockdown". At that last word, the computer terminal in front of me went berserk. It displayed an error. Warning: lockdown disabled from terminal 765, foreign intrusion detected.

Lockdown's no good against Tenno, I thought with shock. They rip through security ciphers in seconds. Across the computer display, errors and frantic warning were popping up; security cams were going dead, MOA and Osprey units were going offline, and crewmen were screaming in the intercom. At this point, I heard an explosion nearby, and the rattle of gunfire. I jumped out of my chair, and pulled a Detron shot-pistol from a security locker. They're close. I picked up my teacup, drained it, set it down, and backed against the window of the control center. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light outside the window. I whirled around, and saw activity on the work-floor below. A dozen MOA proxies were popping out of their wall-cradles, and helmeted crewmen supported by shield Ospreys were ducking behind cover. They're digging in, I thought. A few moments passed, and I watched from the window above, frozen in anticipation and anxiety. Then, the door to the work-floor below flew open, and a Warframe-clad monster burst through.

It was a female Tenno wielding a humongous two handed sword. She charged into the room with terrifying speed. By dropping to the floor and spinning, she avoiding a storm of blue plasma bolts fired by the crewmen. She then snapped back into the air and swung her sword into three MOAs, destroying them utterly. The most terrifying thing about this Betrayer was the appearance of her Warframe, which was studded with bits of Corpus tech! Behind her, three more Betrayers advanced from the doorway. One, clad in thick robes and a wide helmet, was shooting bolts of ice at the defending Ospreys, freezing them in the air. The second, an antlered creature, was wielding a Corpus-made Tetra plasma repeater, which he was using to massacre the poor crewmen. The third Tenno was deadly fast, and was following close behind the great sword-wielder. She wore an insectile Warframe, with wide, flaring plates at her hips and left shoulder. She danced behind our crewmen's cover, and hosed them down with dual machine-pistols, occasionally unleashing a sonic explosion. Against four monstrous Tenno, the defending crewmen and proxies posed no resistance. They were all dismembered, frozen, and bullet-riddled within seconds.

The four Tenno dashed across the work-floor, and I stumbled away from the window, unable to watch any more. They'll be here for me next, I thought, as I turned towards the control room's door. I could hear fighting again; close outside; probably in the locker-lined hallway. I took my thermos from the control lectern, drained it of its herbal drink, and crouched behind the computer console, my Detron raised and at the ready. They say these pistols can actually dent a Warframe. The control room doors shook in their housing as an explosion detonated in the hallway beyond. Here we go. The door opened, and the insectile Betrayer scuttled in. She was holding a drawn bow, but I didn't wait for her to fire it as I unloaded my Detron's clip at her. The pistol's radiation pellets had little impact on her shielding, though, merely causing blue distortion blurs to appear in the air before her. She cocked her eyeless head at me in amusement, and sighted down the shaft of her nocked arrow, aiming for my heart. She released the arrow, and it exploded when it hit me, knocking the air from my lungs. Thankfully, it didn't hurt me otherwise.

I got up, energized with fear and adrenaline, and vaulted over the control lectern as the Tenno drew a new arrow. I ran like a Shockwave MOA down the hallway, only to end up face-to-eyeless face with the ice-slinging Betrayer. He calmly raised his weapon, and I nearly died of shock when I saw what it was: a Corpus-made Penta grenade launcher; affectionately called the "toaster". He gripped it in his gloved hands, took aim, and plunked me in the face with a rectangular high-explosive round. At the moment the Penta round detonated, I felt two more arrows explode in the back of my armored jumpsuit. The world seemed to spin around me, and I was blinded by flashes of light and fire. I fell to the floor, and through my scorched eyes, saw the insect-like bow-wielder standing above me. She reached out with her Warframe encased hand, palm facing down, and a flash of light emanated from it. I wriggled weakly, cursing, as I felt my body disintegrating, breaking down at the molecular level and being drawn into the Betrayer's hand. Yellow and gold fireflies flashed around my vision, and before I lost consciousness, I thought I heard a muffled female voice."Job well executed, Tenno, we've got the VIP."

Edited February 18, 2014 by Hawthorn

[arch111]

Excellent. You depicted a raid and capture right on.

And it soooo marks the need of heavys in Corpus ranks.

Youd think they would install better codes by now to.

Great job!

[Hawthorn]

Thanks! I took frequent breaks to play Capture missions while writing this. Also, the Corpus really do need more heavies.

[Hawthorn]

Hey, sorry for double post, but I just made a set of edits on the story. . .Tell me if there are any more.

[satsujinki01]

Mmmmm.....it's good and there are more spectulation about from where Lotus will interrogate a scout. Or Tenno

[Hawthorn]

Mmmmm.....it's good and there are more spectulation about from where Lotus will interrogate a scout. Or Tenno

Yeah, I really tried to give it a "what happens next?" feeling. That's something that has always bugged me about capture missions: not knowing what happens to the VIP!

Edited February 17, 2014 by Hawthorn

[Phoenix86]

nice reading :)

[Hawthorn]

nice reading :)

Thanks!

[Hawthorn]

Okay, my last edit of the story appears to have destroyed all the paragraph indents. . . Thats fixed now.