(XBOX)Katsuhiro 1139
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Posts posted by (XBOX)Katsuhiro 1139
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"You've traveled the System since you awoke, Sara. You've walked the Rail, seen what it's like out there. The Grineer, for all their might and their limitless numbers, aren't the worst thing out there.
Not even close."
- Tenno conversation, intercepted by Cephalon Fero
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Something was wrong, even as they stepped from the breaching pod into the empty hold. No shots greeted them. No roar of small arms fire, or panicked screams. Only silence.
There was no light beyond flickering emergency systems, long past their operational limits.
The bulky scanning unit Frehgor lugged about as part of his kit rasped a warning tone.
The air was bad.
"Keep your masks secure." Sergeant Telb instructed, waving them forward. Squad Five fanned out, armoured cleats ringing against steel decking. Probing searchlights pierced the gloom. Corpus prayer banners hung limply from the walls. Some kind of mould seemed to fleck the walls. All was deathly quiet.
Grahk watched his sector; Mox to his left, Frehgor and Zoln to his right.
The Corpus derelict had shown up on the edges of Grineer space seemingly without warning or fanfare, far removed from the numerous flashpoints that delineated the boundary between the two empires along the Solar Rail. The Corpus had listed the vessel as being missing six months prior, and had readily volunteered its transponder codes to the Grineer free of charge, ostensibly under the pretext of honouring their most recent ceasefire. That act alone had demanded an investigation team, and the Galleon Kril's Shield had been dispatched accordingly.
Six other Grineer boarding teams reported in. The reports were identical: no signs of life. Minimal power.
Zoln suddenly snapped about, his Hind up to bear.
"Heard something!" Zoln yelped.
"Calm yourself, Fresh Flesh." Telb scowled, slapping the junior trooper's rifle down. "Sweep your rifle like that again and I'll feed you to Seena myself."
"I heard it too." Mox growled quietly.
Telb looked at Mox sharply.
"You're sure?"
"Ears about the only part of me that still work, Sarge."
Grahk and Mox were the longest serving members of Squad Five. Casualties had been many. There had been the ground campaign on Mars, then three separate border clashes near the Phobos Junction. Where Zoln and the others were clean-shelled replacements, Mox and Grahk were comparatively battle hardened. They wore it on their carapace: the burn marks, the shrapnel scars and lines of scoring. Telb took them seriously.
"Zoln, Pakhor; go with him." Telb instructed. "Grahk, take the left with Frehgor and Krint."
"On it." Grahk nodded to the two fresh-shells.
Not all of Squad Five's casualties had been the direct result of battlefield injury. Inconsistencies in the Grineer gene-mould often led to rapid decay in certain troopers. As a line unit, troopers of the Grineer Space Corps received as much augmentation as could be spared. Those that could be retained were, propped up by cybernetic prosthesis of varying complexity. It was said that the Grineer were better at fixing broken bodies than creating new ones. Many more were forcibly re-assigned: taking up roles where their rapid decay would not jeopardise combat operations.
Those were the lucky ones. Grahk had only heard stories of those renditioned for base organic material, as the scientists salvaged the few parts that worked, only to discard the rest.
Grahk's left knee was already fit for replacement. The mechanists had installed a crude patch-servo to keep it functional, but it was woefully inadequate. It buzzed whenever he walked, the sound maddening in the dark.
Grahk still carried the Karak he looted on Mars. Had been permitted to keep it, given his proficiency with it. It lent Squad Five a degree of firepower greater than what a traditional boarding team could normally expect, and Brakarr himself had put in a word with the requisitions officer. Grahk still chuckled at the memory: Mox and Grahk hovering nervously, as the Bombard towered over the diminutive clerk and explained, in no uncertain terms, that the more established troopers of Seena's platoon were to afforded the same special privileges a Bombard enjoyed.
Grahk shook himself, focusing on the task at hand.
Doorway ahead. Emergency bulkhead. It had been sealed tight. The welding work had been sloppy in its haste. Dribbling burn marks stained the floor. The welding unit itself had been cast aside. Grahk knelt down and examined it, brow knitting as it proved sticky to the touch. Again that mould. It seemed to be seeping in, festering through the sealing marks and bubbling up like some tumorous cancer. Not for the first time, Grahk was glad of the sealed environment his carapace provided.
"Sealed chamber ahead." Grahk reported as he re-sighted his rifle, waving the others into position. "Need to break a door. Requesting permission to proceed."
"Do it." Telb's voice crackled through the com-feed.
Grahk gave a nod.
The marine lancers went to work. Freghor and Krint dug electrified machetes into the central gap of the bulkhead, grunting as they worked the blades into the seam. With a groan of protesting steel, a narrow gap was made. A prying bar was produced. Krint looked back at Grahk, awaiting instruction. Grahk dropped to one knee, the Karak braced. He waved his hand forward twice.
Krint heaved on the prying bar with all of his considerable strength. Krint was Fresh-Flesh, new-kin; newly minted from the meat-presses of Ceres. There was talk that had he been any larger, he would have been elevated to Bombard status. He had been grown for this.
It was a surprise then, that the bulkhead barely moved an inch. A foul stench wafted through. The very air sweated.
Frehgor and Grahk threw their shoulders into the gap, heaving upward.
The emergency release locks kicked in, holding the gap in place. Grahk took point, stepping over the ledge and into the wall of heat beyond.
Grahk had been to the steaming jungles of Earth before, a temporary posting as their Galleon restocked in orbit.
This was different. Grahk saw what was arresting the far side of the bulkhead. Thick ropes of slime dripped across its surface, snaking across the floor and across the ceilings above.
Boots squelched as Krint and Frehgor joined him. Freghor's sensor unit warbled manically now. The two junior lancers looked to Grahk for guidance. Grahk ignored them, never taking his eyes off the flesh-caked walls ahead. They writhed and sweated, flexing and unflexing. Stirring.
Grahk opened his com line, the Karak sighted in his hands as he opened the com line, his voice a measured whisper.
"Sergeant, we have a problem."
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"We took one Grineer Space Marine in for full-spectrum analysis. Post-mortem, of course. The mineral fibres ingrained in the recesses of the armour alone would surprise you. Martian sand, trace Venusian coolant gel. Even Lua moon dust. The Grineer Empire lacks finesse and subtlety, but its operational range is vast. As part of that, there is a pragmatism that belies their crude design. A certain stubborn practicality.
The terrain doesn't matter: Grineer will fight in all conditions, in all scenarios."
- Tenno Doric
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Months passed. One boarding action blended into the next. Squad Five became a leaner, more organised fighting unit under Sergeant Telb. Grahk soon realised that the ferocity of their initial blooding had been in some ways intentional. A test of their resolve, to ensure that only the strong survived. Subsequent actions were more measured, by Grineer standards, almost surgical in their precision.
This time was different.
Surface fighting was entirely new to Grahk. Gone were the close confines of choke points and narrow hallways. The sun speared cruelly into his visor, casting long shadows across the open wasteland. The sky was a terrible vastness, that threatened to swallow him. Everything seemed so terribly, perilously open.
The Martian sand was compacted, this close to the facility: hard-baked earth that sounded roughly as they charged forward toward the beleaguered frontline. Support Dargyn thrummed overhead, projectors rasping as they strafed the enemy assault force. One swooping ship was savagely torn from the sky, streaming fire before it impacted in a column of sand and fire.
"Keep moving! Forward!" Seena's voice warbled over the com-link. "Move your sorry hides!"
Grahk's feet slapped the ground as they closed the gap. He could hear the Bolkor assault craft ignite its engines as it lifted away, the engine wash spraying a blinding mist of sand all around them.
As with most things of a strategic nature, Grahk's understanding of the nuances of the relationship between the Grineer and Corpus empires was limited. The Corpus had the technological means of controlling the Solar Rail, and the means of prolonging Grineer lifespans through more intricate and sophisticated means of augmentation. Beyond that, they kept to themselves in their isolated fiefdom around Jupiter and Neptune.
Occasionally, however, a rogue broker might try their hand at plunder from time to time, looking to exploit some of the ancient sites scattered across the Martian wastes. Seeking precious gemstones or ancient Orokin relics – their motives were often unclear. What mattered was that they were here, in force, and the planetary garrison were in dire need of assistance.
The Arid Lancers had held admirably against terrible odds. That was to be expected. This was their terrain, their specialty. Desert fighting was all too new to Grahk and his shell-brothers.
But a Corpus surface invasion of the facility had been wholly unexpected. The credit fiends and their gutless automatons had hit them hard. A sky of dropships and wave after wave of screeching MOA stormed the frontline. Teleportation drops slammed down entire squads of assault troops; their shield systems deflecting all manner of small arms fire.
Where once there had been nothing but open sand, there was now an army. Full scale planetary invasion. The battle raged in orbit, as countless thousands died in the silent void.
Grahk saw none of this, ensconced in a landing craft, packed in on all sides by his fellow gene-kin.
The terrestrial corps had endured horrific casualties. Charred bodies clogged the front trenches. Defending emplacements fired until their barrels smoked red hot. Grineer died in droves, as lupine Jackal units pounced amongst them, rending flesh and ferrite with cutting plasma-teeth.
Protocol was clear. The Grineer Space Corps could not stand idly by whilst their brothers bled.
The marines piled into the trenches alongside their desert kin, surging forward to plug the gaps in the line. Grakata, Karak, Hind: a chattering, snarling rattle of hard rounds filled the air. Machines shrieked as they died, blasted into component pieces across the approaching slope.
Heroes were made that day, and lost. Grahk saw one Arid Lancer operating a Rampart defence turret, alone on an isolated ridge. He spun the weapon on its axis, hosing the drones as they swarmed in for the kill. Right as they tore him apart, the lancer primed a grenade. The resulting explosion cooked off the ammo of the Rampart; a popping chorus of snaps and cracks, right as the fireball consumed all around it. The battle raged on, the brief moment of heroism one of countless many.
Telb was roaring instructions. Grahk could barely hear over the frenzied din. Mox was roaring laughing, his Hek sounding repeatedly with reverberating thuds.
Then the MOA were upon them, filling the horizon. Filling the sky as they descended. Now it was frenzied hand to hand. His Hind clacked empty so Grahk simply wielded it as a club as the drones flooded into the trench; battering it over a MOA's head again and again until its casing buckled and fizzling sparks sprayed freely.
Something mule kicked him from the side. Grahk went down hard, his machete tumbling from his grasp clumsily. The next MOA bore over him, one foot planted on his chest.
And then the drone was gone: torn clean in half like some ancient book. Brakarr cast its parts aside and moved on, hauling wounded Grineer back on their feet and bellowing incoherent encouragement as he shoved them back into position. Grahk scrabbled to his feet. His rifle was dented beyond repair. It didn't matter. There were plenty more laying on the ground amongst the carpeted dead.
The Karak he found was a heavier beast altogether, with a meaty recoil that threatened to jump out of his hands. He had to clamp it down against the lip of the trench-line to keep it on track. Not that there was a shortage of targets. Drones died by the hundreds. Still more came.
"All units, stand by!" Seena's voice clipped. "Hold firm!"
The sky fell. Close range bombardment. A torrential downpour of fire from the supporting Bolkor overhead. Mortar rounds from friendly Arid units scattered throughout the hills, now finally brought to bear, delivered their payload with a thundering deluge of fire. Autocannons chewed a swathe through the Corpus horde; pulping crewmen into little more than ashen smears.
Grahk looked around in disbelief, amazed that he was still alive. So choked were the Space Marine lancers in the dust, their armour resembled their Arid brethren. Together they cheered at the departing Corpus ships, roaring insults and slapping each other's war rigs, as thick plumes of smoke rose up in the desert sky.
It was the happiest moment in Grahk's life.
-
"You could assume that all Grineer are identical, and many would forgive you. They wear the same armour, wield the same weapons, even share the same face, in many cases. But to make this assumption is to ignore one of the most dangerous aspects of their Empire. They possess irregularities, peculiarities, and individual quirks. We often don't see it, as our operatives tear from one objective to the next, but the Grineer Empire could not sustain itself without The Queens' ability to recognise these individualistic traits and marshal them for their own perfidious designs.
What causes this? A cocktail of leftover genetic material from preceding batches? A flaw in the machinery itself? We can only speculate. What matters is that the Grineer Empire, as wasteful and monolithic as it may first appear, does not always squander its potential."
- An Observation of the Grineer Dominion, Tenno Doric
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From there it was room to room. Tedious work, but necessary. The survivors were broken, but a cornered animal can be all the more dangerous for it. Grahk and the rest of Squad Five took each threshold in turn, plodding and methodical. Rifles roared. Grenades thumped.
The ship was dying. Brakarr's team had clearly found the engine core, and the ensuing firefight quickly caused the main life support systems to fail with a final juddering sigh. The lights went out. The exchanger unit built into Grahk's suit rasped to life, filling his labouring lungs with stale air. The low-light settings in his war-rig kicked in, bathing the deck in a greasy yellow hue.
"Lights." Telb grunted. Spot beams on rifles sprang to life, hunting through the gloom.
Each time the process was the same. Squad Leader Telb would give a nod, and the eight lancers would file down the corridor: unsealing doors and sweeping each space with their spot beams. Sporadic shots rang out from time to time, as those hiding were found and swiftly exterminated.
Grahk reached the end of the next section, still only a single kill to his tally. With a sigh he unsealed the next door. He played the light from left to right. Nothing but storage containers.
Somebody clapped him on the shoulder.
"Time to go." That was Mox, one of his gene-kin. "Big guy's done the heavy lifting for us."
"There are more rooms to search." Grahk ventured, gesturing ahead.
"Leave them." Telb replied, shouldering his rifle as he headed for the Retrieval Barge. "The void will do our job for us. Fall in."
Squad Five tromped back along the hall, the only sound the thumping of bloodied hands on walls, as the remaining survivors choked and retched, entombed in the endless dark.
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They assembled in the cargo hold. A Retrieval Barge, hump-backed with scabrous plating, awaited them. So was the rest of the unit. Fully half of Squad One were missing. By all accounts the push for the bridge had been the bloodiest, as they endured all manner of booby traps: automated turrets, surprise airlock traps and improvised arc-mines. Brakarr and his team had already boarded the Retrieval Barge, their task complete.
Seena remained, as implacable as ever, waving them onto the ship; her face hidden behind a respirator. As he filed past, it occurred to Grahk that they had never told him what their purpose here was, or whether it had been accomplished. He decided it didn't matter. The defenders were broken. The Queens will had been done, their enemies prosecuted. That was enough for him.
Grahk took his seat, stowing his rifle and allowing the mag-locks to bolt onto his armour as the restraint cage clamped down around him. He craned his neck and studied the yawning rows of empty seeds that lined much of the hold. Something approaching sorrow threatened to overwhelm him.
He crushed it swiftly. The fallen had done their part. Now it was up to him.
The belly ramp groaned shut, sealing them in darkness. But for the shining lights of their yellow visors, there was no illumination in the hold. Grahk closed his eyes, as the adrenaline fled and exhaustion overwhelmed him. He murmured a private, almost selfish prayer of thanks to The Queens for allowing him to survive his first contact, and live to fight another day.
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Then.
The Armourer's Yard was more cathedral than yard: as vast machines purred and thrummed, bedecked in the iconography of the Ceres Manufactories. A line of auto-walk tracks took each candidate in in turn, feeding them into the machines like morsels fed to some immense, ticking tongue.
The approach to the machines resembled a grease-stained locker room, the walls prefaced by row upon row of skeletal cages. Supervisors barked orders and herded the new recruits to their assigned lockers. Inside each cage was a mid-layer of armour that snapped snugly around the torso, forming a direct interface between a trooper's skin and the outer carapace that was to come. Like Grahk's bodysuit, the armour lacked all colour, and he was already pumping sweat by the time he was ushered forward onto the assembly line, and into the belly of the beast itself.
Grahk held very still as he was sealed into his armour, the thick plating of the humped life support unit interlocking with the front section. Connection points were spot-welded together by plasma torches that flitted and whirred as the servo-arms moved about with blinding speed, nipping and snapping at his new shell like vultures bickering over carrion. The shell was pristine. It was as clean as it was ever going to be, and yet staining rapidly from the acrid smoke that washed freely through the grilled floor. Below, dark machines churned ever-on; a droning, funereal dirge.
Last was the facemask, which locked into place with a muted click. The air filters hissed to life, washing out the dirty air in favour of recirculating his own stale breath. Like all Grineer tech, the visual display was bare bones and crudely practical. Suit integrity, remaining life support: that was about it. Grahk would learn later that much of this could be woefully inaccurate, often with lethal consequences, but for now the mask kept the smoke out of his weeping eyes, and he was glad of it.
Grahk was still getting used to his newfound bulk when the Grineer behind him shoved him forward with a snarl. With a stumbling start Grahk trudged on, joining the long line of troopers marching toward the Armoury.
He considered his own appearance by examining the identical troopers ahead of him. Their carapace was the blue-green of the Space Marines, same as his own. Grahk found the sudden colour refreshing against so much yellow and brown. The armour was heavy, weighing on his shoulders but not to a point that it curtailed his movement. Not that such discomfort mattered.
Grahk was a Grineer Lancer. One of a countless many.
Grown to serve, born to die.
-
Author's Note: the memories detailed in this transcription are, for want of a better expression, compromised. Certain phrases or idioms have been repacked, for the purposes of concise translation and clarity of expression.
Furthermore, the values and sensibilities depicted are those of the subject, and not endorsed or condoned by the author in any way. You asked me to translate the memory file as it was originally relayed, in language you and the other Tenno could understand, Operator. I did precisely that.
If you have a problem with any of it, well, just keep killing them.
- Cephalon Fero
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The clock hit zero.
The Boarding Barge impacted with a jolting crunch. Grineer slammed forward into each-other, rattling like shells in a munitions hopper. Primed, ready for war. This is what they had been grown to do. They could hear the squeal of tortured metal as the boring saws chewed through steel plating. The red warning light flickered thrice, then cut out altogether. Darkness reigned.
The Grineer grabbed each-other in unison, steadying themselves with practiced coordination in the dark. The boring drills ground to a halt. There was a slow, dreadful pause. A final, lingering stillness.
The go-light pinged green. The breaching charges detonated. The assault ramp slammed down. Smoke washed through the hold, carrying with it foreign smells and alien sounds. And death.
A blizzard of shots cut through the mist, ripping into the front-line. All manner of improvised hell. Energy weapons, ramshackle kit-guns and crude slug throwers not unlike the rifles the Grineer themselves carried. The shooting was frenzied: ill-disciplined, but determined. Grineer lancers toppled left and right. Those behind drove through, doggedly stepping over the fallen. There was no panic or hurry to the murderous assault. Just a relentless, plodding march forward into the coming storm. The Grineer were inexorable. They stormed forward, weapons spitting.
Grahk couldn't see a damn thing. Twice he almost tripped on the smoking bodies of his gene-kin. To his left a beam projector flashed once, lancing clean through a clutch of his brethren. They neatly toppled, rendered in gruesome cross-section. Brakarr roared a challenge and stormed through the gap, shoving his way to the front and dipping as loose shots clipped and spanked against his war-rig. His launcher sounded twice in return: dry, angry coughs. The energy projector abruptly silenced.
The lancer in front of Grahk toppled without a word, a harpoon jutting clean through the small of his back. Grahk did not stop, as he trudged stubbornly forward, sighting his rifle as he stepped past.
At last he could see. The Boarding Barge had T-boned the target ship somewhere in its mid-section. A refugee ship, fleeing yet another meddlesome colony. Grahk was a rank trooper, they spared him the details. It only mattered that the target was unsanctioned, worthy of the strictest censure.
As the pall of smoke cleared, Grahk's visor flooded with detail. Some kind of mess hall, overlooked by a skeletal walkway. Tables and chairs were haphazardly strewn about the room; hastily overturned the moment the boring drills announced their presence.
He saw a human-standard male running for the exit. The conditioning took over. Grahk dropped to one knee, sighting his rifle, and felt the dull kick of the stock against his chassis. His target flopped against a bulkhead, and slid down clumsily, a red smear describing his descent.
Good grouping, solid discipline. The instructors would be proud. The Queens would be pleased.
Grahk felt nothing. If anything, he was pleased to have performed his service well. He sighted for the next target.
For a makeshift defence, it held reasonably well. The carpet of broken Grineer marines that paved the entryway stood testament to that.
But this was the Grineer Empire. They would not be denied by mere casualties.
The storm of fire changed pitched and became a roar of Grineer hard rounds. Broken, the defenders twisted and fell, cut down as they tried to flee; all semblance of discipline vanishing. Brakarr stood proud in the smoking ruin of the mess hall, freely unloading with his launcher.
Seena stepped through, surveying the destruction. She raised a clenched fist.
The Grineer fire abruptly ceased. Gunsmoke filled the air, and the hold was silent but for the gurgled pleas of the dying and the tinkle of settling shell casings. Elsewhere they could hear distant screams as smaller Grineer boarding tubes made entry throughout the ship.
"Sergeant Fuln, report."
"Fuln has fallen, Commandant." Another Grineer stepped forward. Half of his carapace had been scorched an ugly black from where a flaming glass bottle had smashed down across his helmet.
"Your name?"
"Tarn, Commandant."
"Good. Squad Two is yours now, Tarn. Casualties?"
Tarn glanced around, surveying the carnage.
"Thirty percent?" Tarn ventured. Numbers were not his strong suit.
"Acceptable." Seena nodded, coming to a similar conclusion. "Brakarr, secure the engine room with Squads Three and Four." She pointed aft, then looked directly at the mob Grahk formed part of. "Squad Five, the lower decks. Move."
The Grineer marines snapped a salute. Seena surveyed the newly blooded troops, her yellow eyes fiercely proud.
"You have your orders. Secure the vessel. No survivors. Glory to the Queens!"
The vehemence in Grahk's voice surprised even him.
"Glory to the Queens!"
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Venk's voice drifted through the ashen-smoke as they marched through the bowels of Processing and Enrollment.
"What's the matter, Fresh Flesh; that tongue of yours not work?"
Grahk didn't reply. Was he allowed to reply? Was this a test of some kind? Venk seemed to know what was what. Seemed to be enjoying the whole disorientating process too.
Venk was still chatting away.
"I mean if it doesn't work that's fine. Nub-Tongues have their place too. But you're infantry tagged. Means you can talk. Can't report if you can't talk."
Grahk coughed, working his tongue and massaging his throat. His eyes stung and wept openly. His nose was running. His voice was a rasp as it finally emerged.
"It works. Are we allowed talk?"
Venk kept one eye on the observation platform, a wry smile on his face.
"There are plenty of times to keep your eyes front and your mouth shut, Fresh Flesh. This is not one of them. Fresh." Venk spared a glance over his shoulder. "So what are we going to call you, eh?"
Grahk began to recite his serial number.
"No, no. Not that. Your name." Venk shook his head vehemently, before deciding: "Grahk, I'm going to call you Grahk."
"Why Grahk?" Grahk asked.
"I knew a Grahk once. Had that same exact bewildered look you have now. You look just like him, right before he stepped on a landmine." Venk chuckled to himself. "Here's hoping it ends better for you."
With that ominous aside Venk chortled again and stepped through the next doorway. Grahk followed.
There was little choice. The intake were routed through the installation in one seemingly endless procession. Grahk could only study the back of Venk's head and put one foot in front of the other.
They were deep below the surface, that was as far as Grahk could sense. The halls were tight channels, harshly lit by halogen spot lamps that glowed sickly white in the smoky air high above. Heavy armoured boots clanked along the observation walkways, as spray jets filmed the naked recruits in a fine powdery mist. They were watched by seasoned Grineer sentries holding shock staves, impassive behind their grubby face masks. The staves sizzled and cooked whenever the rising spray caught them.
The narrow pathway opened up into a vast circular chamber. Hunched at its centre were the requisitions officers: rotten, malformed figures seemingly held together entirely by prosthesis. They pointed guidance wands, crowing orders as they herded the recruits into different groups.
Navy staffers, hulking bombards immense and broad-shouldered. Every Grineer had a stencil on their neck, depicting their intended service line. Transportation, infantry, logistics. Each had a role to play. Even those gifted with talents of science and learning could play their part; their frail bodies cannibalised in favour of prolonging their short lifespans through direct cyberisation.
Infantry, Grahk's read.
Each processing conversation went the same way. Grahk's was no different. He had to bend down to catch the willowy voice of the assignment officer, who scrutinised him with a single cyclopean processing lens where his eyes would have been, had they not been so crudely replaced.
"Serial number?" The officer looked like he was smiling, until Grahk realised his lips had rotted away.
Grahk supplied it, rattling it off automatically. It was ingrained by this point. His own skin was comparatively flawless. That would change, as time wore on and the campaigns took their toll.
"Are you experiencing any severe discomfort that might affect your service to The Queens? Aches, physical pain? Accelerated decomposition?"
Grahk shook his head. He didn't want to think of what the outcome would be if he admitted otherwise.
"Are you ready to give your life for the Empire?"
"Without question or hesitation." Grahk saluted.
"Good." The assignment officer nodded, entirely bored, then pointed to the left. "Infantry. Space Corps. Go."
A Grineer trooper shoved something into his arms as he moved to join the largest assembly of troopers. An underclothing of sorts; as scabrous and frayed as the face of the officer who gave it to him. Still, it was better than naked skin. Grahk pulled it on, hopping from one foot to the next awkwardly.
Grahk chafed in the bodysuit, rolling his neck and shoulders as he adjusted to it. It sealed him right up to the neck. One size fit all. The only gaps in the suit were access ports which accommodated the itching dermal ports inset into his skin. For all its patch-worn seams, the suit was as new as he was.
It would become his second skin in the years ahead, all but indistinguishable from the flesh beneath.
He spotted Venk across the assembly yard. He stood apart from the other recruits, in line with six or so other Grineer. Like Venk their body suits were different. Pristine, jet black: layered with an exo-skeleton of slim plating that lent them a broad physique. They carried themselves differently too; with a confidence borne from experience. They had been here before. Circumstances and good fortune permitting, they would be here again. They exchanged a private word with one of the attending sentries, and were promptly escorted from the chamber.
Grahk realised the guards escorting them were entirely deferential.
Venk caught Grahk's eye as he and the chosen few filed from the chamber. Venk offered him a single, reassuring nod. It was only then that Grahk spied the sigil on Venk's neck. It was no symbol he recognised.
Before Grahk could place it, Venk was gone, swallowed up by Ceres and the Grineer war machine.
-
The hold was clammy and dark, as armoured panels rattled and the very hull itself trembled and shook.
Grahk could only see the back of the lancer in front of him. A dozen more shared the cramped hold either side of him. They were jostled by the shake and bump of the ship, shoulder pauldrons kissing one another with metallic clacks. A single baleful red light lit the hold, bathing them in crimson.
A hundred pairs of yellow eyes glittered in the dark.
They were Grineer, oath-sworn to enforce the will of the Twin Queens. Desiccated gene-rot wrapped in shell-like carapaces of dense alloy plating. Brutal and relentless in their martial discipline, legion in number. There were many tiers and hierarchies within the Grineer Empire, and as a male field trooper Grahk was firmly placed at the bottom of the pecking order. His armour lacked the oil stains and dents that will surely come with time. He was Fresh Flesh. New meat.
"Ready weapons." Commandant Seena rasped, surveying them with hardened yellow eyes.
There was a rattling chorus of yanked charge handles and snapping safeties.
The Commandant exchanged a nod with Brakarr. The largest of them by a significant margin, Brakarr towered over the boarding team, his war-rig criss-crossed with old burn marks and chipped craters that flaked to the touch. Bombard class Grineer were freaks, marauding bruisers augmented with crude cybernetics that enabled them to heft the largest weapons Grineer manufactories could muster. Where Brakarr was a hulking brute, Seena was slim and slender, favouring a needle like sniper rifle of a sophistication that far out-stripped the humble rifle Grahk had been issued. By contrast his own weapon was a ramshackle thing, a sorry hand-me down assault rifle whose serial number was all but unrecognisable beneath the layer of scoring.
This was no unexpected. Grineer society was matriarchal in nature. The Queens had uplifted the Grineer, freeing them from Orokin rule and leading them on a glorious crusade which had fully conquered half of known space. The Grineer would give their lives to see that other half conquered.
The fresh Lancers listened to the sound of their own breathing in the dark echoing confines of their armoured shells. For all their gene-encoding and hypnotherapy, they were nervous. For many of them, this would be their first taste of combat. For many of them, it would be their last. Pulse rates spiked. The squad-interlink warbled with static as Commandant Seena checked her wrist-chron.
"Thirty seconds."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Alone with his own thoughts, Grahk closed his eyes.
And remembered.
They had read Grahk his serial number, when he first snapped awake, naked and gasping on the deck grille; still slick and sticky with the amniotic fluids of the gene tank. He had not known his name then.
"On your feet, maggots!" An echoing voice thrummed from unseen speakers, as Grahk found himself working limbs that had never been worked before.
Blinking, Grahk absorbed his surroundings through watering eyes. The gene tanks formed row upon endless row of upended capsules, lining a seemingly endless vastness. The air was smoke and charcoal. Beneath the walkway was a rolling sea of chemical fire and churning pollutant.
Overseeing the chamber was a glass observation window, entirely opaque.
Grahk was not alone. There were a dozen other shivering wretches on his platform, and hundreds more on identical walkways stretching as far as the eye could see. Uniformly male. Uniformly shaking. Sensor drones flitted by, probing them with scanning beams, chiming and chittering to themselves with each subject inspected.
Floating display drones drifted through the air above, booming marching music and proclaiming announcements that were all but lost to the sheer vastness of the chamber.
Grahk only caught snatches. It told him enough. He was Grineer. He would serve. He would fight, and die, in glorious tribute to the Queens, as countless others had before.
In unison the rows of new-born turned to face the screens, unconsciously straightening as mental encoding took over.
All except one. The man beside him doubled over, retching and heaving. He would not stop. The sensor drones descended at once, warbling as their scanning beams flared an angry red.
Grahk moved to help. One of the drones rounded on him, bristling as it shrieked noise-code. Grahk backed away, alarmed.
"Leave him, Fresh Flesh. He's done." A voice behind him hissed. "No need to get yourself slagged."
Grahk turned around. The man on the same side of him seemed older and more grizzled than many of the wretches on the assembly line. Broader too. The flesh of his arms and right leg was pink and new, but the rest of his skin was a mottled mess of scar tissue. His ears were little more than nubs of gristle.
"Name's Venk." The older Grineer nodded, chuckling at the blank expression on Grahk's face. "Don't worry. Make it far enough, they'll give you a name yet."
Grahk glanced back at the fallen wretch. He lay face-down and still. The sluice valves in the walkway gurgled as fluids leaked freely through the vent-work.
Grahk could not tear his eyes away, even as the imprinting caused him to shakily fold his fist across his breast in an obedient salute.
"Bad Batch. It happens." Venk shrugged nonchalantly, as he snapped his own salute with weary resignation. "Welcome to the Empire."
-
The Umbra-specific sentience aside, the presence of the Helminth strain aboard your Orbiter seems to imply that while the standard frames are created by the foundry in a combination of "wearable" biomass encased by cybernetic chassis (bio-mechanical in origin). This chassis incorporates systems and neuroptics conducive to facilitating Transference.
In simple terms, standard frames are mass-produced versions of the Prime Warframes, which were likely originally members of the Dax selectively infected for the Warframe programme (building on the Umbra project, which was an early miscalculation on Ballas' part, motivated by his outrage at having been spied on).
I could be wrong on this, but it's how I'm reading it.
-
Thanks!
If anyone is looking for the story in its entirety, the full package is collated here:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12929404/1/Scavengers-A-Warframe-Story
I need to switch gears for a small bit (as writing a full story in a condensed time span is exhausting), so I am currently working on a Fallout story (length TBD).
I am hoping to revisit some of the characters here, both to tidy up a few of the loose ends that were, by necessity, hastily tied, and to explore some of the wider factions and universe..
I'll let the ideas sit in my imagination a while longer, and percolate.
Mm, percolate.
-
Coda: Of Endings, and Beginnings
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
They buried the Dax's sword on a hill overlooking Cetus.
In the distance, the Condroc's plaintive cries echoed across the steppe. Soon it would be dark, and the waters would glow that ethereal glow. They must be quick. Soon, the Eidolon would stir.
Parson-Luk breathed deeply, drinking in another lungful of scented, clean air. He was incredulous to be back on the Plains. Incredulous to be alive, and reunited with his daughter once more. Ordinarily out in the wild he would be wary. Even in the long shadows of sunset, there were often Grineer patrols about.
And yet he was not. The Tenno were with him, and mighty Brakarr too. His companion's new war rig was a monstrous thing indeed; paid for by the vast credit reserves Terrenus Vern held, but never truly enjoyed. And yet the brute watched peacefully as Parson-Luk's daughter Valla ran circles around him, delighted by the shining giant, and the chance to step beyond the city's walls.
Valla was healthy. For that the old tracker was glad.
As gatherings went it made for an eclectic mix: the Tenno, the Ostron and the rogue Grineer. The scavvers of Venus had sent a bottle of aged moonshine, dredged from the ever-suspicious stores of the Severance Package. There would be sore heads in the morning.
The Quills too were present. They watched from afar. Fate seems to shift and churn around these Tenno in a state of constant flux. It fascinated them.
Isolde led the ceremony, surrounded by her fellow Tenno. They bid farewell to Terrenus Vern and Tenno Sohren. The funeral wreath was tied by the Tenno as one, under the Ostron tracker's careful instruction.
They placed it on the great boulder Brakarr rolled into position.
Isolde and the Tenno pressed their hands against the smooth rock, burning their hand prints into the stone.
The Ostron left a tribute of a sharpened zaw, engraved with Vern's name.
Valla, a single iron flower.
Two great warriors, honoured by a nomadic tribe of mercenaries and warriors.
It seemed fitting, in a way.
For this was Cetus: Landless, of no one clade; home to any who are blown as dust on the wind.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
As reunions went, it was a brief one.
Parson-Luk remained on the dock with Valla and Brakarr, watching the Tenno Lisets depart one by one. The Exchange still hunted them. Even under the Unum's endless watch, none of them were truly safe.
As it came together, the Cell diverged once more, bound for destinations far beyond the lapping shore.
The two bounty hunters and the young girl watched them go: content, for now, for a moment's rest.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kael looked around at the Relay, mouth agape. Stunned by the shoals of Lisets that streamed in and out of the station, his head on a swivel.
There were more Tenno than he had ever seen. All manner of Frames strolled through the entryway. No two were alike.
Each told a story, wore a storied history on their armour: be it through dented plating or ornate scroll-work. A riot of colour and self-expression, far more than was ever permitted by the House Eternal.
Kael shook himself. That was the past.
This… this was his future.
Other Tenno greeted him as they stepped through the arrival gates, some saluting or bowing to as they approached. Many passed without a second glance. They were strangers to Kael, and yet he felt a kinship with them.
What stories had they lived? What glories had they witnessed?
Below their feet stretched the entirety of Venus. Prospect 141 seemed a small and distant memory now: tiny, insignificant.
Doric and Sara awaited him at the foot of a statue, watching their bewildered friend with bemused smiles.
"What happens now?" Kael asked.
Doric looked at Sara. Sara grinned.
"That, my dear Tenno, is entirely your decision."
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The Exchange was a city unto itself. A floating trade hub, surrounded on all sides by Corpus picket ships and larger frigates. It nestled at the heart of Corpus space, in low orbit over Neptune.
The Hall of Submission was ornate, by Corpus standards. The floor was a rich amber marble, imported at significant expense. The supporting columns overlooking the vast space, hiding their metallic core in layers of stained copper. Any visitor would never think they were on a cyclopean space station, but for the silvered viewport that looked out onto the Corpus fleet beyond.
People of all kinds flocked here. Those with grudges to nurse and credits to burn. A long counter of processing clerks awaited the crowds: sixteen clerks long, each with a dizzying amount of cybernetic prosthesis. The length of the waiting lines in the reception hall spoke volumes as to the current state of galactic harmony. It didn't matter who they were. Everything was a transaction here. Credits for blood. Life for Profit.
Across the Origin System, the Exchange's agents stood by, awaiting their bloody work; preparing weapons and watching the alerts as the bounty boards steadily updated.
The clerk worked her station as best she could: cybernetic hands dancing across the haptic display at her station. Sweat beaded her tattooed forehead. She had processed two hundred contracts this work cycle, and there were another six hours left on her shift.
"Next!"
The girl in the hood stepped forward. She was diminutive, far too young to be in a place like this. Still, there was protocol.
"Name."
A name was given, inputted at lightning speed.
"Face forward for the camera please."
The girl removed her hood, staring regally at the hovering drone, perfectly poised. The clerk abruptly stopped typing.
The girl was little more than a teenager. Delicately beautiful, with ivory skin and dark black hair tied in an elegant ponytail.
Yet there was something off about her. An ethereal glow to her eyes. An aura of cold precision that belied her years.
The clerk blinked, conscious that she had lost precious seconds of productivity. Any further dallying would be penalised. She triggered the tiny camera drone with a hasty wave of her hand. The recording began: uploading the conversation to the Exchange archive.
"Please state your business." The clerk requested.
"I'm here about an outstanding contract." The girl began, in a clipped, formal accent. "I wish to make a formal complaint."
"I see. Which contract?"
The clerk's hands hovered over the holographic keyboard, waiting.
The girl tilted her head upwards, her eyes meeting the clerk's directly.
Isolde flashed a dangerous smile, right before the alarms sounded.
"Mine."
-
Hello! I hate not receiving any feedback, so I thought I might pop in and give some constructive feedback, if possible.
- Show, don't tell. When writing a scene you want to consider the scene in the mind of your reader. You and I both play Warframe. I know what a Corpus Crewman is, or what the interior of one of their ships looks like. But assume your reader doesn't; build the scene slowly. Describe the surroundings, the atmosphere. You want to paint a picture, while not belaboring the point. Sights, smells, tastes - what's it like to be there?
- Characterisation. How do the characters carry themselves? How do they speak, and what can you learn about their personalities from how they speak? This story covers a lot of plot (characters go from A to B, at dizzying speed), but doesn't really tell convey who the characters are, and - crucially - why the audience should care. To build reader investment you need to have them grow with the characters. Put the spadework in early, and - once the connection has been built - you can move the story much faster later on.
- Names. Warframe names tend to be more stylised than names like John and Barry. Look at Nef Anyo, Frohd Bek - they're exotic and alien compared to people from the 21st century, and go a long way to immersing the reader in the fact that this is a story/scene set in a far-flung, science-fantasy universe. Experiment, go mental - it's clear you have an imagination, so run with it, and enjoy! 😄
I could go on, but the first two points in particular are the main building blocks - everything from there is at your own discretion as a writer.
In any case, well done for committing to writing something, and having the courage to put it out there - writing is a skill, one that only gets better the more you do it. Keep it up, and feel free to send me any questions you might have on any of the above.
-
Epilogue: On Prospect 141
"Prospect 141? Nobody goes there anymore."
- Unknown trader
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Months passed.
There were, naturally, unresolved matters. Our universe is a messy place, and never truly has an ending. It drives on, with the endless passing of time; relentless.
Prospect 141 was left to its own devices; forgotten by the very corporations that once dictated its every waking moment. The Upper Tier, once a monument to Corpus dominance, became a No Man's Land: a desolate wasteland that masked the teeming life in the Mid and Low Tiers beneath. The surviving Corpus, free of the routine indoctrination that so many crewmen were subjected to, became a gang in their own right; bartering the ruined drones and scrap resources for food and access to the colony below.
As for the Orokin vessel. It departed soon after the events of this story, retrieved by agents of the Tenno and their mysterious allies. That it led to a renewed interest in Orokin technology, and the eventual reawakening of the Rail thereafter.
There is no law in Prospect 141. Not anymore. It is a black market city, an illicit trade hub; a scavver's paradise. The gangs rule much of it, and in truth I am glad to see the back of it.
The rebellion was never intended to liberate the colony. Opinion on it amongst the Solaris remains divided, even today. Some praise Vanger Hosk, calling him a hero for defying the Board against unstoppable odds. Others branded him a fool, who damned a colony. Hosk's Folly, as they sneeringly call it.
As for how you see it, I leave that to you. I have told events as best as I remember them, building the wider picture from interviews of those who played a larger role than I. All I know is this: Vanger Hosk was an honourable man, and did what he felt was best.
I still remember that day, on the fateful push up the ziggurat. My arm still aches, even now.
It was a salient lesson to Solaris United. Never again would they face the Board in open field. Their proxies are too many, their resources too great. No, the Solaris cause would live on in the shadows, hiding in plain sight beneath their master's very nose. In time, the benefits of that daring raid would become apparent. The struggle would continue, anew.
Others would take up their cause, in time.
Of the Tenno who fought in that early battle, I know not what became of them. They were warriors of the Void, cursed and blessed in equal measure. Their stories are their own.
And, surely, only beginning.
-
"Beware the House Eternal."
- Trainer Dax
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The hatch yawned on its hinges as Stren yanked the release lever. Kelpo looked down and swallowed.
It was a thirty foot drop to the ground. Stren went first, huffing as he squeezed his bulk down onto the rear landing skid. The raid team filed down behind him, the zip line twisting as they slid down, gloved hands buzzing. Such was the length of the Severance that they were able to keep the front landing gear between them and the Dax sentries. They helped each other down, one by one; heavy boots kissing down against cold asphalt.
Telin's gloves burned as his feet thumped the deck. He stumbled as he landed. By the time he looked up, properly saw the city at ground level, his jaw fell open.
The colony was in ruins. In the distance, Watch Control slumped, a heap of slag and spilled debris, alight in several places. The Data Stacks, once proud and cold and imperial and majestic were simply gone: their absence from the skyline marked only by a haze of ever-sifting dust.
Telin Voss had never seen the Upper Tier in its full glory. He was a humble scavver: a roughshod, lowly rung on a long and pitiless ladder. Even so, he knew this place may never again recover, such was the extent of the devastation. Once a pristine pillar of commerce and cold, calculated luxury, the Upper Tier was now little more than a charred hellscape. All this from one damned salvage claim.
"Stay focused Cap." Stren whispered as he thumped him on the back. The veteran scavver was all business now. The men and women around them were seasoned frontiersmen, practiced fighters. They moved with a tense urgency, low to the ground as they scurried for the front landing gear.
They stacked before the front landing skid, bundling together in the shadows.
Kelpo swore under his breath.
This low on the ground, the Orokin ship was truly massive. Expansive and majestic. The belly hatch yawned open like some ancient maw, inviting them aboard with an ominous hunger. Waiting to swallow them whole. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, all things considered. That was sort of the plan.
The only problem were the golden giants guarding it.
There was no dusk on Venus, not in the same way there was on Earth. But smoke wreathed everything. Even in the murk, the Dax sentries made for impressive statutes: bulls necks and lean corded muscle; accentuated by ancient gilded armour that burned a ruby amber-gold in the smoky half-light. They stood stock-still and silent, as if carved from ancient stone.
Telin lowered his scope, turning to the others.
"Okay, here's the plan…" Telin began to whisper.
He stopped. They were all listening to something fast approaching. A fierce revving roar. An alarm system, whooping. Absolute chaos, moving at speed.
The Dax broke ranks, heads cocked in confusion.
Kelpo frowned, asking aloud.
"Is that an engine?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parson-Luk snarled in frustration, stabbing at the kaleidoscope of light emanating from the control console. He understood none of the Corpus script. Every conceivable alarm blared and shrilled at him. Intruder alarms, unpaid parking fines, outstanding motor tax and insufficient windscreen fluid: they all bleated separately. The sound was a deafening cacophony of hoots and shrills.
Eventually Brakarr leaned forward from the back seat and drove his fist through it.
The Dax shone bright in the headlights ahead. Plasma bolts spanked off the hood of the limousine, stitching what little was left of the windshield. Biting shards of glass sprayed across the front seat, nicking them both.
"So much for surprise!" Parson-Luk hissed. He floored it.
The Dax were much too quick to ram. For all their size they dove left and right, extraordinarily nimble. He threw the hovercar into a slewing skid, throwing up a cloud of churning smoke and flakes of ash. Presenting Brakarr and his propped rotary cannon with an angle.
It thundered to life, tracer fire searing out and splitting the dark. The Dax were quick, but not faster than a Grineer cannon at full cycle. Bodies jinked and danced as their armour was shredded, all but sawn in half.
Something heavy landed on the bonnet. A Dax, meticulously balanced on the front; halberd in one hand. Poised, ready to strike. Parson-Luk flared the limo's drives, trying to shake him off. Still the golden warrior clung on, teeth gritted; stubbornly determined.
The Ostron hit the brake. Hard. That proved more than the Dax could manage. He was thrown bodily onto the scorched ground. The Ostron smiled cruelly and, with the utmost calm, pressed his foot back on the accelerator.
There was a jolting hollow thump as chrome limousine met golden armour.
An energy blast caught them in the rear nacelle. It simply atomised, throwing the limousine wildly off course. They hit the upturned edge of an old plinth. Metal bit stone, folded. Emergency impact foam blasted from the control console, catching the Ostron's face with an almighty slap. Not for the first time today, Parson-Luk's nose broke.
The car wrapped itself around the plinth. It was a miracle the entire fusion core had not gone up. The Ostron tried prying himself free, blood streaming down his face. Brakarr was nowhere to be seen, had seemingly been thrown from the vehicle entirely. The steaming foam held him in place, half solidifying; clinging to him in great ropey chunks. The trapper tore them free messily, bristling at being ensnared. He was still struggling when he caught something emerging from the gloom in the corner of his eye.
The Dax descended upon him. The energy projector that encircled his wrist was silent, but the halberd in his hands was at the ready, blade glinting.
Parson-Luk ripped the last tendril of safety foam free of his hands. His hands were a blur, drawing a wicked recurve zaw and hurling it with lethal precision.
The halberd flashed, once. The dagger sparked and flew away into the gloom.
Still the Dax marched on, ever closer.
The Ostron's blowgun was at his lips seconds later. His most lethal dart spat forth.
There was a whistle as the dart flitted toward the Dax. The Dax's gauntlet snatched up in an instant, smiling. He tossed the dart aside, his stride never faltering.
Parson-Luk blinked, amazed.
There was an industrial thump; a piston sound that split the air.
The Dax grunted, almost losing his balance as he staggered. He twisted about, surprised.
Jutting from his lower back was a massive rivet. It was crude, inelegant; wholly unexpected. Blood streamed down the Dax's armour. He gripped at the steel bolt, trying to tug it free with a hiss.
Figures emerged from the gloom. Twelve of them. They were a bedraggled lot; hardened men and women dressed in long dusters and ramshackle environment suits. Parson-Luk recognised some of them, from his time aboard the Severance. They surrounded the Dax, closing from all angles.
"Liars and thieves, beggars and cut-throats!" The Dax spat, as he finally wrenched the bolt free and cast it aside, taking up his halberd in his hands. "Honourless dogs!"
"Us?" Telin frowned. "We're just playing the odds."
"Twelve to one." Kelpo agreed.
There was a wild chatter as bolts, bullets and blasters sounded from multiple directions. The Dax spun to the ground, holed in several places. Telin Voss stood over him, lowering his smoking pistol.
Incredibly, the golden warrior still lived. He gurgled and hissed through bloodied teeth:
"Insolent peasants! You're nothing more than scavengers!"
"That we are." Telin agreed. "And you're so very shiny."
The Detron sounded twice. Telin holstered the pistol and looked up at Parson-Luk.
"Evenin'."
"Thanks for the assist, Surah." The Ostron winced as he eased himself down from ticking ruin of the limousine. He was a bedraggled mess, covered in streaming foam and a leaking nose.
"Thanks for the distraction. Heading our way?"
Ostron nodded.
A crunch behind them made them all twist about.
Brakarr emerged from the fog, covered in grime; battered but moving albeit with a pronounced limp. He used his broken rotary cannon as a makeshift walking stick.
"Stupid Ostron!" Brakarr fumed. "Next time, Grineer drive!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the throne room of The House Eternal, Septimus held up a forestalling gauntlet.
"Bold words, Tenno Kael; but perhaps ill-advised." Septimus' hand squeezed into a fist. "Your situation is more precarious than you think."
A permeating wave of power swept through the room., radiating from the Orokin warrior.
A Nullification Field, designed to rob the Tenno of the Void's arcane power. To Kael, it was as though his sense of smell or sight had been abruptly stolen. He froze, unsure of himself.
Sara and the others were surrounded by the Dax, who encircled them in perfect synchronisation.
The Tenno had no weapons. Their Warframes were a dead end. Now the Void too was gone.
The circle of blades tightened with each prowling step.
Septimus studied Kael, never blinking.
"The choice before you is binary. Join us now, or die a traitor's death."
Kael swallowed, visibly sweating.
The other Tenno were steadily driven back to back as the Dax honour guard closed the gap, step by measured step.
"Any ideas?" Sara asked, her eyes darting from one spear tip to the next.
"Ars Bellica." Doric hissed urgently. "Counter-containment strategy Four Fifteen."
"What are you talking about?" Sara started. "I said ideas – not wittering code!"
Isolde nodded in understanding.
"Break the deadlock."
She abruptly turned and knitted her fingers together. Held them out towards Doric, palms upturned. Doric did the same, bracing his hands beneath hers. Forming a platform, a springboard. The Dax blades were almost close enough to touch.
Sara looked at them as though they had sprouted four heads. Then she realised their intent.
She shrugged.
"Works for me!"
They launched her high into the air. She twisted as she fell, landing with both legs wrapped around the neck of one of the Dax. He stumbled and fell, neck twisting as they went over as one. Sara used her opponent's superior weight to her advantage. With a savage, brittle crack he was done. Sara's hand was at the fallen warrior's belt. A knife flashed through the air, embedding itself in the eye socket of another Dax. The formation came apart, as the Dax instinctively spun to face the new threat.
Isolde and Doric were not idle. They hurled themselves upon the Dax closest to Sara, pouncing at the momentary distraction. Doric's beaked fist caught one Dax in the throat, sending the man gasping to his knees. He grabbed the man's helmet and shattered his nose with a striking knee. Then the halberd was in Doric's hands, whooping as he spun it through the air, driving the rest of them back, buying much needed space.
Isolde had a dagger in her hands, stolen from Sara's kill. They stood as one, facing a wall of golden armour and glinting spears. Even then, the odds were hopelessly one-sided.
Septimus laughed, clapping his gauntleted hands.
"Bravo. Tenno. Truly, we trained you too well."
With a scrape he drew his twinned swords. Master crafted nikana; priceless relics both.
"But without loyalty you are useless to The House Eternal." Septimus shrugged, "Kill them."
Kael rushed Septimus with a shout. A high strike, whisper quick.
The twinned-swords criss-crossed, neatly intercepting Kael's. Septimus chuckled, bemused. He swept both swords upward with a shriek of metal, throwing Kael off-balance. Then the assault began.
Septimus-as-Sohren unleashed a whirlwind of strikes that took every shred of Kael's skill to deflect. He back-pedaled, arms all but wrenched from their sockets, such was the force of each blow. Septimus barely broke a sweat.
Nikana were not traditionally employed in a dual capacity. It was unorthodox, unwieldy. Only a swordsman of particular skill could employ such a stance effectively, and hope to win.
Septimus wore Sohren well, marshaling finely honed muscle memory perfected from decades of relentless training. The blades danced a lethal dance; hissing, shrieking. Kael rolling and flipped to evade the wilder strikes that simply would have simply demolished his guard with brute force, such was the size different between them.
The dual blades in particular were a deciding factor. Kael could devote his attention to one, only for the second to sweep in an unexpected angle. More than one a hand-spring or hasty tumble saved him, as he kicked free of the repeated arcs of steel that scythed through the air, describing a mesmerising blur.
Septimus advanced, relentless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eythan Dax stepped forth from the Dax rank and file, one hand on his nikana.
"No more Void tricks, no proxy Frames. Just you and us, Tenno, here and now. Alone, and in the flesh. Frail and brittle."
Something hit the Dax formation from behind, at speed. A broken rotary cannon, hurled with considerable strength. It bowled many of the Dax off their feet. The chamber filled with the clattering of armour. Those still on their feet spun around, reeling in surprise, shouting challenges.
A single gunshot split the air, silencing them. Even Septimus and Kael's furious duel at the end of the chamber came to a screeching halt.
Telin Voss lowered the steaming Detron. He smiled theatrically, enjoying the audience.
"I have your attention. Good."
Telin nodded to himself, the silence lingering in the air. His boots scraped noisily against the stone floor as he stepped deeper into the chamber. Every pair of eyes watched him. The Dax, wary yet sceptical. The Tenno, incredulous at the scavenger's audacity. His own crew, slightly confused at what exactly their new leader was playing at.
Telin's voice was calm, authoritative.
"Here's how this is going to work. You're going to put the swords down, and step away from the Tenno. We're going to be civilized. Everybody's going to stay calm and –"
Septimus sighed wearily, already bored.
"Kill them."
The Dax dropped to their knees in unison and raised their wrists mounted weapons; drawing cutting discs and elongated pistols of fluted gold. The Scavengers retaliated in kind; bringing to bear all manner of shotguns, focus beams and brutish scrap-ware. There was a bristling of weaponry from both sides.
Caught in the middle, Telin Voss swallowed.
"Balls."
Telin threw himself flat.
Beams and blades and bolts exchanged in a flurry. Weapons discharged at point blank range. Bodies toppled. Golden armour spalled and split apart. Blades sang as warriors charged and Scavengers roared; cutting-axes raised. Both sides charged. There was the sinking thump of bodies impacting bodies. Metal biting flesh. Screams.
In any other situation, it would have proven a one sided slaughter. The Scavengers, for all their hardened grit, were not trained soldiers. They lacked the discipline of the Dax Cadre, the ab-human reflexes and lifetime of relentless physical training and mental conditioning. These were the warriors of old, whose ability had ensured Orokin dominance for centuries. Defeat simply did not form part of their DNA.
But the Scavengers were not alone. Brakarr waded through the melee, smashing golden warriors aside and snarling even as Orokin halberds speared his flanks. Parson-Luk unleashed bolas that tripped ankles and launched fizzling net launchers that tangled about the Dax's faces, the Grinlok rifle thumping out hasty shots whenever a chance arose. Telin's drone flitted above the melee, spitting bolts until a throwing dagger speared it squarely in the eye, pinning it to the far wall.
Telin's Detron kicked three times in quick succession. The Dax bearing down on him didn't even slow. Kelpo tackled the Dax from the side, and yelped as he was flung one-handed over the man's shoulder. Other scavengers charged in turn. The Dax made short work of them; quick brutal cuts that chopped his crew down like timber.
A flying stump of an arm caught Telin in the side of the head, knocking him off his feet.
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The other Tenno rushed the Dax from behind, sliding low or leaping high. They lacked the physicality of the mighty Dax, but they had a nimble speed and peerless training. Doric and Sara rolled and tumbled between arcing blades, trading strikes and parries with blinding speed.
Isolde's focus was singular. With the dagger in her hand she lunged straight for Eythan Dax.
Brakarr beat her to the punch. The Grineer was lost in a battle rage, bellowing incoherently; blinded with pain. The Dax flowed as water, sword blurring and the Grineer's legs gave way, flitting sparks and spraying oil and steam. The Dax rose his sword to finish the job, when a bola snapped around his wrist, knocking the descending strike off-target. Still the blade descended, lancing into the war rig at an angle; biting deep. Brakarr howled.
Something tried to tackle Eythan Dax. A wiry, sinewy old man; stinking of incense and old leathery oils. Eythan Dax looked down, entirely unmoved. He barked a laugh. The skinny wretch was better served trying to tackle an oak tree.
The Dax lifted the Ostron hunter by the throat, steadily clenching his hand around the man's windpipe.
"An Ostron, giving his life for a Grineer?" Eythan Dax chuckled as he tightened his grip. "The first surprise I've had in centuries."
The Ostron's eyes bulged. Only they weren't looking at him. Eythan Dax saw the reflection in the man's bulging eyes.
Something behind them. Moving at speed.
Eythan Dax cast the Ostron aside and spun; flashing his blade to intercept at the last second.
The dagger met the nikana with a shriek, locking in place. Isolde's face was a mask of controlled fury.
"No running this time, Tenno." Eythan Dax leered.
"I've no intention of running." Isolde hissed. "Not when there's a job to finish!"
Actions matched words. The golden dagger in Isolde's hands was more blade than any single kunai. It weathered the nikana's savagery with a determination matched only by the cold, pitiless glare in the Tenno's eyes. Soon it was notched, chipped beyond any recognition. Relentless, Isolde pressed her attack: rolling and hurling herself at him, again and again. Leaps and tumbles into lashing kicks and descending swipes. A peerless fighter, Eythan Dax met each of them, and yet the wave only continued to build, becoming a tsunami.
Eythan Dax knew the look of a berserker. Had seen it countless times during the horror of The Old War. This was not that. This was something else: a controlled fury, a commitment to the fight that was singular, absolute. Nothing held in reserve, yet deliberate in its approach, methodical. His sword was a blur, but still she was quicker. A strike breached his guard, chipping at his vambrace. Eythan Dax blinked.
Another strike, this one at a knee guard. Again the armour caught it. Her fighting style blended more than the Thousand Feats. It was feral, improvised. Born of brawling in low tier colonies and backwater settlements all across the Origin System. Pugilistic strikes, sweeping feet; all infused with a merciless, cold anger. Blended with the training provided by The House Eternal, it lunged and nipped at him, striking from unexpected angles, relentless.
A hand clamped onto his ankle. The Grineer, mutilated on the ground, leaking oil and blood and coolant in equal measure. There was no strength left in the brute's grip, and a single twist of the Dax's foot freed him easily. But as a momentary distraction, it was enough. Isolde's blade nicked Dax flesh, and Eythan hissed in pain, blood streaming from his elbow, where the notched dagger had slashed the narrow section where his armour joints parted.
For the first time ever, Eythan Dax felt true pain. And with that, something else.
Fear.
He narrowed his eyes, steeling his resolve. He brought the sword back three times, catching the dagger thrice in quick succession. A fourth strike sparked off his belly armour, once. And though her brow was sheened with sweat, and she pushed her mortal frame to its very limits, Isolde was speaking.
Quoting him.
"No Void tricks."
Isolde swooped beneath the next sword strike, lashing out and puncturing the armpit of his armour. Blood drippled freely down his flank now. The Dax's arm went abruptly numb. Still he parried the next blow, stumbling backward.
"No proxy Frames."
He swung, drunkenly; cleaving only air. Isolde circled him, pacing like a hungry cat.
"Just you and me. Alone….
An overhand swing, trying to bisect her. The sword met the stone floor with a clang.
Isolde was beneath his guard. She all but embraced him, whispered in his ear.
"…and in the flesh."
She drove the dagger into Eythan Dax's chest, in the narrow gap between the breastplate and the belly.
"Frail," Isolde twisted the dagger, pushing it downward. "… and brittle."
Isolde released the dagger, stepping back. Eythan Dax gasped, felt his lifeblood spilling onto the floor. He blinked, tottering backward. The melee around him slowed to a crawl.
The golden nikana clattered to the floor. His knees followed suit.
Isolde scooped the golden nikana up as she watched Eythan Dax dribbled blood listlessly. Blood coated her hands.
"I would make this slower. Really, I would. But he always emphasised efficiency. And I keep my promises."
Eythan Dax's hands quivered as he pulled out the dagger that had riven his stomach asunder. His insides spilled out in ropey lengths. More than horror, Eythan Dax felt the burning shame of absolute defeat. Isolde tightened her grip upon the golden hilt.
"For Terrenus."
Eythan Dax managed a strangled croak, then Isolde brought the sword down. A clean strike. His head flopped across the floor, bouncing twice.
There was no relief, no cathartic satisfaction. Only a cold emptiness. Isolde's eyes were dull as she stood there, surrounded on all sides by similar acts of carnage.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Across the chamber, Kael hit the floor, rolling twice. Septimus had caught him with the heel of his golden boot, square in the chest. Winded, the Tenno rolled onto his back, lungs sucking for air that would not come. Sohren's sword had been knocked from Kael's hands, skittering across the far end of the chamber.
"Look around you." Septimus spat as he approached, pointing one sword at the brawl engulfing the throne room. "Is this what you want? Is this the legacy you choose?"
Kael said nothing. Couldn't speak even if he wanted to.
He clawed his way backward, scrambling for Sohren's blade.
"We are Orokin." Septimus spat, the veins in his neck bulging. "We are the one true order that can save this system from itself. Peerless, without equal!"
Kael would never reach the sword in time.
Telin Voss was many things. A mischief, a scavver, a self-interested gambler with few friends and fewer prospects. Most of all, he was a gambler.
Of all these varied things, Telin was no warrior. It was perhaps because of this that the Dax paid him no heed as he scrambled through the melee on his belly, surrounded on all sides by clashing warriors who bled and died in a churning frenzy. He was coated in blood, grime and sweat; a hundred different stains from a thousand different indignities visited on him over the preceding day.
Fortune smiled on him twice, at that moment.
That he made it as far as the base of the dais was one thing.
That he managed to finally land a shot with his Detron and was quite another entirely.
Even then it was a horrible shot. The not entirely trusty Detron only clipped Septimus' gauntlet. This was less than optimal. Telin had been aiming for the warrior's exposed head.
Fortune smiled a third time. The bolt deflected, catching Septimus' cheek; cooking the flesh in an instant.
Maimed, Septimus toppled, both nikanas tumbling to the floor as he clutched his ruined face.
"My face!" Septimus shrieked. "You ingrate! You animals! We are Orokin! We are Gods!"
Kael rolled back, the Sohren's blade appearing in his hands once more.
"You forget yourself, Septimus. We slaughter Gods."
He charged. Septimus snatched up his swords, livid; catching the strike just in time. The duel resumed in earnest. Telin hissed in frustration. The duellists moved too quickly to risk a shot. Knowing his luck, he would only hit Kael, and if that happened it was all over.
Telin did what little he could. He drew his improvised hand-axe and charged.
He tripped on the steps. This was probably just as well, as a return sweep of Septimus' sword would have entirely bisected him there and then.
Septimus' perfect face was flayed and charred on one side, one eye swollen shut. As ugly and twisted as the Orokin Empire itself. He stomped his foot at Telin's head. The scavenger rolled, panicking. The boot landed so heavily stone cracked.
Then Kael was on Septimus, driving him back. The Orokin was a wild beast. Maimed as he was, robbed of his perfect beauty, Septimus snarled and struck wildly. Pushing himself beyond any reasonable measure. Completely overextending himself.
Kael gave ground, but for the first time ever in a duel with Sohren, the young Tenno held back. Bade his time. Watched the erratic, wild striking patterns for what they were: reactive, petulant; a killing tantrum. As the twin swords slashed and whipped at him in a chaotic frenzy, Kael studied his attacker. There was no pattern, no structure to it. But there were flaws in the frenzy. A lack of self-regard, an absence of defensive discipline.
It strengthened Kael. Helped him steel his resolve for what needed to be done.
Sohren would never have been so sloppy.
Kael met the berserk Orokin head on. A high deflection, flowing into three quick counter cuts that met each chopping sword in turn. Kael found his gap. He smashed the hilt of his sword upwards in a savage uppercut; cracking his knuckles into Septimus' chin. Felt his own fingers break.
Kael shunted the pain aside. His grip on Sohren's sword never wavered, stepped into the Orokin's guard.
Kael shouted as he spun, dropping to one knee. He stabbed the nikana behind him, once.
Sohren's blade drove clean through Septimus' breastplate, piercing the beating heart within.
Septimus gasped. Blood jetted down the length of the blade. There was a clatter as twinned nikana slipped from his hands. Kael rose to his feet, head bowed.
A hush fell over the entire throne room. All eyes were on the violent tableau at the end of the room: the scavenger, draped on the steps, a smoking Detron in his hands. The lone Tenno, turning to look in shock at what he had just accomplished.
The Golden Lord, with the hilt of a golden sword jutting from his chest.
Nobody dared breathe.
Septimus looked down at the blade. He took one shuddering step back, then another.
He slumped back into the throne, gazing down in amazement. There was a palsied shake to his hand as he tried to pull the sword free, and failed.
The Orokin's voice was small and confused, as he marvelled at the blood seeping down his breastplate.
"But we are the House Eternal…" Septimus whispered, "… our will is…. forever…"
His head drooped. The light in his eyes faded.
The Nullification faded. The Void returned once more.
Lord Septimus was gone.
There was a flurry as the surviving Dax gave a single stern shout, and took their lives in unison. Opening their throats or falling upon their swords. The surviving scavengers yelped in horror, but it was over in one savage instant. Golden bodies crashed to the ground left and right.
Doric lowered the halberd, shocked. He had been driven into a corner, surrounded on all sides. Sara gingerly stepped over the bodies that littered the floor. She and Isolde embraced, shaking from the adrenaline; exhausted beyond words.
Kael drew Sohren's blade from Septimus' chest. He wiped the blade clean, holding it close as he bowed, deeply. The bow was many things. A confirmation that the deed was done. An apology, for being too late. Most of all a farewell, to a fallen brother.
Then the Tenno fell to his knees, and wept.
Telin rolled onto his back, blinking as he took in the carnage that had been visited upon the throne room. Little more than a third of the scavengers had survived: would have been doomed, but for the intercession of the Tenno and their bounty hunter allies. He saw Stren hauling Kelpo back onto his feet.
Telin caught their eye with a wink as he gestured to the aftermath of the carnage all around them.
"See? All according to plan."
"Soon as I reload." Stren growled. "I'm going to shoot him."
"Not If I shoot him first." Kelpo countered darkly.
Parson-Luk hurried over to Brakarr. The Grineer had been punctured, slashed and clipped at the knees. Yet the internal housing of his war rig remained stubbornly unscathed. The old Grineer warrior still breathed. The Ostron worked quickly: deft hands tying loose tubing and cannibalising spare parts to salvage essential systems.
"You still with us, Grineer?" Isolde asked as she crossed the chamber.
Brakarr flapped his hand at them, refusing to be fussed over.
The Grineer reached up and unsealed his facemask. A toothy grin split his mottled, leathery face.
"Tenno skoom."
"This is all very touching, but this isn't over." Doric addressed the chamber, voice carried by the acoustics of the vaulted walls. All eyes were on him as he climbed the steps, turning to face the survivors as a whole. "There's still a Corpus frigate in low orbit."
Kael appeared at his side, eyes raw, expression determined.
"I'll need a Liset."
"You'll have it." Doric nodded. "But you'll need to be quick."
Kael simply smiled at that.
"And you won't go alone." Sara warned him. "Not this time."
Kael bowed gratefully, hands clasped before him.
Mesa stepped forward, Isolde's voice filling the air as the Pyrana twirled in her fingers.
"Well then, shall we?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
An hour later, an alert chimed softly on the bridge of the Dominant Position. Ennui had set in across the bridge, trapped as they were in a holding pattern.
"What was that?" Captain Pohld asked his XO. Lieutenant Sel.
Sel's brow creased as he consulted the display momentarily.
"Minor sensor anomaly, Sir." Sel reported mildly, double checking. "It's gone now. Debris from the remnants of the Orbital Defence Grid, most likely."
"Very well. Carry on."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ceiling grate hit the floor with a clang.
Volt dropped from the rafters, cloak flowing around him as he rose to his feet. Behind him, Mesa, fingers twitching low at her side. Kael looked back at Isolde, nodded once.
Elsewhere, Atlas and Mirage were already in position.
Kael gave the order.
The power went out. Ship wide outage, total system failure.
By the time power was fitfully restored, it was too late.
The record maintains that the Dominant Position was lost due to catastrophic core breach, on account of a poorly mounted fuel cell.
At a Board level, the loss of material was quietly noted, but deemed inconsequential. Boards of inquiry were conducted, insurance policies claimed. Then the matter was closed, the colony and its troubling history quietly forgotten: a small blot on an otherwise profitable quarter.
Core components of the ship still linger in the orbital debris field, even to this day.
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Atop the Severance Package, back-lit by the Venusian sky, Telin and Kelpo watched as the explosion settled. The severed bridge module entered the atmosphere, descending like a comet; disintegrating from the sheer fiery heat of the atmosphere. It came apart in a thousand fiery pieces, that vanished as contrails of streaming smoke that lingered for hours after the fact.
The remnants of the Corpus army watched too, from afar. They were stranded here now. In time, they would acclimate to the battered colony, free of the constant indoctrination of Board dogma. Some would descend into criminality, others becoming vagrants and drifters: pawn brokers and guns for hire. This is not their story.
"Repairs are underway." Kelpo said. "Teico says we'll be airworthy in less than an hour. What're you thinking?"
Telin Voss said nothing for a moment. He looked at the silent Orokin barge, studying it.
Truly, a once in a lifetime find. Priceless.
Telin chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. He turned his head and spat.
"Think I'd rather find out where Neera went. Let's get out of here."
Kelpo did a double take.
"Really? You don't want to do anything about the giant Tier Zero find sitting right there?"
"Trust me, Kelp." Telin clapped Kelpo on the arm, still chuckling as he headed for the bridge. "More trouble than it's worth."
-
[It's coming - I've 10,000 words written, but whether they're the right 10,000 words is quite another thing entirely- I also run my own business and it's very much the post summer market rush, so I'm currently tied up assembling Grofit.
Why Natah? Why is the sequence not complete?]
-
"The Board's position remains clear. Pending instructions, the Dominant Position is to hold an observation pattern and standby for further instructions.
No further action is required at this time."
- instructions relayed to Captain Theo Plun, after his thirteenth request for new orders
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Kef Mehrino sweated as he bundled himself down yet another smelly pipe. He had no idea where he was, where he was going. He had scurried in the dark for what felt like hours, scrambling from one access hatch to the next. His hands shivered through his velvet gloves, swollen from the effort. His fine clothes were soaked with sweat, flecked with rust and oil and sewage; filthy from the arduous ascent.
Up, all he knew was that he had to keep going up.
The higher he went, the sooner he could regain contact with the Board. Maybe even salvage his position. A victim of the rebellion, who made a daring escape. Some kind of survivor narrative. They might even reward him.
The thought spurred him ever onward.
He rounded the next corner.
A Watch-Control fire team filled the corridor. They were a Low Tier unit: seasoned, isolated; fighting a determined guerrilla war against the uprising ever since the Data Stacks came down. Their drone support was gone. They were bloodied and hardened, their armour visibly dented. But the iconography on their suits was clear. They were Corpus soldiers, and true.
"Oh, thank the Void you're here." Kef Mehrino sighed in relief, lowering his hands.
A rifle butt slammed him into darkness.
"What do we do with him?" One crewman asked, his speech rendered a warble through his helmet filter.
"Sell him?" The crewman shrugged. "Maybe they'll give us a reward."
"Fine. But I get his boots."
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Neera splashed heavily as she dropped into the coolant.
The environment suit the Solaris had rigged her with was a poor fit. She was swimming in its rubbery folds. Still, it kept the searing kiss of the coolant from her skin.
Sparks and the other rebels waded ahead of her, small pilot drones lighting the way.
Ahead, the transports awaited them. There were more transports than survivors. Solaris United agents stood by: some mechanised, others almost more alien behind their rebreathers. One of them pulled her aboard.
"Is this it?" the Solaris Agent asked as he settled her down in a restraint chair, pressing a warm drink into her hands.
Neera nodded, exhausted.
"The Data Mass?"
"It's here." Neera's head hit the back of the chair, as exhaustion took hold. "We got it."
Her breath shuddered as the hatch sealed, bathing them in comforting darkness.
"We got it."
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It was difficult, devising a plan under threat of Orokin death ray, but Telin was used to certain mitigating factors by this point. Necessity, being the most pressing. At the very least, it gave the crew something to focus on.
They divided their efforts.
The Severance needed to be airworthy. Engineer Lorna and her crew had survived the blast, but needed every spare hand available to fast-track repairs. Their supplies were all but expended, with non-essential systems being cannibalised to accommodate the myriad patchwork, jury-rigged solutions she was devising, seemingly on the fly. Which was good, because flying was generally the end-goal here. Teico would nominally command the ship, with Pohld at the helm.
That left twelve of them for the raid team. Telin and Kelpo, because it was "their idea" (and a "terrible one" by Pohld's ever-encouraging estimation). Stren volunteered, primarily because Stren was Stren, and wanted to stove in the skull of an Orokin, just to say he had. That, and there were precious few weapon systems left for him to manage. Any remaining power cells had long since been repurposed for more essential systems.
The rest of his men were the survivors of the earlier boarding actions. Some wanted revenge for their fallen shipmates, others were driven by curiosity; enticed by the prospect of seeing an Orokin vessel first hand.
Being a product of Corpus society, all were seduced by promises of treasure.
Weaponry was left to each team member's discretion. This was ultimately a boarding action. Audacious? Yes. Suicidal? Very probably. But short range killing power was the order of the day. Kelpo favoured a flak cannon and some kind of snub-nosed pistol of indeterminate origin. Stren opted for a combi-weapon, a chemical thrower welded to a plasma-powered rivet cannon.
Telin kept it simple. He favoured the Detron, together with a wicked looking hand-axe that had been cobbled together by one of the more morbid members of the crew. HWK-44 had fully repaired itself, and he spent the little preparation time they had upgrading its offensive armament. He hummed as he worked the plasma torch, making final adjustments. The routine was familiar to him. It calmed his frazzled nerves. The fear that turned his belly to stone, and kept his heart racing.
One by one they made ready, bracing themselves for one final effort.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doric and Sara held their breath, as they watched Mesa writhe in silent agony at the foot of the steps.
"Did you honestly think I would let you walk in here with your Warframes without any discernible means to counter them?" Sohren shook his head, incredulous as he circled Isolde. "Have you forgotten everything you were taught?"
Isolde said nothing. She was fully immobilised. Sohren continued to lecture them, one finger raised in the air.
"Of all the Orokin's weapons, we Tenno were the most dangerous. If there was one single lesson to be learned from The Collapse, it is that none of us are invincible."
Sohren stopped speaking abruptly.
A blade had appeared at his throat. The Dax flinched in response, all too late. Even without his Frame, Kael was lightning quick.
"Truer words were never spoken." Kael warned Sohren. "Release her."
"Careful, old friend." Sohren smiled as the blade tickled his throat. "That edge is sharp."
"And fast too. Release her, or more than words will spill from you."
"Not unless I have assurances that she restrains herself." Sohren countered, icily calm, "And not while you have a blade at my throat, old friend."
Kael could feel the pain radiating from her Transference Link. He hissed. The blade eased.
Sohren took a step back, massaging his throat, that magnanimous smile still fixed on his face. He snapped his fingers.
Mesa came back to life, toppling to her knees. She looked at Kael. The Regulators remained sheathed. There was a shimmer as Isolde reappeared at Mesa's feet, clinging to her Frame for support, shivering from the invasive pain of the Transference surge.
Sohren paced back up the stairs. He sat back in the throne a healthy distance from Kael, sighing as he settled himself.
"Would it surprise you, to learn that when the time came, I gave myself gladly? I believe in the Empire. In the good that it served. Not all were equal, but there was order. Discipline. A certain code, for warriors like you and I."
Sohren shook his head.
"There is no code anymore. No order, or structure. Only chaos."
"More lies." Doric looked at Kael.
"Sohren never talked this much." Sara agreed.
Sohren scoffed. He didn't seem to be listening. There was something definitely off about him. Kael watched him, not saying a word. His face a blank mask.
"I knew Lord Septimus' designs long before I was chosen. The Orokin's longevity could only come through some form of sacrifice. You think I went in blind? Again, you think so little of me."
Sohren was lost within himself as he continued:
"But Transference is not a two process. And while Septimus was Orokin, and of a formidable mind, the Void was not with him."
Sohren's expression darkened with fury, yet his voice remained eerily serene.
"I crushed his mind like an insect." Sohren mused. "Snapped his will like some brittle twig."
Sohren looked up, snapping back to reality.
"Afterwards I banished my guards back to the ship. Toured the depths of that forbidden place, alone. Saw the mounds of bones of the dead. What became of the Orokin when their mortal vessels reached their natural end. Cast into a pit. Discarded."
Sohren stroked his chin, shaking his head slowly.
"Septimus was not worthy of our service, but his frail husk was not without its uses. I left him for Isolde to find and exact her terrible vengeance. By then the Collapse was fully underway. The Seven were gone, slaughtered at what was to be their finest hour. The Grineer Uprising was in full flame, and what little remained was scattered, indolent; undeserving of redemption or salvation."
"So you hid." Sara shook her head.
"I waited, Sara. For the slate to be wiped clean. For the opportune moment."
Doric let him speak. Tactically he was assessing the number of Dax surrounding them. Still, Kael betrayed no emotion.
"The Corpus provided that very moment. Fleeing traders and scattered refugees at first, bartering simply to survive. They gravitated to the portions of our Empire that best resisted the ravages of the Technocyte Plague and the Grineer warbands that scoured the Rail. Clustering in hubs. Organising."
Sixteen warriors, including Eythan Dax but excluding Sohren. Scenarios played through Doric's mind.
Without access to their Warframes, few ended well.
Sohren's voice continued:
"The trading companies natural became intertwined, flourishing into the Guilds we know today. Organising along strict tenets of code and rigid hierarchy. Solidifying their influence through automated proxies and jealously hoarding essential resources so many of the other Scattered Colonies required. Becoming a power in their own right."
It would not be an even split. Doric knew Eythan Dax well. Of all of Trainer's warriors, he was the most gifted. Sohren alone would demand their full attention. Doric's eye twitched. Kael alone was armed.
"It was easy to win their trust. We had access to all manner of Orokin relics, the very thing they prized the most. From there it was simply a matter of cultivating an avatar to allow us unfettered access to the Board's inner workings. A suggested dig site here, a knowing expedition there. Knowledge is power, and we had more knowledge than any three Board members combined. I mined the House's ancient resources, brokering relics for power."
"And they never suspected you?" Doric asked, his own fascination getting the better of him.
"There were those who came close, certainly. But I am a Tenno, versed in strategy, and my warriors trained Dax; gifted soldiers, spies, assassins; when need be. I had informants everywhere. Infiltrating our opponents, planting discrediting information. We even founded The Exchange: profiting from removing those we ourselves had selected for strategic elimination."
Sohren saw the stricken look on Isolde's face, and smiled.
"Yes, Isolde, you have been working for me for some time. I have followed your newfound career with great interest. That job on Ceres? Marvelous. Truly marvelous."
"All this planning. To what end, truly?" Doric folded his arms. "You can't expect to reveal yourself, and have the Board simply roll over."
"No, The Board members are willful, dangerously self-interested. I decided long ago that we must remain in the dark, unseen. Guiding, cajoling, suggesting. When the time comes, we will leverage the necessary assets. They too will be dealt with."
"You even speak like them." Isolde sounded unwell as she clambered to her feet.
"What can I say? I've had a long time to learn their ways."
Sohren sat forward in his throne, his gauntleted hands open, inviting.
"But enough talk. The Empire can be restored anew. Better than before, I promise you."
Sohren smiled, beatifically.
"I ask one final time: will you help me?"
"What happens if we refuse?" Kael asked.
The smile faded. Sohren's face was stone, his voice grave.
"Then you are my enemy, and I know that our friendship is dead."
Kael smiled faintly at that. The he burst out laughing: a sharp high laugh, almost piercing.
The others looked at him sharply. He was the dutiful lieutenant, ever the stoic soldier; seldom prone to any great emotion.
It was not a happy sound.
"It's a convincing act, I'll give you that, Septimus." Kael shook his head ruefully, "For a moment there I was convinced. Truly, I thought you were Sohren."
"What are you talking about?" Sohren blinked.
Kael's eyes were bright and clear, almost relieved.
"Doubtless much of said is true. But actions speak so much louder than words."
The laughter was gone now.
"A friend would never hold us hostage. Or wipe out a ship of innocents without a second thought. Torture Isolde and her Frame, simply to prove a point."
The Dax tensed as Kael approached the throne.
"Sohren would never harbour such imperial designs, or any grand desire to rule. He was a soldier. Lived as one. Died as one."
Kael flashed the sword in his hands; rolling it about. As he would in the practice yard with Sohren so many centuries before.
Sohren stiffened, his fists tightening on the edges of his throne.
"You're delusion Kael. Your long sleep has addled your mind. I am your friend, your Brother!"
Kael shook his head slowly, ever closing the distance. Serenely he spoke:
"These words are Orokin words. Which them make Orokin lies. Yet they speak a certain truth. They tell me I failed, long ago. That my friend is gone."
That killing stare was in Kael's eyes now. He spoke softly, yet the words carried in the hushed stillness of the chamber.
The Dax fanned out, moving to encircle him, halberds and swords raised. Sohren kept them back, his hand raised. His face a granite mask as he let Kael ascend the steps, one deliberate footfall at a time.
"But you're here, Septimus. That'll do."
Sohren's ancient blade whipped in that slow, hypnotic warm-up loop. Kael's eyes never blinked, never wavered. All emotion buried but for the coldest rage.
"I'll bury his sword in your chest, and in his name, end you. In his name, we will bring ruin to The House Eternal and dismantle its proxies, brick by treacherous brick."
Septimus-as-Sohren rose to his feet. He stood head and shoulders taller than Kael. A golden warrior ripped from the canvas of the most heroic tapestry. Imperious. Invincible.
He spat, glowering, as he drew the twin nikana. They whirled and twisted in his hands expertly. The stance was entirely alien to anything Sohren would have favoured.
It only incensed Kael further.
"You're outnumbered." Septimus sneered. "Surrounded in a battle you cannot possibly win. Your Warframes are useless here."
"You forget yourself, Lord Septimus. We are Tenno of the House Eternal, trained by your very best."
Kael settled into a forward guard, settling his feet.
"We don't need Warframes to kill you."
-
"And so the time for further recordings is over. The path ahead is clear. Actions will determine our outcome. Theirs, and mine.
I go now to meet them. I must admit that I am, to a certain degree, nervous.
Long have I pictured this moment. Of bonds renewed. Of an order restored.
And reunions."
- Vitruvian 2:1
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The Dax led them up the ramp and through a golden corridor threaded with loops of flowing silver.
The threshold ahead was dark. The Tenno stepped into the gloom together.
Into the past.
It was as it had always been. The far wall was a giant banner of the House Eternal; bronze and splendid, set into the walls; in stark bas-relief.
The throne room was dimly lit. Even in the gloom, its layout was all too familiar; etched in their collective memory. They could see the steps of the dais, the stonework lovingly wrought into the deck. Seamlessly integrated. It was if the House Eternal's reception hall had simply been transplanted into the heart of the ship itself. The resources required to reproduce such a scene were staggering. Shallow pools of water edged the chamber, underlit by lamps that cast dancing reflections against the ceiling. Brilliant orange coy jinked and flitted, inane mouths jawing endlessly.
A familiar voice called to them in the dark. In the clipped tones of the Orokin dialect. Precise and calm; tinged with a gravel that skirted the realm between rasp and growl. And yet still, familiar.
"What happened to those, who buried our Empire? Did we pursue them, put them to the sword? Enact swift and terrible justice, as the Seven demanded for countless generations?"
The four Tenno of The House Eternal stepped forward. The Dax filed in two separate directions, taking assigned positions along the edge of the chamber, moving as one.
The voice continued, rich and melodious.
"No. We let them sleep. Watched as our civilisation became ruin, as our people starved and our borders crumbled from within. We bade our time: for a moment when magnificence became memory; the truth of our power little more than a faded footnote of a history long forgotten."
The shadow arose from his throne, tall and imposing.
"Now that wait is ended. Now, we are ascendant."
The figure stepped forward, into the light.
Sohren stared down at them, a soft smile on his face.
"My Brothers and Sisters." Sohren bowed graciously. "I bid you welcome. My, but it has been some time."
It was Sohren but not as they remembered.
He was older. A man, fully grown; handsome and proud. His face was lined with laughter lines, his eyes pinched with a knowing humour. Long hair spilled back down to his shoulders in a golden mane, tied in a warrior's bun. He wore the armour of a Dax, adorned with that flowing cloak of pristine white. Twinned nikana adorned his left hip, an unusual pairing. Their hilts were studded with gemstones, that danced in the half-light.
Sohren regarded them, a wondrous smile frozen upon his face.
The Warframes looked at one another. As one, the Tenno materialised before their frames, stepping forward hesitantly. It was instinctual. Isolde and Kael, taken aback. Sara, her eyes saucers of wonder.
Only Doric stood back, arms folded. When Sara went to rush forward Doric stopped her, a forestalling hand clamping on her arm. The expression on his face was grave.
Sohren blinked twice, the smile faltering ever so slightly.
"Is something the matter, friends?" he asked.
"Everything is the matter." Doric retorted, as he released Sara's arm. "This is not the man you remember, Tenno. Not in the ways that count."
"Wise Doric, you wound me." Sohren descended the steps, as the lights in the chamber glowed brighter, responding to his every movement. "It is true that I have changed. Aged, certainly. I awoke many years ago. Decades, in fact. But I can assure you I am a Tenno, same as you. The same Tenno that trained with you, served with you. Bled with you."
Sohren stopped before Kael. A gauntleted hand swallowed Kael's shoulder. Kael stared at it, then at Sohren.
"Friend Kael. I still remember my fury, when they ambushed you above the planet's surface. Such loyalty. Know that such an order came from Septimus, and Septimus alone. He paid the price for his treachery."
Kael looked at Doric, entirely uncertain. His taller friend's face was pinched with a scowl.
Before Doric could speak, Isolde snarled and started forward. Criss-crossing halberds blocked her path with a resounding flash. The Dax had moved with lightning speed.
"Enough lies. You wear their armour. You command them." Isolde spat at Eythan Dax. "Those that enslaved us. Used us as a weapon!"
"A weapon that stopped the Sentient." Sohren replied levelly. "That saved us from certain destruction."
"So it's us now?" Doric questioned softly.
Sohren snorted in disbelief.
"I see. You think they got to me. That Septimus wears me, like some sorry puppet." Sohren's smile was rueful. "For all your wisdom, Friend Doric, you think so little of me. I'm just a swordsman to you, a dutiful soldier."
Doric looked at him with a grave sense of pity.
"Any wisdom I might possess is born of research, Septimus. We know all about the Orokin, and their wretched Continuity. What they did to Sohren. What they would have done to us all, in time." Doric shook his head. "No, I see your lies for what they are. The man who was our friend is dead."
Sohren looked at each of them in turn. The suspicion and grief etched upon their faces. He smiled, reassuringly.
"Far from it, Friend Doric. I am very much alive. For years I have waited for this moment, when the five of us might be together once more. You were right about me once. I was a mere soldier. A dutiful servant. Now I command the warriors of The Last Cadre, loyal and true."
The Dax thumbed the bottom of their halberds off the ground in dutiful response.
"To what end?" Doric asked, warily.
"Why to the only end that matters." Sohren blinked. "The restoration of the Empire."
An invisible storm cloud gathered in the air above the Tenno. An electric tension.
"I don't know if you noticed, Sohren, but that ship sailed centuries ago." Sara replied. "Little more than old ruins and the occasional broken sculpture."
"It is true that the Origin System is in a state of flux." Sohren granted, gesturing from his left to his right. "The Grineer armies on one side, the Corpus and their fleets on the other. But we are not helpless."
Sohren turned and waved a gauntleted hand.
A holographic display swirled to life above them. It showed the planet in exacting detail. The orbital defence grid, the various ships in traffic to and from the habitable portions of the planet. The Dominant Position, hovering in high orbit over Prospect 141. The isolated settlements and remote factories; the atmospheric facilities and lonely prison colonies where so many Solaris eked out a miserable existence deep beneath the planet's surface. The level of information was unprecedented.
"Tactical reports, fed live from the Board's most secure internal network."
Sohren waved his hand again.
The view spread out. A wider view of the Origin System now. Venus and Jupiter. Frozen Europa. The Corpus strongholds on Neptune. Trade routes and links throughout the Rail. Real time feeds on ship movements and currency exchanges. A tableau that could only be compiled by many lifetimes of research.
"How did you get this?" Doric breathed.
"I have been around a very long time, Friend Doric. As the Corpus grew and flourished, so too did my own network of spies and infiltrators. The Merchant Guilds rely on proxies so often that replacing them is easier than one might expect." Sohren's smile was ruthless. "Board membership has its privileges, I can assure you."
"So you're one of them now?" Sara asked, visibly sickened.
"Only when it suits me." Sohren replied. "And right now it suits me. Observe."
Sohren opened fist and the display exploded, showing the Origin System in its totality.
He swiped his hand in the air. Flashpoints and major conflict zones rippled a ruby red, spreading like a ravenous cancer. It was in constant state of flux.
"The System is in a deadlock. An impasse. The Corpus have the material, manpower and logistics necessary to sustain a successful campaign against the Grineer. To prosecute a war fully, and win; with the right direction and sustained commitment. They choose not to, of course, because the present conflict is measured, predictable. Profitable, above all else. The Grineer invade, and are repelled. The Corpus expand, and are in turn met by a corresponding counter-invasions in return. Each side lacking the strategic foresight, each side ably assisted in their inadequacy by the Tenno and their Lotus, a wild card who explores no agenda but her own."
Sohren shook his head, sadly.
"Equilibrium is kept, and the Board's credit balance continues to sky-rocket. Nothing changes."
Sohren clenched his fist. The busy display vanished in an instant.
"I would see this deadlock broken."
"How?" Doric asked.
"There is a vacuum in the System. An absence of leadership only we can fill. We alone have access to Orokin technology necessary to upset the balance. We can't act in the open, not directly. But the Corpus Navy is a powerful tool. My agents are everywhere, well positioned; waiting for the right signal, the right moment. We can turn the tide, marshal the Corpus' forces from within. A guiding force. An invisible hand."
"You're right. You're so much more than a soldier." Doric shook his head. "You're a mad man. And an arrogant fool, to think you can control the Corpus."
Sohren's eyes blazed at that.
"The only fools I see are the ones standing before me! What must it take for you to see sense, Tenno? What more can I say?!"
Finally Kael spoke.
"There's nothing you can say." The Tenno's voice was low as he studied the floor, despondent. "I knew Sohren. How he thought, how he fought. He led us; not because he was ambitious, or for any dreams of conquest or glory. But because he was the best. Not for him, these lofty speeches and grandiose displays."
Kael looked up, meeting Sohren's gaze openly.
"He would never call us fools, as you do now."
Sohren's expression became granite.
"Nothing has changed, Brother. It is me, your sword-brother. Your friend."
Kael drew the blade from Volt's sheath. Sohren's ancient sword scraped free. The Dax's sheathes shivered as they drew steel as one.
Kael ignored them. He held the nikana levelled at Sohren, heedless of the dozen swords and spear tips pointed at him.
"Prove it."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parson-Luk grunted as he lugged the rotary cannon into the back of the now open-top limousine. Brakarr gleefully took it in his hands, balancing it over the back as he settled into a position that allowed him sweep it left to right at his leisure.
Comfort and destruction. Two of his favourite things.
The Ostron had seen the cataclysmic beam of light that wiped the Forward Transaction from existence. Had witnessed the Severance's fitful landing, and tracked the Tenno as they were marched into the belly of the Orokin vessel.
They had two options, as he saw it.
They could sit here and wait for the Corpus Navy to find them, eventually.
Or they could do what they did best. Stir up some real trouble.
He settled into the driver's seat. Settled a pair of dust goggles over his eyes. He keyed the ignition sequence.
The Ostron grinned tightly as the engine growled to life.
Decision made.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The silence on the bridge was deafening. Moans of pain filled the air. The crew tended to each other as best they could, but supplies were exhausted.
Telin and Kelpo stood by the observation window. A great crack was riven through it. The ship was held together by rigging tape at this point.
"So what's the plan?" Kelpo asked.
"You're asking me? Still?"
"Well you've gotten us this far."
Telin studied the Orokin ship through his binoculars.
"That wasn't planning. That was more…" Telin hunted for the word, "…improvisation."
"Well then let's improvise some more."
Telin sighed, lowering the binoculars. His morose eyes never left the Orokin ship.
"We can't take that monster in the air. Not a hope."
"Then we take it on the ground."
That was Stren. His head was bandaged, his face a swollen cross-hatch of indented skin where he had lain face down on the checker plate of the deck.
"You're awake." Kelpo observed.
"Also crazy." Telin added.
"No Captain, I'm upset. Far more dangerous."
The stocky weapons engineer scratched at his jowls as he peered through his eye-scope.
"There's only six guards outside." The older man mused.
"Six monsters." Kelpo countered. "Look at them. Their thighs are as wide as my torso."
"They don't look armed."
"Those giant spear things aren't weapons?"
"Guns lad. I mean guns."
"You saw what their ship did to the Forward. No way in hell they don't have guns. We'll be cut to pieces before we cross the gap."
Telin tutted in mock-surprise.
"Kelpo Marr, afraid of a fight?"
"Never. I'm just saying we're scavengers, not career soldiers."
"No, you're right. We're not soldiers. Not scavengers, either. Not anymore." Telin's smile spread to a wolfish grin. "Pirates."
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Sohren held up a hand, calming his honour guard.
"Stay your hands." He ordered sternly, "The Tenno are not to be harmed."
The Dax lowered their blades, hesitantly. Sohren looked at Kael, intently.
"What did I say to you, when we last met?"
Kael didn't reply. The nikana never wavered. Sohren answered for him, as he stepped up toward the blade, never once breaking eye contact.
"You have command of the Cell." Sohren said, "Until I return."
Sohren smiled slightly. His nose was mere inches from the nikana. Still he did not blink as he spoke.
"I said those words then. I meant them. Yet I would ask you to hold onto that sword just a little longer."
Kael blinked. Finally he lowered the sword, entirely uncertain.
"Why?"
"Because I need you at my side, Kael. My most loyal friend, my most trusted lieutenant. There is much work to be done. My place is here, at the head of The House Eternal. I need you in the field. Will you help me, one last time?"
"More Orokin tricks, Kael." Doric warned. "This man is Septimus! Don't listen to his lies!"
"Are they lies when I say that the system lies in ruin? That the people cry out for something more than abject squalor? The Rail is broken, the Grineer maraud freely, setting upon the scattered colonies like wild dogs. You've seen the privations inflicted by the Corpus and their pitiless rule. Is that acceptable to you?"
"How is it any different to the Orokin?" Sara asked. She stepped around the Dax that surrounded Kael, padding softly to the base of the steps, looking up at the throne.
"We fought and killed, again and again. So they could rule in their golden houses on their golden thrones. Choosing who lived, and who died, and when." Sara's eyes could melt armour plating as she fixed Sohren with a glare. "A tyrant is a tyrant, I don't care how shiny they are."
Sara looked at Kael, surrounded on all sides by Sohren's bodyguards. She smiled at him, despite the tension.
"You've only been awake a short time. You haven't seen all that's out there. The good that's been done. It's not all squalor. The other Tenno, they're out there, making a difference. It's slow. It's painful, but we're building something, together. Something better."
"The Relays. The Solaris. Those scavengers who found you. We can help them." Doric added, "But on our terms. Not his."
Sohren scowled.
"You forget yourselves, Tenno." The frustration in his voice was clear. "We have a sworn duty; an oath to The House Eternal. Our place is here!"
"Yours, perhaps." Isolde took a step back toward her Warframe. "Me? Frankly I'm long past fighting for anyone but myself. I only know that nothing good comes from this House, its symbols and its pomp. So the Orokin are no more. Good. The galaxy is better for it."
Isolde glanced at Doric, Kael and Sara.
"I don't know about you, but I've a job to finish. A promise to keep."
"And what promise is that, exactly?" Sohren asked.
"The simple kind." Isolde spared a glare at Eythan Dax, a slow smile spreading on her face. "A bit of old fashioned vengeance."
"I've seen your handiwork." Sohren scoffed. "Revenge? You've already had it."
Isolde scowled.
"Not even close."
She vanished in a burst of light. Mesa sprang to life. The Regulators whipped into her hands. Clicked as they locked squarely onto Eythan Dax's head.
Sohren sighed and waved a hand.
Mesa locked in place, frozen in place by a beam of light. Quivering with impotent fury.
The Cell looked up. The vaulted ceiling contained all manner of hidden projectors. Similar beams of light encased the other Frames. They shuddered in place, becoming twisted statues locked in rictus poses like some twisted museum.
The Cell came to the same realisation at once.
Here, in the heart of the Orokin ship, their Warframes were useless.
Sohren chuckled in pity.
"Warframe Technology. Orokin Technology. There is no difference." Sohren tutted, as he ascended the steps, turning to address them all.
"Make no mistake, Tenno: this is The House Eternal."
Sohren squeezed his fist.
Mesa fell to her knees shuddering in silent agony.
Sohren's expression was stone, his voice matter-of-fact.
"You will honour your vows, or die as oathbreakers."
-
"In the end, could there have been any other outcome?
The Empire was tired. Long had it grown complacent, arrogant and slothful; bloated from its own excess. Exhausted from endless days lived without meaning; free of hardship, bereft of purpose. We were not prepared to be challenged. From this collective lethargy sprung weakness. An ensnaring, insidious weed.
This is why we were created.
We, the House Eternal. The seed that survives the storm, long after the tree has fallen. Our agents are widespread, our roots deep. In time our efforts will bear fruit. We will rise again, and flourish.
There is so much to be done. The Grineer horde maraud freely, their numbers unchecked. The Merchant Guilds continue to gorge themselves on the war economy; swelling their coffers even as their people starve. The rest of our once-great civilisation live in squalor, eking out an existence throughout the scattered colonies.
We recognise the war that grips the Rail. The endless struggle between those scavengers who would bicker over our ashes; picking at the bones of what once was, and shall never be again. Unless we act.
We are the House Eternal: the ultimate contingency.
We shall not be found wanting."
- Vitruvian 2-2
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Parson-Luk sweated as he helped Brakarr to his feet.
The Grineer rose shakily; almost bringing an entire shelf of equipment down on top of them as he clung to it for support. His breathing still carried a wet rasp that alarmed the Ostron. He was a simple hunter. There was only so much he could do.
Brakarr stumbled forward. His hand shot out, gripping the tarp that shrouded the object in the centre of the shed. The tarp wrenched free as Brakarr went down on his knee, heavily. The Ostron cursed him, fretting and fussing.
"You lumbering mule! I said take it slow!"
Brakarr didn't hear a word. He was too busy staring.
The hover-limo was a grand thing: with a snarling chrome bonnet, stenciled in the livery of one of the Corpus Guilds. Small faith flags adorned the bonnet of the car. There was visibly nothing wrong with, but for a tiny scratch on one of its doors.
Brakarr and Parson-Luk look at the limo. They look at each other.
The Ostron scratched his head, wincing.
"There's no way you'll fit, Surah."
Brakarr snorted. He punched his fist clean through the window.
There was a pealing squeal of tortured metal as Brakarr tore the roof of the car clean off.
The Grineer didn't so much climb aboard as flop gracelessly onto the back seat. Such was his weight that the limo groaned on its landing struts. Brakarr propped his feet up on the back of the front seat, his hands resting on the scabbed belly of his war rig. He gave the Ostron a victorious grin that was entirely lost behind his faceplate.
"Brakarr fit."
Parson-Luk scowled at him.
"Wait here."
The Ostron readied himself before he stepped out the door. He smoothly unclipped his earrings; tying his necklace and beads together so that which rattled was made silent. He mired grease on his high cheekbones, matting the skin and dulling its surface. Finally, he wrapped a scarf around his mouth.
Then he slipped into the smoke, and vanished into the gloom like a rumour.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Captain Theo Plun escalated his crew to a war footing. He crossed to the heart of the bridge, stepping up to his command throne. The armour rig encased his tattooed face in layer after layer of inter-locking plating. He was a tall and imposing figure. Had been bred for the role, in a very literal sense.
Encased by the box-like helmet, he looked even more imposing.
"I want those barges destroyed, immediately." Plun ordered. "Is the second wave prepared?"
"Standing by." His XO confirmed.
"Good. Prepare firing solutions."
There was a commotion in one of the crew pits. Plun rose to his feet, irritated by the distraction.
"New orders received, Captain!" one of the crewmen said, looking up from his console. "We're to hold position until further notice."
"We're in an active deployment!" Captain Plun thundered. "On whose authority?!"
As the answer came, Theo Plun was glad of the helmet. The colour drained from his face entirely.
He cleared his throat, adjusting his jumpsuit reflexively.
"I see. Very well. Tell the Board the message has been received, with thanks. All units, stand by until further notice."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tenno stood looking at each other.
The air was leaden, preciously brittle. Nobody spoke.
Telin's voice cut in over the intercom, making them jump.
"Uh, I hate to interrupt the secret meeting of the solemn Tenno association, but we've a problem here."
They hurried for the bridge.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The hunter lay low on the roof of the utility shed, all but invisible between the boxy air processors and depowered holo-boards. Parson-Luk played his spyglass from one side of the horizon to the other, in a measured sweep.
The Corpus army, while rattled, began to rally. They garrisoned the remains of Watch Control, which by this point more resembled a melted heap of slag than anything else. The hunter picked out crewmen looting work tools from the fallen Solaris that still littered the surface of the ziggurat. They hacked at the rock, trying to dig their way through to the central elevator shaft. The MOA formed a defensive perimeter, as their biological masters toiled with religious fervour. For all zeal, the rubble was going to hold them for some time. Parson-Luk frowned.
There was no sign of Isolde. He swept the spyglass upwards.
The barges then. The speed at which they fled the smoking wreckage told him enough.
That was their exit. Their best shot of getting out of here. Of getting home.
There was a sudden rumbling roar. Parson-Luk spun around.
"Ito-da!"
He rolled off the shed and took shelter right as the Orokin Barge's impulse drives surged to life. The shockwave sent a storm cloud of dust and billowing smoke washing over him. He choked and spluttered, eyes streaming.
All was darkness, swirling black flog. And shimmering through the murk, that gilded Barge, finally blazing to life.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Telin watched the beast rise up through the black smoke. A gilded brute, it stood full three times larger than the Severance. Majestic and proud, it oozed elegant menace. Telin had never seen anything of its like before.
Most tech he saw was of Corpus design: utilitarian, rectangular in aspect. Sophisticated certainly, but familiar. The Grineer wrecks they looted were altogether more cumbersome. Built for utilitarian war making, they tended to weather surface impact better. As alien and crude as they were, Telin understood them; they still seemed somewhat predictable.
This was something else entirely. It was ancient. An antique, a piece of ribbed art wrought from materials unknown. Its prow was an armoured hammerhead. There were no visible turrets of any kind.
That didn't reassure Telin. Not for the merest second.
"Tell me that's not something we need to worry about."
The look on Kael's face told him everything he needed to know.
"Right. Figures." Telin keyed the com. "Eyes up Sobil: that's not a friendly."
"What is these days?" Sobil's dry response crackled. "Standing by."
"Shields forward." Telin instructed.
For all the good it did.
Kael saw the glow first. Had seen it before, a lifetime before, in the debris field above the planet's surface. He shouted a warning. Pohld's hands jolted the controls.
There was a blinding light. Something slapped the Severance off-course. Everyone screamed. Pohld arms were all but wrenched from their sockets as he wrestled the controls. Across the ship, hatches blew inward. Pipes burst and flooded corridors with broiling steam or coolant that scalded flesh from bone. The energy cells overloaded; blowing the weapon crews clean across the room. Teico's console all but exploded, hissing sparks and fizzling.
The shield's collapsed in an instant. Engineering reports were a bloodbath of red system failures.
How the Severance remained airborne was a testament to Pohld's skill and the robustness of the ship's armour plating. Its surface was scorched, shorn of turrets and much of its starboard armour plating. It wobbled in the air, vomiting angry smoke in several places.
The shot had not been aimed at the Severance at all.
The Forward Transaction was simply gone. The air was filled with flaming shards of mangled debris that chunked down across the ruined Upper Tier like meteorites.
Telin clambered back into his command throne.
"Report!" he rasped.
Stren was unconscious, a wicked bump visibly swelling on his bleeding forehead. Kelpo took his post.
"Shields down, hull breaches on three decks." There was more data than he could process. "Mass casualties."
"Weapons?"
Kelpo just shook his head in despair.
"Power to engines. Pohld get us out of here!"
"Working on it Chief!"
Pohld gritted his teeth as he pushed the throttle. The engines audibly wheezed.
"Pohld!" Telin bristled. The Severance was barely limping through the air.
"Trying, Captain! Any faster and the core's going to blow!"
A voice cut in over the open broadcast line. The accent was clipped, as measured and polished as Kael and Isolde.
"To the crew of the Severance Package, power down immediately. Any further resistance will be summarily dealt with. There will be no further warnings."
Pohld glanced at Telin, sweating. Telin was stricken, his face a conflicted mask of frustration. They had been so close!
A heavy metal hand set itself on the back of his command throne.
Volt looked down at him.
"This is our fight, Telin Voss. You've done all you can. Land the ship."
Telin nodded, numbly. He hissed through his teeth.
"Put her down, Pohld. Teico, get me a casualty report. I want repair details moving asap."
Kelpo looked at Kael.
"I hope you know what you're doing, kid."
Volt looked at him, the Frame's domelike head impassive.
"So do I."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volt moved quickly as the Severance began a trembling descent to the ruins of the Upper Tier.
The Liset lay abandoned in the main cargo hold, lost amidst so many other looted bits of salvage. Its systems were entirely dead, and the crews had stripped samples from the desiccated hull. Kael clambered aboard, all but marching to the chamber where the Somatic Link had encased him in a cryo-pod so many centuries before.
The link itself had been stripped for parts. The pod was forgotten, just another lump of metal the scavengers could trade for scrap. He had been in a hurry, when he fled the base on Mars.
He was in a hurry now, but there were some detours worth making.
The sword lay where it had been ever since he awoke, forgotten at the base of the cryo-pod.
Sohren's sword, glinting at the bottom of the casket. A priceless artefact, entirely overlooked in the carnage of the preceding days.
Volt picked it up, feeling its familiar weight in his hands.
Now, he was ready.
Now he could see this through.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Severance kissed down in the open clearing; a sorry wreck.
The Corpus army watched them from afar, set on their dig. They had their orders.
The Orokin Barge's belly hatch opened as it kissed down a mere five hundred metres from the Severance. The architecture and motion of the landing gear was seamless, almost organic.
The Warframes stepped out onto the smoking battlefield, beneath the shadow of the ravaged Severance. The colony around them lay in ruin, a bystander in a war that long predated its existence.
The four Tenno paused, watching.
An honour guard files down the ramp of the Orokin Barge. They were golden warriors, dressed in splendid armour not seen in centuries. The Dax carried long halberds, adorned with the banners of The House Eternal. They lined the ramp, fanning out in a broad formation. It was bewildering to see so many of them still alive and together in a single place.
Dread and nostalgia fill the Tenno in equal measure.
"This is it." Isolde said. Mesa's targeting monocle was already logging distances, noting trajectories and windage.
"It is." Kael nodded.
"Tell me you have a plan beyond killing everything." Doric rolls Atlas' heavy shoulders with a click.
Isolde didn't reply.
"I have a plan." Sara announced.
They all looked at her. Mirage planted hands on her hips defensively.
"What? Don't give me that look. I do."
"Do share." Doric invites her with a gracious bow.
"Please." Isolde nodded coolly. "By all means."
Eythan Dax approached, flanked on both sides by a personal guard.
Sara spoke while they were out of earshot, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.
"We let them take us aboard. They bring us to their leader. We kill him. Then we kill the rest of them. Then take the ship, save the colony. Live forever as heroes. Simple."
"You do know that's just another variation of killing everything, don't you?" Doric observed.
"Works for me." Isolde shrugged.
"Hear, Hear." Kael murmured, watching the Dax come closer and closer. "Isolde, a favour; if I may."
"Yes, Kael?"
"Restrain yourself. I know you want blood. And blood is surely coming. But bide your time. There are lives at stake."
Mesa, tense as a coiled spring, nodded after a moment.
"You have my word. But when the time comes, make no mistake: that Dax is mine to bury, and mine alone."
"Very well."
Eythan Dax stopped a hundred feet from the Tenno.
The Tenno stepped forward to meet him. Physically the Warframes cut more imposing figures, though the Orokin guards did not lack size or muscle.
If Eythan Dax was intimidated in any way, it did not show. His armour had been cleaned, but the bruising from his duel with Vern was evident. His helmet was notably dented on one side.
Kael stepped forward. He could feel the hatred radiating from Isolde.
Better that he do the talking.
"Eythan Dax." Kael bowed slightly.
"Tenno Kael." The Dax returned the bow. "My Lord wishes me to inform you that any further resistance will result in the immediate destruction of your companions, and the subsequent and indeed total destruction of this colony from orbit. None will be spared. All will be ash."
"The Corpus won't like that." Doric remarked.
"This is our colony, not theirs." Eythan Dax countered coldly. "To do with as we see fit. And, I can assure you, my Lord does not possess a capacity for understatement."
"Your Lord will be a corpse, and you along with him." Isolde hissed.
"Isolde." Kael warned reproachfully.
Eythan Dax smiled coldly, bemused at the exchange.
"I'm sure. But first, a bit of housekeeping." Eythan Dax extended a hand, looking at Isolde brazenly. "My sword?"
Isolde didn't budge.
Kael looked at her.
Mesa begrudgingly cast the Dax's sword on the ground before her. It snapped smoothly up into the Dax's hands with a magnetic hum, then clicked back into its sheath.
"Splendid. Now, if you'll follow me."
He turned on his heel, and led them toward the waiting ramp.
Telin and the others watched helplessly on the bridge as the Tenno disappeared into the belly of the ancient ship, surrounded on all sides by warriors of The House Eternal.
-
[Well spotted Aldrr; I've amended the reference to a long form version of a katana; I am not sure what the Warframe version of a odachi/nodachi is, but hopefully the revised meaning is clear without stepping on lore boundaries.
The spelling of Archimedian/Archimedean is the one fed to me by Microsoft Word; is it a separate concept entirely, or is a stylistic spelling on Warframe's part?
I'll go back and change it in the earlier chapters when I'm doing a final edit. This story is first draft, and I want to just get it out on the page while it's cooking in my head.
Regarding your speculation, I'm not saying a word; only that I enjoy reading your predictions immensely! Also you should consider Fortune Telling as a career. 😉
The most recent chapter is roughly double the length of a typical chapter, so bear with me while I get back into the swing of things; I'll resume writing tomorrow morning.
When the story is done I must post screenshots of the various Frames as I've made them in game.
More soon.
Edit: the most recent chapter is also riddled with typoes - I'm working on them now.]
-
"The War is ended.
There is to be a celebration. I will have no part in it. My Continuity grows near. Damned be the hour, but I must move to the Temple on Earth, and quickly. Time grows short. This flesh is frail.
No bartering for me. No auctions or bidding. The work of the House Eternal is too important. There is much to rebuild, so much more to document. We Orokin will survive this war. We will flourish.
In the end only one could be chosen. I have made my decision."
- Vitruvian 2-3
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then.
Isolde is a patient hunter.
Even so, her patience has its limits. She sits quietly in the dark, legs folded beneath her.
The Dax presence has relaxed somewhat. The Cadre keep entirely to themselves, leaving the Tenno be.
The House Eternal does not seat itself in one fixed location. It changes every few months. Hidden towers and fortresses lie scattered across the Empire.
Of all the many citadels they have occupied throughout the War, the Mars Bastion is her least favourite. It is an ancient fortress; carved into the very mountain itself. Retainers sweep the floors, robes swishing across the cool stone as they fight an endless battle against the unstinting tide of sand that blows in from the wastes.
Outside the air is arid and pitiless, the dusty canyons and howling winds sifting stinging sheets of sands through the open windows that mark the ancient monastery's walls.
Isolde prefers the darkness of the Grotto.
It is a cavern at the pit of the fortress. Orokin engineers have worked hard, coaxing the underground spring to the surface. The water splashes down the cool rock, a pattering sound that soothes her anxious mind.
There are five regular indentations in the wall. The Liset cling to the edge of the surface of the fortress, hidden in the shadows of the deep canyon. Ready for deployment at a moment's notice. Sohren's is missing. This is not unusual. With Trainer's passing, Sohren often serves as Lord Septimus' avatar, representing him in matters of state and custodial affairs where the Lord of the House Eternal cannot be in person.
Only Mesa accompanies her in the dark. This is part habit, part precaution. She does not trust Eythan Dax, or his men.
The lack of a war has led the Tenno in separate directions. Doric is lost in his books now. Isolde knows better than to distract him. Endless study is his gift, not hers. She waits by her Frame, anxious to keep it close should Eythan Dax and his ilk elevate their actions beyond mere surveillance. She does what only a patient hunter can.
She bides her time. She distracts herself.
Isolde sets the Tarot on the deck again, scraping each leathery card against the hard stone floor in careful, deliberate sequence.
The Nine of Quills. Fate, ever-changing.
The Four of Chains. The ties that bind.
The Fool's Eye.
Her hand trembles as she sets out the next three cards. Knows their faces even before they are revealed.
The Yuvan.
The Tower, inverted.
And finally, that grinning skull.
Death.
It is the same sequence. Always the same.
The set had been an ironic gift. One from her Mother. Her parents were scientists. People of science and learning. Superstition was beneath them. And yet every time she sets the cards out, the sequence repeats.
She scoops the cards up, reshuffles with a sense of ever-mounting dread.
And deals again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sara claps her hands.
The musicians in the halls bow as one. The Archimedeans and the Lorists cheer and holler. The revelry is constrained, given the nature of The House Eternal, but celebrations are nevertheless in order.
The War is over, after all. They have won.
Word of the Grand Celebration is abuzz, leaving the courtiers and retainers breathless with excitement. The Tenno are to be honoured in a grand ceremony. It is the talk of the Rail. The Seven themselves will be present.
Sara knows her Cell will not attend. Cannot attend. They are of The House Eternal. Theirs is a secret life, of service left unseen. Still, she enjoys the mood that has left the soldiers and scholars around her buoyant. After so many years of endless struggle, of so many battles and unstinting horror, their hard work is finally at an end.
She rises from her chair, sparing a glance at the corridor beyond. She is the only Tenno present.
The others are unsuited to life without conflict. One in particular worries her.
She sighs and makes for the kitchens.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is only when Sara places a warm mug on the table and pushes it steaming into Doric's hands that he stirs from his slumber. He blinks. It is morning in The House Eternal.
How long has he slept? Twenty minutes? An hour?
Dust motes twirl and dance a giddy jig in the great arched windows that form skylights to the Library. Doric rubs at his eyes, massaging the heavy bags beneath. For all his power and manifold gifts; he is, ultimately, human. His calloused fingers are smudged with ink, which has filled a neat pile of journals and diaries as tall as any of the heaps around him.
Knowledge surrounds him. Stacks of learning rendered in as many forms as there are languages. Data slates and gilded Vitruvian, ancient tomes and rumpled scrolls. Gathered too is a sea of endless mugs and Martian clay ware. Some filled, others with dregs of caffeine or flavoured lemon water. Sara has been clearing them as they pile up, "Emptying the hutch", as she calls it. Doric knows he is a disgrace, that Trainer would take him to task over his dishevelled appearance, but there is so much to learn, and so little time.
Continuity. The word taunts him. Endless, infinite – but how so? In what context? Whatever the secret is, it is closely guarded. He is working in over two dozen languages; many forgotten. Cracking cyphers and riddles. Deciphering texts and tablets long faded. Interpreting ancient poems that might as well be riddles, such is the antiquity of their wording. Still the answer eludes him.
There is a reason for this.
He finds gaps in the documents. Intentional censorship. Pages torn, scrolls strategically missing select pieces of parchment; Vitruvian carefully expunged, redacted. For all its knowledge, there are answers in the Library that the Orokin do not wish others to know. A secret, sacrosanct. Forbidden.
Doric presses on, building a picture: stalking the answer he seeks by framing the gap at its centre with the knowledge around it.
He is close. So very close.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kael meets Sohren in the sparring chamber at the top of The House Eternal. He is dressed for their morning session: a simple black body-glove, a blunted skana in his hands. His hands and feet are exposed. They have moved away from wooden weapons, trusting each other with true steel, however dull.
The chamber is on the summit of The House Eternal: an open air auditorium flanked by dark red stone, cut into the top of the mountain. The stonework of the floor is of Earthen import, arrayed in a pattern around the Endless Eye of the House Eternal. The endless wastes are visible through the gaps in the pillars, a magnificent view of undulating rock and sloping dunes. The stonework is warm beneath his feet.
Sohren is dressed quite differently today. He wears a ceremonial suit of gilded armour, more comparable to a Dax honour guard. An artic white cloak drapes across his shoulders; pinned in place by a shining silver broach. It flashes brilliantly in the sun as he turns to face Kael.
Sohren looks imperious, every inch the heroic warrior of old.
"What is the occasion, Friend Sohren?" Kael smiles, laughing. "Should I have worn a robe?"
Sohren returns the smile, but it is fleeting, distracted.
"I can't train with you, Brother. Not today."
Kael raises an eyebrow.
"Oh? Afraid I'll school you?"
Sohren shoots him a scowl.
"Now, now. Trainer taught you better than to spout such nonsense." His expression grows serious. "But I must speak with you, if I may. A favour."
Kael nods readily.
"Of course. Anything."
Sohren smiles.
"I am leaving. For how long, I cannot say."
"The Ceremony?" Kael grins, clapping him on the shoulder excitedly. "You have been selected?"
Sohren shakes his head, smiling sadly.
"We serve the House Eternal, Kael. Such glory is not ours to witness."
Kael frowns.
"A mission, then?"
"Of sorts." Sohren offers the merest shrug, armour clicking with the gesture, "In truth I cannot say. But I have a duty to you, and the others, as much as any Lord."
Sohren produces a sword, swathed in velvet crimson.
"My father's sword. Yours now." Sohren smiled at his friend, "You have command of the Cell until I return. Keep them focused. Keep them together. I worry for them, now that the War is done."
Kael takes the sword in his hands. It is a gilded nikana: silver laced with gold.
Kael shakes his head, marvelling at its craftsmanship as he draws it briefly from its sheath. It is perfectly weighted; the metal folded countless times. Sohren has wielded it in a thousand battles. Countless enemies of the Empire have met its final, biting touch.
"I cannot accept this." Kael breathes.
Sohren smiles reproachfully.
"You can and you shall. Quarrel no further; my time is short."
"But what if you need it?"
"I am with our Lord, surrounded by the finest Dax." Sohren laughed. "Go on, it's yours."
The blade clacks back into its sheath smoothly.
Kael takes a step back. He bows, deeply, the sword close to his chest.
"I accept your gift with thanks, Tenno Sohren. Go with Glory."
Sohren returns the bow, fist folded across his chest.
"Go with Glory, Tenno Kael."
Dax have appeared at the edge of the arena. Eythan Dax nods at Sohren.
It is time. He is expected.
Sohren looks at them, then back at Kael. Sohren offers a curt nod and a smile.
"Well then. Until our paths next cross."
Kael returns the nod, as solemn as ever.
There is nothing further to say. Sohren turns and heads for the dark tunnel at the edge of the Arena. The Dax fold in behind him, a royal escort eight strong. Kael watches them go.
Sohren is the first to be swallowed by the darkness of the tunnel.
Kael never sees him again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doric turns the pages of the next chapter, heaving a sigh despite himself. This is futile. His current book is ponderously written, obsessed with the banal and the arcane. Rituals of the Meso Era. A tired tome, even to one as versed in academia as Doric.
A loose leaf sifts to the floor. He frowns, picks it up.
It is an illustration. Rendered in harsh charcoal and crude crayon, its lines harsh and angular. Whether it comes from the book or from a separate text the illustration is arresting.
It depicts a single figure, diminutive in height. The figure stands atop a shallow pedestal, surrounded on all sides by hunched, snarling figures. Elder wrecks and haggard crones, they bicker and bid, casting shekels and bidding vast fortunes.
It is an exchange of power, a bidding contest between rival parties.
It is an auction.
There is something forbidden about the drawing. Something dangerous. It is illicit, heretical.
The symbol denotated at the base of the small figures face is known to him. He has seen it before, countless times in his research. Always in connection with the Orokin. Always in reference to the Continuity they always mention, but never explain.
Doric bolts upright. Paper flies as he scrambles for his notes.
The same word, over and over. Seldom explained.
Eventually he finds a translation he can work with.
Yuvan.
Ancient Hindu. The translations are diverse and varied, but the same two words crop up; over and over.
Young, healthy.
Doric looks at the elder crones, then at the single figure they squabble over.
Around them all, that etched symbol. Framing the entire picture in jagged markings.
Continuity.
A pit opens in his stomach.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is mid-morning.
There has been no word from the site of the Grand Celebration. It was to be a crowning moment of glory for the honoured Tenno. By rights it should have been broadcast to all and sundry by now.
Instead nothing. Just a lingering silence. The retainers and staff wait by the broadcast monitors, exchange uncertain glances.
A half hour passes. The retainers emit a deflated sigh. There must be a technical fault with the base's transmitter. The Dax confer privately, exchanging glances. Unbeknownst to the Tenno of the House Eternal, there is a seismic shift in the Empire's status quo.
Orders are given.
Sara knows none of this. She resumes her rounds, visiting Doric once more.
She is bound for the kitchens, fists full with bunches of clanking mugs when she hears the barge depart. It rises up into the air above the citadel, drives thrumming at maximum speed.
Sara finds what little entertainment she can. She watches it leave.
It is Lord Septimus' personal ship. It thrums into the sky, engines pulsing. She watches it leave through the window, disappearing into the cloudless sky. She senses a sudden feeling of sadness, and cannot understand why. It is a curious feeling.
Perhaps it is because she is not aboard. Perhaps because she is missing out on some secretive adventure, that is not for her to know or experience.
Or perhaps, years from now, she will look back and realise that this was the moment when their lives change forever.
She hears footsteps sprinting behind her.
It is Doric, breathless. A single tattered page flaps wildly in his hand.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kael works through his kata with his practice sword, Sohren's blade is tied at his waist. It is too grand a blade for simple drill work.
The barge has long disappeared into the sky. He watched it go, a hand cupped over his brow to shield from the beating sun.
That was then. He resumes his drills, honing his skills for the time that he may duel his friend again.
The sun is high in the sky now. It is early afternoon on Mars. Kael's brow is sheened with sweat.
The blade moves slowly, describing a deliberate flow interspersed with sharp cuts that split the air and whistle. He stops mid flow.
Many eyes are watching him from the shadows of the tunnel.
The Dax soldiers that emerge are not the same warriors who accompanied Sohren that morning. Far from it.
This is no honour guard. They are dressed in field gear. Stark and utilitarian. They wear no insignia, no identifying marks of any kind. Leering Oni masks rob their faces of any expression.
Kael is Tenno. He senses the tension even as they file out into the practice area.
Kael turns to face them.
"Well met." Kael nods a greeting. "A fine day for a bit of sparring."
They do not reply. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
There are two of them. He glances over his shoulder.
No, four. They have fanned out in a circle. Surrounding him.
The Tenno watches them carefully.
The Dax draw their blades as one. Long form nodachi; streamline blades hissing from their sheathes in a single smooth motion. Kael silently notes the nature of the blades. Razor-sharp, killing edges all. Far longer than his dull training sword.
Trainer's words stay with him, even now.
A Dax does not draw unless they intend to kill.
Kael does what any Tenno would.
He flourishes his practice blade up before his nose: a classic fencing salute.
He bows, ever respectful.
As his other hand closes around the hilt of Sohren's blade, cinched at the small of his back.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the Grotto there is a burst of commotion.
One of the Lisets detaches from its moorings. Canyon winds howl through the gap, sending the cards flying. Isolde leaps to her feet, shielding her eyes; dark robes flapping.
Tarot cards swirl all around her. She blinks as the environment seals entomb her once more in soothing darkness. She recognises the space the Liset has departed.
It is Kael's.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
At first Kael intends only to incapacitate. He favours the practice sword; flowing between his opponents. The blade reflects strike after strike, turning aside attacks that surely intend to kill. He rolls and whirls from one opponent to the next: a whirling blur. He checks their guard; punishing his would be assassins with snatching hits that dent armguards and flash at their faces.
The Dax are Dax. Master swordsmen, every bit as skilled as he.
Even so their numbers grant them overconfidence. They rush him as one. No less than three blades are caught in a lock with his own. The metal peals as it struggles.
Physically they outmatch him, man for man.
"Final warning." The Tenno pants, sweat beading his brow. "Desist."
The fourth man slashes at him.
Kael rolls away at the last second, shrieking his blade free. Not fast enough. Warm blood spits on burning stone. It was a glancing hit, but the Dax have caught his bicep.
The Tenno snarls in pain, reacts. Sohren's blade leaves it sheath in a whipping strike.
A charging Dax topples to the floor, a geyser of blood jetting from the stump that was once his neck.
Kael whirls both blades around to criss-cross before him, sinking low in a crouching guard.
His lupine war stare takes them in, eyes brimming with controlled fury, nostrils flaring as blood pours down his arm.
The other Dax freeze, exchanging glances. They raise their guard, warier now.
They fan out, encircling him once more.
The merciless sun beats down upon them, relentless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doric grabs Sara by both arms, panting. Sweat soaks his tunic. He has sprinted fully three levels of the fortress to reach her.
"Continuity! I know what it is!" Doric gasps. We have to warn the others!"
Sara is taken aback. Doric is a frenzied wreck. He had not slept properly in three days. None of what he says makes even the slightest semblance of sense.
She gets three words in.
"Kael? Drilling. Why?"
"Isolde?!"
"The Grotto." Sara shakes her head. "What's the matter? What's wrong with you?!"
Doric ignores her.
"Sohren, where's Sohren?!"
"I've no idea. With Kael maybe?" She grabs his wrists, trying again. "Why?"
Before he can react further, there is a clatter of armoured feet.
Dax soldiers line both ends of the corridor. Their faces are hidden by snarling masks.
Trainer has taught them the turbulent history of the Empire. The various ages: from ancient Lith to the early Axi. Sara is as rebellious as a Tenno can be, but she is a quick student. She remembers her lessons well.
The Empire has not been without its internal struggles, throughout its many ages. Internecine warfare, attempted coups and countless betrayals. Orokin history is often penned in the blood of tyrants, or traitors. These Dax have masked their faces, as any assassin would. Their intentions are clear.
Sara tightens her grip on the bunched mugs.
Doric stands tall behind her. Gone is the fatigue now.
The Tenno stand back to back: Doric's hands raised in a resting guard, Sara and her collection of clay ware.
They have no real weapons. They are penned in on both sides.
The Dax on Sara's side rush them first, hoping to drive them backward into their comrades waiting blades.
Sara hurls the mugs into the air. The air shudders as the Void slaps the air; shattering the clay into a thousand lancing fragments. The Dax shy back as the shards glance off their armour; skittering off their bracers. Sara and Doric take the momentary distraction to charge: angling punches at throats and kicking at the soft sections of their armour. Doric's beaked fist catches a windpipe. A Dax falls, choking.
Sara draws a blade free from one Dax's boot, buries it deep into the next man's throat. Blood dribbles from the eyeholes of his mask, as he falls; his whole body juddering. The Tenno sprint free, exploiting the gap. Clattering armoured cleats reverberate against the high stone walls, as the rest of the Dax give chase.
They round the corner.
Mesa stands in the doorway, Regulators low at her side. Doric yelps and hauls Sara into a side archway at the last second.
There is a dizzying storm of rapid fire shots. A clatter of armour as bodies topple.
Mesa appears, wreathed in gun smoke.
Isolde's voice is rendered harsh and stern through the Warframe's filters as she looks down at them.
"The Grotto. Move."
Sara bolts for her Warframe.
Doric hesitates. He can feel Isolde's rage simmering in the air around the Frame, infusing the Void around her. She has to know.
"Sohren and Kael. You have to warn them."
Mesa's mask then is a silvered helmet, not dissimilar to an ancient Conquistador. It betrays no expression as she listens.
"I've discovered what Continuity is." Doris says. "How exactly the Orokin live forever."
And so he tells her. Of the parades of children; a shivering procession that winds its way high up into the Mountain Pass, to a forbidden fortress on Ancient Earth. Of the Chosen that is selected, the Yuvan. Of the bidding that ensues. The pithy bartering and twisted arcane rituals that follow.
The more he explains, the more Mesa's fists curl into tightened balls.
How the children's minds are stolen from them, their spirits crushed as Transference obliterates their very essence, replacing them.
The knuckles themselves crack.
How the process is repeated, time and time again. Now and forever, pitiless and cruel.
The Regulator's reflexively snap into her hands, itching for a target.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kael plays for time he does not have. The Dax know better than to try and brute force him. He is bleeding, but not helpless.
The wound on his arm weeps openly, soaking his body glove.
That is not enough for his would-be killers. They inch ever closer, probing the outer stretches of his guard. Testing him. Time and time again the blades flash – staccato exchanges of shrieking steel, brief and deadly.
One Dax overextends himself. His swordsmanship is excellent. There is no faulting the striking technique or angle of attack. But Kael is lightly armoured, dressed for quick sparring against a fellow Tenno. This grants him a certain speed that far outstrips the armoured Dax.
He spins inside the Dax's guard, the training blade turning the Dax's blade high and aside. Sohren's sword flashes, and the Dax is left without a hand. Kael is not finished.
He is Tenno. His commitment to the kill is absolute.
The training sword is cast aside entirely. Two handed, the golden nikana opens the man's throat, then belly; swift alternating cuts. Then it snaps back around, truncating the man's leg at the ankle. The Dax topples, gurgling.
The assassin is still falling when the blade comes down through his chest, slamming clean through the breastplate in a decisive twisting finish. Kael dances back, ripping the blade free and flecking the sandy stone with blood.
The young man holds his friend's blade pointed toward the two Dax, fully-extended, as they slowly circle each other. His face is entirely devoid of emotion. That wolf-like stare never blinks.
Two against one now.
The Dax's teamwork is laudable. They have seen the Tenno's style now; assessed how the boy moves and balances himself. Most Tenno are thought to be physically frail, wholly dependent on their Warframes.
Not so a Tenno of the House Eternal.
The Dax change their approach: adopting alternating stances that will sorely test Kael's ability to defend. It is a sound tactic, emblematic of their skill and training. In a fair fight, it would surely work.
Kael has no intention of fighting fair. He grunts as he burns his cut arm shut with the Void, his vision swimming as the flesh cauterises.
Then he intentionally lowers his guard. He closes his eyes, waiting.
The Dax see the feint for what it is. They tense, expecting some trick or subterfuge.
The Tenno waits, breathing deeply. Listening with every sense.
The taller Dax strikes first. His blade cleaves forward, whooping as it splits the air.
The golden nikana clatters to the stone floor.
The Tenno has vanished.
The Dax frowns, spinning about, uncertain. He glances left and right, his blade at high guard. The golden nikana rattles at his feet, between his legs, abandoned.
Kael reappears from the Void behind the Dax, crouched low. The nikana rips upward; flaring with eldritch power as the Tenno's eyes blaze.
The Dax flops apart in two separate directions.
Kael doesn't wait for the blood to settle. He is already charging the final Dax, who lunges in return.
Steel meets steel as they flash past one another. The Tenno rolls to his feet, recovering. He blinks, patting himself down.
He is unscathed.
The final Dax stands tall, facing him. Then his foot staggers, once.
The Dax crashes over in a heap, face-first; an expanding pool of blood running freely across the tiles.
Kael looks up as his Liset finally arrives. He thinks of warning the others. Of Isolde and Doric and Sara: unarmed, scattered throughout the fortress. Of Sohren's parting words.
Then thinks of Sohren, surrounded on all sides by Eythan Dax and his Honour Guard.
He looks at the bloodied sword in his hands.
There is no time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kael is long gone by the time the other Tenno tear their way through the old monastery, fighting their way to the summit.
They find the discarded training sword and the Dax's ravaged bodies scattered across the roof of the temple. The wind whistles freely through the pillars around them, low and plaintive.
Sara and Doric look at each other. Then Doric looks back over his shoulder.
Isolde too is gone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kael's Liset emerges from the Rail Gate, shuddering. He sits encased in the Somatic Link. His senses are one with the organics of the ship around him. Once more, he sees through eyes that are not his own.
Venus stretches out before him. The surface is a raging extreme of boiling heat and numbing cold. His Ship Cephalon scans on all frequencies, adamant that the signal is here. Where is it? Where have they taken Sohren?
The Planetary Defence Grid surrounds Kael. Imposing cylindrical towers, they lay there inert. They have not fired since the Sentient last broached the sector. Debris and asteroids flit by as the Liset weaves its way through the wreckage. So much of it is still fresh from the war.
A proximity alert. Kael blinks, seeing the debris moments before his Cephalon takes over; neatly slipping the ship around it. An asteroid of some kind, larger than most.
An alarm bleats. His Cephalon, normally so calm and focused, shrills in panic. The debris is no debris at all.
The Orokin Barge bears down on them, weapons already powering up.
Kael has time to scream before a wall of light envelops them.
He is slammed into darkness.
The Liset falls in a tail spin towards the planet, its bow alight. The Cephalon is gone, so too are ship systems, any semblance of control.
By the time the Tenno awakes, the House Eternal will be long forgotten.
And Origin System forever changed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
They find the aftermath of Isolde's rampage throughout the ancient monastery.
It is a slaughter. Bodies choke the halls. Doric recognises Mesa's handiwork: the pinpoint precision of an exacting brand of butchery. And not just the Dax. The courtiers and the musicians, the traders and the cooks. People they have known their entire lives.
In mute horror they follow the trail of corpses, back toward the Grotto.
None were spared.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
As her Liset departs, Mesa's golden armour is painted in blood. Her Regulators glowing red hot like a furnace. She had stalked the halls in silence, the only sound her deliberate footfalls and the chattering echo of the Regulators against the high vaulted ceiling. The screams linger with her, even now.
Isolde doesn't care. They made their choice. Serving the monsters who would wear them as puppets. Each of them are complicit. Each of them deserve justice.
Isolde thinks of Sohren, alone on the Barge surrounded by Dax. She thinks of ailing Lord Septimus, of what plans he and their other Gilded Masters had in store, should they too grow sick and old in time.
Her resolves only hardens.
The task ahead is clear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Isolde is gone by the time they reach the Grotto. There is no note, no parting message. Kael and Sohren are missing entirely. There is nothing he can do for them.
Doric knows the totality of Isolde's rage. In truth he shares it, but he masters it.
Isolde must be stopped.
For her own sake, if nothing else.
Doric resolves to find her first. He and Sara track her Liset's signature. Yet they are too late, always too late.
It is a scene that will be repeated throughout the Origin System. Doric and Sara will arrive at the next forgotten fortress, to find the same carnage repeated. Many of these bases are mercifully abandoned before Isolde descends upon them. So many more are not.
In each fortress, Doric checks the Library. Where the rest of the corridors are ablaze, their standards defaced, their ayatan sculptures broken and scattered across the floor.
Yet the Libraries are always intact. The books are left untouched. Tomes of poetry are even missing: each one a memento of yet another purging slaughter.
Left in the heart of each Library is an Ars Bellica set.
Each time the pieces shift. Isolde is continuing their game, alone.
Doric tracks the moves, discerning her intentions.
It is a record. With each fortress destroyed, another piece is removed from the board.
Sara watches as Doric examines the particular disposition of the pieces on the board.
It is a finishing action; a pincer movement. There is but a single move left to make.
Doric examines it sadly, as Mirage steps closer.
"What is it?" Sara askes.
Doric looks at her, lips taut. He borrows an expression from another game entirely.
"Checkmate."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Isolde finds Septimus in a forgotten cave on Earth.
The cavern is abandoned. The only guards present have fallen on their swords as one. Their skulls grin up at her from their heaped armour.
The Orokin's twisted secret will be taken to their graves.
Mesa stalks into the cave. Isolde has stripped her Warframe of its finery. It is a ragged mess; an oilcloth tied over its face where the finer detailing used to be. In time she will rebuild it, reshaping it in an image better suited to the machine-like focus she has dedicated to her bloody quest.
Septimus wheezes atop the roughly hewn throne. The machine behind him resembles a fluted organ; golden and splendid, bronzed with time and age. Tubes and pipes of all shapes and sizes snake from it and into his gaunt, hunched frame.
He is but a husk, a wretched thing. His hair is lank, his skin droops from the bone.
Mesa spares one look over her shoulder.
There is a shimmer of light as Isolde steps free of the Frame, padding across the floor of the cave. She rises up to the throne room, looking down at him. She feels no pity, no remorse.
Septimus burbles and rasps nonsense up at her. His pupils are milky white, long since without sight. He giggles inanely; the sound a wet shuddering against the tubes that force his mouth open. The Tenno's nose wrinkles. The Golden Lord has fouled himself countless times. He has been left to rot.
Isolde calmly her hands upon the tubing. Her fingers clench and twist.
She tears the pipe free of his throat. Blood and skittering teeth spatter across the floor.
The support organ locks in place with a resounding clunking sigh, finally at rest.
Silence fills the chamber once more.
Eventually the Tenno sets something at the base of the throne.
Then Isolde turns, and walks away.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cave is overgrown by the time Doric and Sara come across it, six months later.
The machinery is threaded with vines, dappled with ivy and speckled moss.
Lord Septimus is little more than a grinning skeleton, that has all but grown into the lichen coating the throne. Earth's ravenous plant life spares no one.
An Ars Bellica board is set at the foot of the throne, beside an ancient mahogany box.
The board itself is empty, its pieces neatly collected and placed back in the box.
The message to Doric is clear. Their private conversation is at an end.
The game is concluded.
There is no satisfaction, no true closure in Isolde's vengeance.
But The House Eternal has been eradicated, its fading embers finally extinguished.
Now they can rest, knowing that the twisted house that raised them is gone forever.
Or so they think.
-
"What do you remember of The Collapse? Where were you, when it happened?
It was to be our moment of victory. Our Grand Celebration. The Sentient were broken; finally vanquished by the Void killers we had so carefully crafted, after so many disastrous setbacks. Our greatest triumph. Our most ruthless creation. Our crowning mistake.
The blood was still warm on the floor of the Outer Terminus when it began. The Grineer in open rebellion. The Technocyte Plague running rampant; entirely unchecked. Those who could salvage the situation were too few. Our leaders, for the most part, were dead. Noble Ballas was nowhere to be found. I had assumed him slain, like so many others.
The Tenno had betrayed us; the Seven butchered with thinly disguised hate. Our ruling council cut down; decapitated in a single savage stroke.
A Grand Betrayal; one that buried a civilisation; and damned us all."
- Musings on the Fall of the Orokin Empire, Author Unknown
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The Severance and the Forward Transaction flew away from the smoking ruin of the ziggurat with all speed. They had no destination.
"Pardon me for asking the obvious question." Sara cleared her throat. "But where are we going?"
"Anywhere but here." Telin replied. Privately he had been wondering the same thing.
"You're running away?" Sara was incredulous.
"Have you a better plan?!" Telin shot back.
Smoke churned up all around the two barges as they sped through the ruins of the Upper Tier. It blanketed the city; a layer of impermeable smog that billowed and parted as the barges sped through.
All was ruin. If the colony had once resembled an ornate candlestick, its top layer was a melted mess; ugly and misshapen. Skeletal blown out buildings rose out of the smog like headstones. Plumes of boiling smoke rose up from the bombed out data stacks and washed across the viewport. Pohld kept his eyes on the instrumentation, lips taut. The smoke afforded them cover from the recovering Corpus army, but there was the ever present-risk of colliding with the architecture.
The silence was deafening. Telin felt the Tenno's eyes on him. He kept his eyes on the viewport as he spoke.
"Look, I admire the whole noble child warrior monk schtick, I really do. But let's deal with the facts here. We barely got out of there. We've barely any ammo. Our shields? All but toast. And the mine trick? That's a strictly one-time gig."
"We're in the salvage business, not miracles." Kelpo agreed.
"Sara's not asking for miracles." Kael replied patiently. "Only to let us finish what we started."
Telin sighed, twisting in the command chair to face Kael. His face was lined with exhaustion.
"Let's assume for a moment that staying in this fight was in any way possible, Kael. That somehow we had some way of meaningfully stopping the Board from simply filling the sky with more dropships. Let's be clear: this is ship isn't space-worthy. Not even before it was riddled with holes; and certainly not now."
"You're right." Isolde stepped forward, eyes narrowed at the sifting fog ahead. "It's not."
She pointed behind him, one hand resting on the back of the command throne.
"But that is."
The smoke parted. The Orokin barge awaited them on the Northern Landing Pad. A majestic, sleeping behemoth fully three times the size of the Severance. A gilded brute.
"What the hell is that thing?" Telin blinked.
"You mean you haven't noticed the gilded monster sitting on the edge of the Upper Tier?" Stren raised an eyebrow. "Need your eyes checked, lad."
Telin shot him a look. Stren coughed.
"Erm, Captain."
"Let's just say I've been a little preoccupied. What am I looking at?"
"Unfinished business." Isolde said, her expression grave, "Why I came back."
Telin smiled politely at that.
"… yeah, not helping. One more time, with less Tenno mystique?"
Isolde ignored him. She turned and looked at the other Tenno.
"Time is short. A brief word, if I may."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
They convened in private, in an empty hold at the rear of the ship. Their Frames lined the edges of the chamber, silent statutes; heads bowed.
Isolde paced before them, gripping the golden nikana. She felt Doric's glare upon her; hated the fleeting, uncertain look Sara gave her whenever they made eye contact. A thousand emotions roiled beneath her surface. They were friends. Or had been, once. Damnit, it wasn't meant to be like this.
Kael said nothing. So much remained a mystery to him. How had he found himself on Venus? What had struck him down, and why? He bit his tongue, wary of the leaden tension that draped the air. For all the clarity that had returned to him, so much remained elusive; wrapped in the fog of ancient memory.
Isolde heaved a sigh, then began, addressing Doric and Sara in particular.
"I know you don't trust me. For doing what I did. For leaving, when I thought the task was done."
The others said nothing. She continued.
"You have to understand. I wanted revenge. For what they did. For the lives they stole from us. And what they planned to do."
"And you sought it alone." Doric's eyes were slits.
Sara studied the floor, desperately wanting to be somewhere else.
"What did you want me to do?" Isolde stood tall, arms spread; incredulous. "Sohren was gone. Kael; lost to us. The other Tenno were in open rebellion. The Empire was falling. We knew Septimus' wretched contingency. We had to act!"
Sara had gone entirely pale. She crossed her arms, her chin tucked against her chest.
A war she could handle. But this row had been coming for centuries.
"And I asked you to wait." Doric stepped closer to her,. "To stand with us. To find Kael; act as one! As we agreed! As we prepared for!"
"There was no time!" Isolde blazed. "A moment's delay and the House would have been gone forever! I saw my chance to bury them and I took it!"
"It didn't give you licence to murder!" Doric thundered, words all but spitting "To butcher!"
"Would that I butchered them sooner!" Isolde snarled back as she stepped closer. "Sohren might still be with us!"
"How dare you—"
"Enough!" Kael blazed. The lights in the hold flickered.
They all shut up. Looked at him. Doric and Isolde were nose to nose, fit to kill one another.
Kael looked at them all in confused frustration. His expression pained, all but pleading.
"Can somebody please tell me what's going on?"
Both Doric and Isolde fell silent, their faces a mask of guilt.
It was then that Sara stepped between them, pushing them aside; and began to speak, quietly.
Of the end times.
Of how they got here.
-
"Clear the logs. Everything. I want it wiped. Gone, you understand?
There was no colony. There was no uprising. There is nothing there other than what the scavvers will stumble across, years from now. A wreck. A wasted scrapyard.
A cinder, if needs be."
- Nef Anyo, addressing field logs received from the Dominant Position
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volt twisted the machete as he wrenched the blade free; letting the crewman's corpse tumble down and join so many others below. Kael looked back up the slope.
More and more drones piled over the top of the ziggurat. Filling the horizon. Burrowing clean through its corridors and emerging through the other side.
The Tenno had abandoned the channelling confines of the corridors to save Isolde. Instinctually it was natural. Estranged or not, she was one of their own.
Tactically it was an error.
For all their killing power the Moa swamped them; feet lashing; emitters spitting.
They tried to dam the flood. Atlas had built a bulwark across the face of the ziggurat; warping its smooth lines with ridged masses of ruptured stone. Kael had done the rest; hemming their flanks in with a line of shimmering shields that, while effective at absorbing the sheets of plasma fire, would not hold forever,
Isolde's Repeaters felled the Corpus in droves. Gone was the laughter now. She sweated as Mesa snapped from one target to the next. Still ever more came, eager to crush the Tenno against the side of the slope.
Moa leapt forth over the top of their improvised wall. Atlas and Mirage awaited them, tearing them off their feet. Stabbing and chopping and stamping. Ammunition had long run out; their plasma weapons overheating to the point of melting. Now it was blade work and bruising hand to hand.
Still more came. An endless tide of shrieking metal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"All hands, stand by."
Stren's throaty voice echoed over the com line. Both crews stood ready. The weapons crews shivered at their posts; wrapped against the freezing air as the barges droned toward the conflict. Respirators and environment masks were mandatory. Not enough holes in the hull had been plugged. The wind whistled freely through the hold; tugging at sleeves and buffeting any loose strapping.
"Firing solutions piping to your stations… now."
The scavengers rustled into action; cranking manual winches and sighting the cruder cannon by eye. Turret batteries swivelled on their axis. Targets were pre-sighted. Final adjustments were made.
"Stand by." There was an electronic squelch as the com-line cut out momentarily. All they could hear was their own nervous breathing; harsh and loud in the confines of their masks.
The ziggurat drifted into view below. A surging storm of plasma bolts, electricity and eldritch power that raged across its surface.
"Mines check." Stren's voice buzz-clicked.
In the belly hold of the Severance Package, Chief Engineer Lorna Rone and a fellow crewman took positions at either end of the release ramp. Between them were stacks of old power cores; improvised explosives and unexploded munitions. Anything that could be conceivably gathered, piled and weaponised clogged the cargo hold. Even the old shield core had been rigged; tied to a transmitter that would trigger the wider detonation sequence. They flashed each-other a thumbs up.
"Mines… standby."
The scavver-tech lacked polish or sophistication. It was a frontier craft, built for frontier work. Manual levers were hooked into latches securing the release ramp. Lorna braced herself for the order, shoulder pressed to the lever.
"Now!"
Both levers were hauled.
There was a metallic chunk as the release locks snapped open.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was only in a momentary snatch-glimpse through the melee that Kael spied the Severance Package rumbling in overhead. The cascade of tumbling objects that rained from its belly like silent hail.
"Down!" Kael roared.
The Tenno threw their Frames flat against the stone bulwark. At the last second Kael used the last of his power to throw up one final shield. He held it over his head. Braced himself.
Nothing happened.
There was no explosion. Not at first. The Severance's minelayer was an archaic wreck. Mines and scrap refuse fused with IED's rained down; bouncing noisily off the stonework and crushing drones beneath with the sheer weight of the descending impact. They dribbled freely across the far side of the ziggurat.
Or perhaps not. Kael looked up once more. The dispersal was not random at all. Far from it; the Severance made a complicated series of micro-adjustments in its course; pivoting just so. The ziggurat was being seeded with careful deliberation.
The drones possessed limited intelligence; they squawked as they hopped to and fro, unsettled by the metallic downpour; proximity sensors overloaded; the Tenno temporarily forgotten in the face of the unusual distraction.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Telin frowned. They could feel the Severance palpably lighten.
"What's happening?!"
Stren had no words. He was stabbing the trigger sequence; openly sweating. Either the transmitter to the munitions was malfunctioning, or the cores were failing to erupt from the concussive impact as they bounced off the ziggurat. The hold was almost empty.
Pohld spared a glance back at him, shrilling:
"Stren, for fug's sake man! You had one job!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tenno stayed pressed flat against the network. The noise of chunking debris was maddening. But there was no explosion, no dramatic kick-off. After a moment they looked at each other, hesitant; still pressed flat against the deck. Even the encroaching Corpus seemed perplexed, staring up at the curious vomiting barge.
Sara alone rose to her feet. Mirage cocked her head to one side, fists planted on her hips.
"Huh, is that it?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
They were all yelling at him now.
Stren was roaring blind curses, spitting at his console in abject frustration.
He brought his fist down on the console, once.
The faulty transmitter connected with a cheerful ping.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a shockwave.
Fully half of Watch Control disappeared in a mushroom cloud of blinding light.
The far side of the ziggurat simply vanished. Then more explosions, as the isolated duds triggered in a rippling, trembling chain reaction. The Boardroom at the summit was obliterated instantly. The detonation was all but visible from orbit. The shockwave flattened the Tenno; all save Atlas, who fell to his knees, such was the staggering force of the blast. Transference Static threatened to rip them from their Frames entirely.
Then the sound caught up with the fury of the violence. It hit them with a slap. A deafening roar. The Frames spasmed; systems overwhelmed by a fury that tested even their ab-human endurance.
The slope trembled. Entire sections of the façade simply shucked its surface coating; a descending tide of sifting rubble that passed either side of the Tenno's makeshift shelter. Drones were washed away by the surging tide of toppling rockwork. EMP did the rest. Drones clattered to the floor in spreading wave of flopping artifices.
Watch Control had been reduced to a blackened cinder; a cross-section of exposed rooms and twisted rubble; robbed of all shape or form. The Tenno blinked. Only their side of the ziggurat remained relatively intact, and even then it was a scorched mess.
"What the hell was that?!" Sara croaked, as Isolde's Frame hauled Mirage upright. Their shields sparked fitfully as they reasserted themselves.
Kael clambered to his feet, swiping charred pieces of drones from his shoulder plating. Each of the Tenno were caked in sooty grime. Charred flakes flitted down over them in an ashen blizzard.
"Reinforcements." Kael chuckled, as Volt dusted itself down.
Sara was livid, all but deafened by the explosion. Mirage stomped her foot; channelling her Operator's indignation.
"Reinforcements?! They damn nearly killed us!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The scopes were awash with smoke. Visibility was gone.
"Void's Teeth…" Kelpo blinked through the scope. "You think we over did it?"
There was the briefest of breaks in the oily fog. Large parts of the Citadel were simply gone. Broken drones layered its surface; their instrumentation pulverised by the shockwave.
Stren was still wheezing, tears rolling down his face.
"Solid hit!" He cackled. "Always hated that place!"
There was no time to celebrate. Corpus manufacturing was cut-price, but not without in-built redundancies. The stricken army began to recover; the surviving drone horde slowly rebooting and groggily finding its feet once more. Many limped lamely or simply fell back over, giving out. But for all the numbing violence, it was clear that the Board's army would not so easily be defeated.
It was now or never.
"Light 'em up!" Telin cried. "Hit 'em with everything we've got!"
Stren picked up the com-horn.
"All hands, weapons free!"
Turrets chattered to life, steaming into the Corpus army freely. Fire licked freely from the barrels of rotary cannons, as they raked churning beams in criss-crossing patterns across the dazed army.
In the distance, the Forward Transaction deployed its mine layer; carpet bombing the beleaguered Corpus invasion force as they stumbled through the hell-smoke. A lightshow of Corpus munitions struck out, venting into the Board's forces with ruthless intent.
Return fire was sporadic, scattered. Those crewmen still alive on the ground were entirely shell-shocked, stumbling through the haze in a stupor; ears bleeding. Senior crewmen went hoarse trying to marshal them. Hauling their fellows upright, bawling orders that conflicted from one second to the next. Their unit to unit communications were shot. Drone coordination was fried.
All was confusion. The only light sources were the rig-lights of the crewmen, and the probing searchlights coming from the marauding barges above. That and the downpour of tracer fire, which blazed like hellfire through curtaining black smoke. The Corpus officers slowly began rallying their fellow crewmen.
Shapes flitted through the mire toward them. Too fast to track; elusive, fleeting.
The Tenno cut them down; blades biting. Whispering nightmares that emerged, struck; and then vanished again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Telin sat forward in his chair, staring at the charred slag that had once been the ziggurat. It was as though some terrible god had taken a scoop to the side of the Temple, and dug at the Upper Tier with thinly disguised greed. They had definitely overdone it.
The scavenger shook himself, snapping out of his stunned silence.
"Take us in." He ordered. "We're on a clock here."
Pohld licked his lips, tipping the control yolk. The Severance dipped into a steep dive.
There was a lurching sensation as the Severance swept in low over the charred blast radius. Turrets droned and rattled, steaming drones off their feet. The crew slammed open firing ports; squeezing off shots into the horde with small arms fire. There was little aiming required, such was the density of targets available.
Impulse drives pulsed and wobbled as the barge slew to a halt, its belly all but tickling the ruined surface. The hull began to shudder from the multitude of impacts impacting the outer shield. It was their backup system; one ill-suited to for prolonged abuse. The Forward Transactionrove overhead; turrets describing a pulsing tide of spearing light as it lay down cover fire.
Direct coms were still soup; awash with static. Fortunately the Severance had been designed with more primitive redundancies of its own; a by-product of its looted heritage. Telin scooped up the old fashioned com-horn, broadcasting on the ship's PA.
"Kael if you can hear me haul ass!"
He waited, the com-horn in one hand.
There was a series of thumps as heavy objects landed on the roof of the barge from improbable angles. The plating banged twice.
Telin frowned, looked up.
"That you, kid?"
Another confirmation thump, more insistent.
"Works for me." Telin shrugged. He nodded at Pohld. "Get us out of here Pohld."
Pohld was sweating. The shield system was taking a pummelling.
"Gladly."
The Severance Package's engines blasted as it took off at maximum speed; bound for the horizon.
Kelpo pulled a switch. Volt and the other Warframes tumbled in from the top hatch at the rear of the bridge, landing in a clattering heap. The Warframes were scorched and blackened; filthy with soot.
Kael was the first to emerge from his Frame in a flash of light, his clothing remarkably pristine in contrast with the Frame behind him. His face was sheened with sweat, as Kelpo helped him up.
"We never asked for a rescue." he breathed, "But thank you."
"A rescue?" Telin arched an eyebrow and feigned surprise as he twisted about in his command chair. "Hear that Stren? You missed."
They laughed; as the Severance and its sister ship gunned for the horizon with all speed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the depths of the Lower Tier, a great and terrible force took a hold of the Central Elevator and shook it. The lights went out. The massive elevator ground to a jolting halt, throwing them off their feet. Murmured cries of alarm filled the air. The only light was from the startled faces of the mechanised; as they blinked blue confusion in the dark. They groped about in the dark, blind with panic.
Something had struck the colony, hard. It was not an orbital strike. The Board wouldn't risk their investment, not unless the situation was beyond repair. But Neera had no intention of sitting around waiting for things to deteriorate further.
Neera was on her feet before most of them. Orbital bombardment or not, there was no way she was sitting in this death trap any longer. She raised her voice above the chaos.
"C'mon! We have to move. Everybody off!"
They clambered for the small emergency egress tunnels that lined the edge of the elevator shaft. Neera found herself directing the evacuation, helping the more addled survivors collect themselves as they clambered in one by one.
She looked over at Sparks, at the back of the procession. The burly welder seemed distraught as he looked around.
"The trader." The Solaris rebel shook his head ruefully. "He's gone."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aboard the Dominant Position, Captain Theo Plun watched in sullen silence as fully a third of his forces vanished from the tactical display. The initial explosion had decimated the assault force. EMP had rendered many of the surviving units combat ineffective. That left him a combat force hovering around fifty percent efficiency, give or take. The dropships had largely been recalled; one of the few saving graces in this entire debacle.
Captain Plun considered the disposition of his forces. Still more than enough to take the colony, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, protocol was clear.
"Prepare a second wave." The Captain instructed Lieutenant Sel, crossing to the viewport. "Full production cycle. Drone units; the more you can give me the better."
Plun clasped his hands at the small of his back. He thought of the Tenno. The blast should have killed them. Must have killed them. Even so, he was an investor, not a gambler.
Risk would be mitigated. The Void demanded as much.
"Send word to the Board. Requesting contingency approval for planetary bombardment. Standard containment spread."
"Is that a bit extreme, Sir?" Sel asked hesitantly. "Our orders were to secure the colony, not destroy it."
"There are Tenno in our deployment zone." Captain Plun replied sternly. "Nothing is too extreme."
Plun's eyes narrowed, as he mused to himself.
"By the Void, we will take this colony, or bury them in its ashes."
-
"Consider the nature of the Body. Not as a fighting unit. As an organism.
Individual components can accomplish much. But as they band together, those cells become something more. A greater system. A machine, infinite in its complexity. More powerful than any single component.
You live here in isolation, servants of The House Eternal. Bound by a duty that others of your kind may never know, or understand. But make no mistake: you form part of that larger whole.
A single Cell, serving a wider cause. Your fates, intertwined.
You are Tenno. Bound by the Void. Bound as one.
Know this, and you will never walk alone."
- Trainer, addressing the Tenno of the House Eternal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tenno fell back into the ziggurat.
Kael backpedalled; the electric shield in his hands shuddering under the weight of incoming fire. Doric and Sara blazed shots over his shoulder. A Hyena tried leaping over the rim of the shield, skittering across the wall; only to be wrenched to the floor with a searing crack of Mirage's whip; legs scrabbling for purchase as it was wrenched off its feet. Volt blasted it with a surge of power from his finger-tips. It shrieked in synthetic pain, stricken.
Doric brought Atlas' mighty fist down upon it; a single savage slap. There it lay; imprinted in the stonework. Doric raised his other hand. The floor around it burst upward; sealing the corridor ahead of them shut; fusing the Hyena directly inside it; its front paw twitching plaintively.
That bought them a moment. They could hear a thousand feet scrambling across the surface of the ziggurat. Skittering like ants over an abandoned picnic. Soon they would choke the other entrances, surging inside. If the Tenno fell, then Central Elevator would be in Corpus hands.
More time. They had to buy more time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mesa stopped at the edge of the battlefield.
Most of the clearing was open field now. A ruinous moonscape of craters carpeted with broken drones and littered dead. The ziggurat itself was a heaving blur of drones. Its surface teemed with their numbers; shimmering and shivering like a hive.
Corpus infantry established a careful perimeter; letting the proxies exhaust themselves as they continued to pile into the temple in industrial quantities. A wall of them lay between her and her Cell; establishing plasma mortars and marshalling an array of short range artillery Moa.
So intent were they on securing the ziggurat that they never thought to look behind them. Nobody paid Isolde any attention as Mesa strode across the smoking clearing; her cloak flitting and snapping in the wind behind her. Her hands extended out by her sides, palms upraised. On she strode: a deliberate, even pace. Her targeting system mapped targets calmly; logging targets as the muscles of her frame tensed. Her forearm glowed in anticipation. A small mote of light appeared before her; circling her. Her index fingers twitched, twice.
The Regulators spun free of their elbow mountings with a metallic snap; locking smoothly into Mesa's palms.
The closest Corpus spun around, caught flat-footed by the unexpected sound behind them.
Mesa cocked her head to one side; a wordless sneer.
Giving the Corpus just enough time to soil themselves.
Showtime.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Atop the ziggurat; Doric's summoned Titan mewled in frustration as Hyena models pounced from all sides; latching on and biting deep with plasma incisors. It roared, swatting one or two aside; before the Void's hold gave out. The golem fell apart; an avalanche of cascading rock that tumbled freely down the ziggurat; sending many of the Hyena screeching to their deaths.
The Tenno looked up in unison.
"Not good." Sara grimaced.
"For once we agree." Doric locked a new magazine into the top of his Soma rifle. Empty magazines cluttered the floor, vying for space with steaming casings.
Kael was too focused on the drones flooding in from the other entrances; swamping the inner annex before them. There was no end to them.
Warframes did not tire. Their muscle was adaptive Technocyte; their skin hardened sword-steel. Yet there was only so much power a Tenno could draw upon, without rest; allowing that conduit to breath, even if just for a moment. He raised a hand to blast another knot of charging Moa. The fizzle of power was pathetic.
He drew his machete once more. It was notched and pitted; a sorry, broken thing. It would have to do.
The Tenno met the drones head one; surging into the swarm; blades biting, fists flashing. Rock crunched against metal and sparks flew; as geysers of coolant painted the walls in great splashing arcs.
A desperate last stand, against odds they had not seen since The Old War.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Isolde was amongst them before the Corpus noticed her. Before the Regulators sang their murderous song. They were ornate pistols, meticulously engineered; carved with Orokin precision.
With Orokin precision they found their mark; sweeping from one direction to the next; criss-crossing before Mesa. Bodies fell. Drones were wrenched from the sky; blown asunder. Around and around she spun, dancing between them; sidestepping bodies as they toppled by. The bloodied rag tied about her waist soon found company in the ground around her.
A dance of death. A murderous waltz. Mesa twirled and wove through the rank and file; the gun-kata guided by the Void itself. Shaping her movements, weaving her from harm; her aim snapping from one target to the next. The Regulators screamed at fever pitch. Then they snapped back into their moorings; steaming hot smoke as the Void released its furious grip.
To linger was death. She was one amidst a thousand. It was move and kill, or stay and die.
Mesa leapt high into the air; a conflicting light show of beams chasing her though the air. She rolled smoothly into a crouch; leapt again, drawing the Pyrana and nikana smoothly. They too found a rhythm of their own. The Pyrana gnashing out; punching crewmen off their feet. The blade, opening stomachs and removing the limbs of anyone who dared close the gap. Move and kill. Kill and move. Again and again she leapt; raining a storm of shots down upon the army as she danced between them.
Isolde ripped through the foe, blitzing her way up the stairs.
Corpus cursed their luck with thinly disguised panic. Weapons inexplicably jammed. An invisible force took a hold of energy cells and snapped them free; or scrambled the targeting matrices of the drones as they thrilled at the sight of a such an outnumbered target. And yet their shots were confounded by a force unseen; often finding their allies who screamed as they were cut down.
The Corpus tried to rush her, to knock the flowing gunfighter off her feet. If the Pyrana did not find them; the nikana certainly did. Men fell in component pieces; wounds steaming in the cold air as they fell apart.
By rights it was a suicidal charge, born of anger and grief. It should not have worked. But surprise and power are two commodities that can make the difference between success or failure in any battle. The Board's army were turned, off-balance. She was but a single target, leaping and striking amongst them.
And yet for all its bravery, Isolde's charge would not work forever. For all of Mesa's lethal potency, numbers would decide the outcome. There were simply too many. When the Corpus army asserted itself, she would be worn down eventually.
Isolde didn't care. Her heart thrilled at the rush of combat. For years she had starved herself of the Warframe's embrace. Its power, its speed; its raw lethality. It was the vessel, and she the storm within.
On and on she killed; cutting a bloody swathe through the army that reeled from the killer in its midst.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The drones before the Tenno skittered and skidded on the floor. A new order swept the command line, wheeling them about. They surged back out of the annex as quickly as they had appeared.
"Anyone care to explain?" Sara asked aloud.
They heard the buzzing rattle of the Regulators long before they heard the laughter beyond.
They paused. It had been centuries since they had seen her.
"What are we waiting for?" Mirage looked at the others.
"Isolde made her decision long ago." Doric said, the wariness in his voice clear. "She fights for herself."
"And yet she's here." Kael replied, Volt nodding at them each in turn. "Same as Sara. Same as you."
"You never saw what she did." Doric cautioned him. "What she's capable of. She's a killer."
"We're all killers." Kael replied fiercely. "She just happens to enjoy it more than most."
Sara was already running, eager to see her friend once more.
Atlas' shoulders dipped in resignation.
"I hate it when she does that." Doric sighed.
They took off after her.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drones above. Drones to the sides. A sea of Corpus below. Regulators flashed and clacked dry and locked back once more.
Isolde thought of Vern, broken and blinded on a machine shop floor; a nikana driven through his chest.
She snarled. The Pyrana snarled with her.
Odds be damned. Let them come. She'd bury them all.
Her rage blinded her. The Void's protection eased, if only for a split second.
The lapse in concentration cost her dearly. A dozen bolts slammed into her from all directions. Mesa twisted and spun; shields fizzling. Blood splattered the steps below her; Technocyte knotted itself to seal the trauma. Transference feedback spiked. Isolde felt the animal pain as her own. She screamed; the Frame shivering in agony as she rolled onto her back.
The Pyrana was still in her hand; defiantly seeking targets. A wall of drones swarmed up toward her. Isolde hissed, taking aim.
A twisting ball of curling light speared through their midst before she had a chance to fire.
Then a shape of blinding speed dove past her; a storm of electric power pulsing from it. Boulder after boulder tumbled by her either side, slamming into the army beyond.
Mirage appeared above her. Isolde froze; blinking up at the hand extended to her.
"On your feet!" Sara roared. "There's a battle to win!"
Mesa clasped Mirage's wrist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pohld the Helmsmen glanced back from his console as he eased forward on the throttle. He was a mousy fellow, with a jittery disposition that stood at odds with his focus at the helm.
"Can I just note for the record, before we get started? This is a terrible idea."
"Truly terrible." Teico nodded sagely.
"Awful." Stren agreed, before nonchalantly flicking a switch on his panel. "Weapons armed."
"If you all think this is a terrible idea, why on Earth were you cheering?" Kelpo asked, aghast.
Stren's bushy eyebrows knitted as he jerked a thumb back at Telin, who was growing steadily more unsure of himself with each passing moment.
The haggard weapons officer offered a shabby shrug.
"Well... good speech, wunnit?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Captain Theo Plun's memory was reliable, in the sense that he was detail orientated. He had been a naval officer for as long as he could remember, as long as he was permitted to remember, at any rate. There were certain contractual obligations which forbade him from recalling anything prior to his service. Still, he had an eye for these things. Knew how to read a battle, its ebb and flow. Had cultivated that innate sense of when a push was going their way, or when further commitment was required.
He understood deployments. Troop movements, logistics; these were his specialty. He had gone nose to nose with Grineer frontline pickets more than once in his career; marshalling ground forces as the war frigates exchanged slug after slug with the Grineer galleons.
Captain Plun looked down at his XO, Lieutenant Sel.
"Explain to me, in very simple terms, what is happening below."
Sel simply shook his head in amazement, the expression on his tattooed face utterly baffled.
By rights they should be winning. By rights the colony should be theirs now. Its people brought to heel, any semblance of resistance broken. Instead his army were tangled in a battle that gripped the Upper Tier. The rest of the colony lay in open anarchy, entirely unchecked. Every conceivable deadline had been missed. The Board had expectations of him. Expectations that he, Theon Plun, was failing to meet.
Further failure would not be tolerated.
Before Captain Plun could act, something caught the younger officer's attention.
"Sir, unidentified civilian barges moving toward the ziggurat at speed."
"What?!"
The holo-display told no tales. Two radar contacts, previously greyed out on surface scans as being mere civilian rif-raff, flared an angry red. They steadily beeped as they inched closer and closer to the heart of the battle.
The angry colouration of the display meant only one thing.
Weapon signatures detected.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the heart of the Orokin Barge, Eythan Dax took a knee before the shadowy throne. The blood dripping from his broken nose had healed, but his armour was burnt and scarred. Its golden lustre was gone entirely. His cheeks burned in shame.
No Dax should ever leave their weapon behind. Even if instructed otherwise.
The room was dark. It was always kept this way. The only light came from the underlit pools of water that lined the edge of the chamber; their reflection danced high against the ceiling. That and the gold of the Dax honour guard that lined the chambers; long fluted halberds in their hands. Each were worthy warriors; hand picked and trained by Eythan himself over the centuries.
The Royal Guard of the House Eternal.
The Last Cadre.
A melodious voice drifted down at him from the shadows.
"You look worse for wear, Eythan Dax."
"An unexpected obstacle, my Lord." Eythan Dax's eyes were locked on the floor. "I dealt with it."
"And our message?"
Eythan thought of his prized sword. His eye twitched as he nodded.
"Delivered, as instructed."
An icy chuckle filled the air.
"Excellent. Now all we need do is wait."
"Have your men make ready. We're about to have guests, and they may not be polite."
Eythan Dax rose to his feet; one arm folded against his breastplate as he bowed.
"As you command, Lord Septimus."
-
"… and from that pain, rage."
- Trainer, addressing the Tenno of the House Eternal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The shelves were cluttered with all manner of bric-a-brac. A wide variety of Moa heads were mounted on the wall, arrayed and displayed less like a trophy cabinet, and more like an accessories store. From patrol units to simple janitorial support. This was the part of the Upper Tier unseen by the wealthy and proud. The necessary storehouse that kept their machines running, and their perfect lives functioning smoothly without interruption. Beneath the display cases were boxes of spare parts: a butcher's array of synthetic limbs and cybernetic chassis. There were small boxes of joints, focusing lenses; rotator servos big and small; all manner of odds and ends.
Enough to save Brakarr's life. Parson-Luk was almost finished with his repairs when the boxes began to rattle in unison. Then the entire shop began vibrate. Cybernetic limbs fell from their hooks, clattering against the floor. Parson-Luk looked up from the task at hand. The Ostron's ear twitched; his nostrils sniffing.
A ship, hovering at low altitude.
Parson-Luk rose to his feet, a wicked recurve dagger in his hand. He left Brakarr slumped by the wall, hidden behind a large shape covered by a tarpaulin.
The door hissed open.
A ship hung overhead. Parson-Luk marvelled at its unusual organic curvature. He had seen its kind come and go from Cetus over the years. Had more recently seen one buried beneath the ice, a hole shot clean through its bow. A Liset, Isolde had called it once; when she first invited them aboard.
This one was intact. It was familiar; dressed in red and black. It hovered in the air by the Northern Landing Pad. A metal figure dropped from its belly, automatically finding its feet. It rose to stand where it was, its head dipped; inert.
Isolde stepped from the shadows; stripped to her simple body-glove. Her eyes were red rimmed, baleful slits. Bruises studded her exposed arms. A golden nikana was clamped in her hand; a bloodied crimson rag in the other. The buildings behind her were ablaze. An ugly pillar of coiling smoke rose in the air before the ribbed Orokin barge that shimmered through the haze.
Parson-Luk had seen her Warframe before, in those unguarded moments where Isolde had allowed them aboard, to sit with her and work on improving Brakarr's augmentations.
For Brakarr it was life-saving. Grineer lives were short-lived; could only be prolonged through extensive and intrusive cyberization. For Isolde it was practice. Her Warframe's skin had been extensively modified; stripped and rebuilt with every successive rework of Brakarr's systems. The Grineer design influence shone heavily, tempered by the Tenno's more streamlined aesthetic.
Gone was the Orokin finery. It was dressed in jet black; complimented by dark strokes of crimson. A single bulky ocular lens was mounted over where one eye should have been. The face itself was an impassive mask of smooth crimson metal. A hooded red cloak flitted in the breeze.
It was a keep sake, a trophy from an era long forgotten. Never once had Parson-Luk seen it removed from its display stand in the heart of the Liset.
Even in the direst circumstances she had refused to deploy it; preferring instead to rely solely on her Void tricks and her own brand of lethal improvisation. Vern had never questioned it, never forced the issue. The Grineer and the Ostron similarly respected her wishes. She was dangerous enough without it.
Isolde ignored Parson-Luk as he approached, cautiously. Her focus was entirely on the metal figure before her. She tied the bloodied rag around its waist. Parson-Luk recognised her cloak; frayed and charred as it was. It was soaked with blood, that still dripped and pattered on the deck at her feet. The blood was not her own.
A profound sense of dread overtook the Ostron hunter. She sensed him, finally acknowledged him with the briefest of nods.
"It's funny." She smiled a brittle smile at the floor. "When the war ended, I entered my great sleep. I made a promise. That when I awoke and the world had forgotten the Old War, I would live for myself.
She cinched the knot tighter.
"That I would never wear their puppet again."
She spoke softly, running her finger along the sleek lines of its arm. Her finger glowed as she traced it down the forearm; all but caressing it. The Warframe's fingers twitched.
"By rights I should have buried it, left it alone. Instead it has followed me wherever I've gone; a box on a shelf. Forgotten, but never cast aside."
She looked at Parson-Luk.
"Perhaps it was weakness. Sentimentality of some kind." She looked up at the Warframe's faceplate.
"I saw it as a burden." The loathing in her voice was palpable as her eyes narrowed. "I was a fool."
"I know better now. This is who I am. The weapon I was meant to be."
"What happened, Surah?" he asked hesitantly.
Isolde closed her eyes. Her grip on the nikana tightened. Tears pulsed down her cheeks. She sobbed.
Vern then. It defied belief.
The bones of Parson-Luk's necklace jangled as he swamped her with a hug. She flinched at the unfamiliar affection, arms rigid by her sides. He was struck by just how small she was. For a moment he thought of his own daughter. His throat tightened.
Then she was gone; fading into the Void itself. The nikana clanged to the deck.
The Warframe's head rose up. The ocular lens projected a single yellow targeting circle, as it became live once more.
Isolde-as-Mesa looked up at the looming Orokin barge. At the ziggurat, coated in fire; teeming with Corpus. The dropships that drifted above the smoking ruins of the Upper Tier; piercing the gloom with their searchlights. Her ocular lens tagged targets, marking them each in turn. Methodical, systematic.
The Pyrana at its side was a snarling short range repeater. It whirled and flashed in her hands as she twirled it about. It whipped back into its holster with a snap. Mesa rolled its neck about, cracking imaginary tendons. Awakening, after so many years dormant.
Mesa retrieved the nikana from the floor with a metallic scrape; sliding it into the rags at the small of her back.
Isolde's voice carried a harsh metallic echo as it issued from the Warframe.
"I'll wear it now. I'll wear it now and I'll bury them. The House Eternal, the Exchange. Even the damned Board. In the name of Terrenus Vern, I'll bury them all."
She stalked toward the ziggurat, her voice carrying over her shoulder.
"But I won't do it alone."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Severance Package and Forward Transaction reported green on all systems. They idled at the edge of the Upper Tier, far from the chaos of the ziggurat.
Telin smiled as Kelpo and Stren appeared on the bridge.
"You know, Kelp; I'm beginning to think we're not getting paid for finding that contract."
"You think?"
"Mm, call it a hunch." Telin scratched at his cheek.
"Could be worse." Kelpo shrugged as he joined him by the viewport. "Got a barge out of it."
"Yeah." Telin snorted. "Finally have our own ship, our own crew. Good timing for a suicide mission, I reckon. Baby steps, and all that."
"You were always ambitious, Tel. Never said you were smart."
Telin grinned.
"So how we lookin'?"
"Guns loaded. Shields are running, but for how long is anyone's guess." Kelpo was blunt. "Crews ready; far as I can tell. But don't push it. This is going to have to be an in and out job."
"Like the old Proximus Contract." Telin raised an aside eyebrow.
"Don't remind me." Kelpo chuckled. "I still have the scars."
"Well here's to a few more, buddy."
They bumped knuckles.
Kelpo took a station beside Stren, who was now fully absorbed with the readout of the munitions station.
Telin settled back in the command throne. The ziggurat was awash in Void energy. Boulders ran freely down its sloping face; pulverising the advancing Corpus below. At its summit, a rock giant raged; stomping and bellowing; swatting at flitting drones that needled it from above. Telin was long past questioning how any of it made sense.
The Tenno did as they did. Telin Voss was just a humble scavenger. Who just so happened to owed one of them his life. Telin had scraped and scrapped through most of his life. Often poor, seldom comfortable. Never once had he been in debt.
He wasn't about to start now.
Telin flicked the broadcast button on the command chair. Open broadcast; all channels, all decks.
"Right, we doing this?" Telin asked, addressing the bridge casually.
The crew murmured a vague affirmative.
"Really? That's the best you've got?" Telin thumped his fist against the arm rest, indignant. "C'mon now; we're about to make history. Are we doing this?"
A louder cheer, more heartfelt this time. Telin shook his head.
"Not good enough. Look out there. Just look. A thousand drones. More box-heads and warranties than I rightly know what to do with. Some see an army. I see opportunity. Circuits, scrap; spare parts in bulk. An ocean of salvage."
Telin was on his feet now. He crossed to the viewport. His eyes were narrowed; voice laden with contempt.
"The Board forget about us. They write us off. Subcontractors. Starving on the lowest rung, begging for scraps. Hired help, they call us. Cheap. Disposable. Expendable. No longer."
Telin's eyes were infused with a zeal Kelpo had never seen. A lifetime of small indignities, of freezing their sorry hides in the most inhospitable climate. Anger, frustration; rage. It all came welling up, spilling forth in a blazing fire:
"Two barges against an army! The stuff of songs; of legends! The Board won't see us coming, they won't know our names; but by the howling Void we'll make damn sure they remember when we send them there!"
Telin looked at each of the crew in turn. His voice was strong and clear; eyes fierce:
"So I ask you; one last time: are we doing this?"
The crew howled.
-
"And who are We
Those that should be alone?
Without songs or stories;
A Hearth of our own?
The Unum's Chosen
A Many from a Few
A Clade without Kinsmen
With the Plains for a View…"
- excerpt from Ostron Poem, source unknown
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In a utility depot near the Northern Landing Pad, Parson-Luk's hands worked quickly.
He was not a technologically advanced man, but understood the necessity of field repairs. A weakness in the snare could let slip even the smallest prey. For all the primitive trappings of the hunter, Parson-Luk possessed a keen mind that belied his outward savagery. The welder in his hands sealed the largest of the gouges in the Grineer's war rig. The workmanship was amateur, but tidy.
His needlework was better; careful stitches holding shut the more angry lacerations in the Grineer's weeping side.
This was not unexpected.
He had been a Fisherman, before he was a Hunter.
Brakarr was gene-kin. His mortal enemy. They had met on the Plains. Had damned near killed each other, at first. Parson-Luk had been a young hunter then. Proud, full of piss and fire, as all young hunters are. The Grineer threatened his home. They threatened Cetus, and the Unum that watched over them all.
Killing them was more than sport. It was an obsession. Brakarr's unit had been yet another advance recon force, striking out in the days long before the Grineer established a foothold right on the Ostron's very doorstep. They were in an unfamiliar land, then; undocumented.
His territory, not theirs. The Ostron had stalked them one by one; his looted Grinlok rifle puncturing armoured shells and finding the soft clone-flesh beneath. Until there were only two of them left: the giant and the hunter.
The duel had lasted fully a full day and night. Brakarr his munitions exhausted, Parson-Luk, scared out of his wits by the relentless giant that simply would not die. Eventually the tracker's knowledge of the terrain had won out: the Grineer found itself tangled in a charc-snare at the base of a pit; beset on all sides by wild kubrow, hellbent on defending their nest. Frenzied with pain, the Grineer bawled in anguished fury as they pounced.
Parson-Luk had watched from afar as the giant smash the feral hounds down one by one. For all his rage, they had numbers; and could sense death. They chased it with open jaws.
Parson-Luk watched the Grineer fight to the last; a buzzing knife in its hands; all but blinded by the shimmering charge of the fizzling charc-snare. As the fight drew on and on, a curious feeling took over. Pity, tinged with begrudging admiration. The Grinlock sounded three times.
The first shot took the Kubrow alpha in the throat. The second and third felled the other in quick succession. The rest of the pack fled; yelping. They knew the sound of Parson-Luk's rifle all too well. The Grineer had scrambled to its feet, finally freed of that damned net. It rounded about in confusion. It spied Parson-Luk downwind on the hill, the rifle in his hands.
The Grineer was caught dead to rights in the open; a sitting Condroc.
The Ostron had tapped his brow in salute, turned and left.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Grineer walked him through the repairs. Pointing at this feed tube or leaking pipe. His breath was laboured, but stable. Parson-Luk shushed the Grineer as he fussed over yet another stitch.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Their paths crossed again a month later. A hunt had gone wrong.
It was a silly thing; a moment of absentmindedness that should have cost the Ostron his life.
There was no moon in the sky, back then. But that evening the Void light was beautiful and shimmering. It twisted on the horizon; glinting off the lake beside him; distracting him. The hunter's right ankle went straight down into a Kuaka burrow; twisting badly. He hissed in pain; trapped. He cursed his clumsy stupidity.
The pool of water beside him began to shimmer and bubble. Arcane tendrils of light rose into the air above, twisting fragments of starlight from the ancient past. Terror gripped him like a vice.
An Eidolon; a shambling husk of Sentient debris. Dull and witless; so easily avoided. So capable of immense destruction. Parson-Luk tried to pull his leg free, with ever-mounting panic. It was firmly wedged.
He began to frantically dig; clawing at the earth with chipped fingernails.
An immense pair of mechanical hands gripped him by the shoulders. Parson-Luk yelped in surprise.
The giant Grineer hauled him free with a single mighty tug. It threw him over one shoulder, and began sprinting in the opposite direction of the lumbering shape that arose from the boiling water.
They broke bread that night in a cave overlooking the Eidolon that raged and meandered across the plains, its plaintive wails splitting the night's air, haunting them as it shook the ground with each ponderous step. The meal was entirely provided by Parson-Luk's own rations.
Parson-Luk had little choice in the matter; his ankle was a swollen wreck.
Trapped as he was, through narrowed eyes and thinly veiled suspicion, the hunter established a rudimentary level of understanding. A dialogue began. The Grineer watching him with those rheumy eyes; orange like hot coals.
Slowly, Parson-Luk learned the Grineer's story. It had gone feral. It had no weapon, and was proving a miserable hunter. It was starving; had been living off what slow witted creatures it could hastily blunder upon in a moment of weakness.
Parson Luk's ankle healed quickly; enough that he could hobble about; demonstrating the basics of quiet movement. It looked ridiculous, to see the lumbering beast mimick his own movements. Yet the Grineer seemed sincere in his desire to learn.
He learned its name was Brakarr. That it was something called a Bombard.
At first Parson-Luk told himself that his tutelage was out of necessity. Keep the beast happy, or get his head caved in. Different rationalisations took shape. It was a priceless opportunity to observe his enemy; to see how they quickly they learned, how swiftly they could adapt in adverse circumstances. And yet there was something more. A kind of respect, from one survivor to another.
The teachings provided Parson-Luk with a satisfaction he had not expected; his lessons became more technical in their instruction.
Parson-Luk would learn later that Brakarr was a defect. An Aberrant, to borrow the Grineer's insistent use of the term. There were other Aberrant; some intellectually stunted, others still entirely pacifist. Most were exterminated as soon as they were detected, by decree of the Queens that ruled their Empire with an iron fist. But Brakarr was intelligent; knew how to toe the Empire's line.
He was Grineer, Bombard class; blessed with enormous physical strength; but precious few skills beyond brute power and an eagerness to use it. He served because it was expected of him. He fought because that is simply what Grineer did.
This was an opportunity to become something more. Brakarr seized it.
The Ostron taught the Grineer basics of field craft, of stalking and camouflage. Partly so the brute could feed them, and partly to hide him from the Grineer patrols that routinely swept these hills. Days passed, the Grineer returning to their meagre shelter with a poorly speared fish, or a half starved Kuaka.
As time progressed, the Grineer's yield steadily improved. He would appear back at the cave, a brace of fish dangling on the simple lines the hunter had prepared. Parson-Luk would then teach him how to dress the fish, or the most effective means of flaying the small rodents and game the Grineer managed to wrangle in its solitary adventures.
By the fourth day, Parson-Luk was mobile enough to return to Cetus. He smiled at the Grineer, shaking his head. The Grineer had fashioned himself a cloak of Condroc feathers, that did little to hide the scabbed armour plating beneath. He looked ridiculous, but the hunter felt proud of him despite himself.
The Hunter bade the Bombard farewell, clapping him on the shoulder; setting off for Cetus with a long stick for support. He returned to his home, where his daughter awaited him. His wife had been lost seasons past, and he was needed by the fires of the hearth. He often thought of his unlikely friend, as he listened to the elders by the fire preach of the importance of friendship; of the ties that bound.
It was with a tinge of disappointment that Parson-Luk returned to the cave, some three weeks later, to find it abandoned. The fire had been put out, as if in a tremendous hurry. The bones had been piled neatly in a corner. Stacked in a heap, for use in a broth later. Just as he instructed.
The Ostron shook his head, bemused but surprised at how saddened he felt. He had hoped to see the shambling lummox again.
The Karak rifle clacked behind him, startlingly loud in the confines of the cave. The Tusk Lancer barked something harsh and unintelligible through its filtered mask. Two more of its comrades emerged from deeper in the cave; weapons trained. They were dressed in camouflaged livery; had used the soot from the fire to dull the edges of their armour, masking its shine.
An ambush then, Parson-Luk was livid with himself.
Of course the Grineer had betrayed him. A Hyekka didn't stop being dangerous just because you fed it once in a while. He cursed himself for his naivety.
Brakarr emerged from the shadows with a rock in his hands. The only sound made was the crunch of Grineer battle-plate as he stove in the skull of one of the Grineer troopers. Then the rifle was in Brakarr's hands. Brakarr unloaded on fully automatic as he charged with a bellowing roar. The Grineer scout team panicked, diving in all directions; hard rounds whickering and spanking off their armour as he closed the gap.
Then the brute was upon them. These were field troopers; rangy scouts. There was no physical contest. Armour dented. Bones splintered.
"Parson-Lurk!" Brakarr beamed up at the stricken Ostron hunter, caked in gore. The cave was littered with fallen Grineer. "Brakarr lurk too!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parson-Luk smiled at the memory, as he finished the last seal on the Grineer's battered chassis. That had been over a decade ago. Since then his daughter had taken ill, as her mother before her. Medicine was required. Expensive medicine. That meant contract work. That meant off world.
Brakarr had stubbornly followed him every step of the way since.
The Ostron made a pact with himself, as he worked on the next stitch. His hands were caked in gore and spilled coolant.
They would see this hunt through, together.
They would see the Plains again.
-
"War teaches in startling contrast. Heroism and cowardice. Our capacity for courage, against odds insurmountable. Of cruelty, meted out without the merest hesitation.
It teaches you friendship. Of ties that bond.
And when those same bonds are severed; pain..."
- Trainer, addressing the Tenno of The House Eternal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
A stray plasma round finally struck Doric from the sky. The starboard engine of his Archwing gave out; chugging smoke. Sending him into a wild corkscrewing tailspin straight into the deck.
Mirage twisted about, watching as the twisting shape descended into the midst of the Corpus army.
"Doric!" Sara cried.
The Archwing did not explode when it impacted. Instead, it punched clean through the skin of the Upper Tier, burying itself like a meteor. Corpus forces rushed over the cooling impact site; a churning sea of Moa, interspersed with the occasional Hyena hunter and scrambling crewman.
Something burst forth from the crater. A tumbling boulder. It ploughed through the swarm, flattening all in its path. Moas shrieked moments before they were buried beneath the descending wall of rock. The crowds backed away, self-preservation protocols kicking in and sending the Moa skidding in all directions, shrilling and bleating. All too late.
Atlas arose from the smoking ruins: proud and tall; streaming pieces of the Elytron harness as it fell away in ragged smoking chunks. A Hyena shrieked and pounced. Atlas turned its shimmering gaze upon it. The air warped and vibrated with arcane energy.
The Hyena froze in place; shivering as the lustre of its metallic sheen hardened and crackled; condensing to frozen rock.
Doric-as-Atlas shattered it with a single upper-cut. It burst in a thousand cascading pebbles.
Doric strode toward the ziggurat amidst the confusion. He paused. The Warframe was a lumbering titan, its mighty shoulders all but swallowing its neck. The Frame raised a single fist in the air. A salute to cherished comrades. A command all of its own.
A giant arose from the twisting dun smoke behind him. A single monstrous rock golem; a towering behemoth that quivered with primal rage. Parts of the shattered drones were infused in the rock. It was a ghastly, towering thing. It dwarfed even Atlas.
Atlas glanced back at it. It rumbled obediently.
Doric simply pointed at the ziggurat.
The golem brayed a challenge; surging forth into the Corpus army. Drones and bodies were smashed aside; tossed like ragdolls and broken articula as it charged headlong for the temple.
Atlas followed; crushing anyone who had the temerity to stand in his way.
Kael and Sara pounced; ripping towards their comrade with thinly disguised impatience. Blades sang and blood flew.
Caught on both sides, the Corpus on the ziggurat panicked; between a literal rock and a hard place.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vern slapped a new mag home, dropping to one knee and snapping off shot after shot at the relentless Dax. Eythan advanced steadily; blade flashing. The gap between them shrank once more. Vern had no intention of getting cornered again.
Vern flicked a puck-shaped charge out behind him. It mag-locked to the wall; cheeping twice. Then it erupted with a flash; bringing the wall down in a chunking avalanche of descending masonry. The fire suppression system shivered to life; hosing them in a fine hissing mist.
Vern melted away into the twisting smoke, methodically reloading.
The Dax surged out of the fog before him; lighting quick. The Lex was slapped aside. A golden hand encased his throat once more. Lifted him clean off his feet.
Eythan Dax studied him coldly. His armour was scorched and pitted from where Vern's rounds had found their mark; embedded in the golden armour. Water dribbled freely down his sneering face.
"Impressive, for a mercenary." The golden warrior tilted his head with an avian curiosity. " A different era, you might have even made a worthy Dax..."
The squeeze on Vern's neck tightened.
"…such a pity."
"Gold's not my colour." Vern spat. He snatched at something on his belt.
The flashbang was not intended as a melee weapon. Even with all his enhancements, it deafened Vern as he slammed it into the side of the Dax's head. The two men separated; the golden warrior staggering; gauntleted hands clamped to his visor.
Vern's cybernetic eyes recovered far faster. Disorientated, eardrums bleeding; Vern saw his window. He took it.
The mercenary grabbed the nearest object to hand; a remote extinguisher canister. He swung it as a club. Metal met metal with a resounding hollow clang that pealed like a cathedral bell. Once, twice; a third time. The entire unit broke apart; spraying them both with foam. A chunk of the Dax's wide-brimmed helmet was fully dented inward. Miraculously, the Dax stayed on his feet.
Vern didn't hesitate. Discipline was everything. The takedown was an essential skill for any hand to hand practitioner. This was a man; a preternaturally strong and agile man; but a man nonetheless. The twisting throw put the golden warrior neatly over Vern's shoulder; slamming him into the ground. Then Vern was on him; his fists pulverising the Dax's face; again and again.
A golden hand clamped Vern's fist in place. There was a lance of searing, crushing pain as the wiring approximating a nervous system overloaded, then crumbled altogether. A numbness took over. Vern snarled and flashed in the elbow of his other arm. Eythan's nose broke with an audible crunch. The grip released. Vern continued striking with both hands. Anything to inflict damage. Vern would rip the man's damned throat out with his teeth if he had to.
Eythan Dax was not lacking in grappling skill. His legs locked around Vern's midsection; locking tightly. With a rolling twist the Dax muscled Vern aside. The two rolled apart; both blooded, both gasping for breath.
The Dax pointed his blade at Terrenus Vern. Blood coursed from the ruin of the Dax's nose. His cheek had burst, and a spiderweb of cracks coursed their way across the surface of his gilded visor. There were no lofty threats or grandiose statements, not anymore.
Only ruthless intent; simmering rage.
Vern had little left than a humble combat knife. He settled low into a knife-fighters stance; the blade pointed downward. Unflinching, ever the patient hunter.
His broken hand drifted to the small of his back; to the last remaining tool in his arsenal. Ruined fingers twitched feebly as they closed around it.
A single grenade; small and potent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kelpo walked the Severance Package, making his rounds with Stren. He had stepped into the role of XO by dint of his association with the Tenno, but word of his commitment during the boarding action had spread quickly. The men and women of the Severance nodded at him as he passed, looking up from their welding kits and firing ports. Stren explained the nuances as they went; pointing out structural weaknesses and firing arcs of the various weapons; and their various crews. Making introductions where needed. Should anything happen to him, Stren wanted the lad briefed on how the ship worked.
Blood coated the walls where various munitions had pierced the outer hull; fully vaporising those unfortunate enough to be caught beyond. The crew had done their best, patching the hull as best they could; washing the decks down with soapy water, but these wounds were deep. They would scar, or else damn the barge entirely.
Loading crews bustled to and fro, lumping heavy panniers of munitions for the Grineer-based weaponry. Cells were locked down; activated with a keening hum. Even the boarding javelins were reloaded; their securing winches cinched tight and locked down.
Engineering managed to bring the shield system back online within something approaching normal levels, but even then it was painfully fragile; a jury-rigged fix that would either save the ship from external fire or else blow it up entirely.
Battered, scarred and bruised; the Severance Package made ready with its sister ship; poised on the edge of the Upper Tier.
In the distance, the war for the ziggurat raged on, oblivious to the two ragged ships on the horizon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The elevator droned ever downward. The Mid-Tier was choked with bodies. The Low Tier was all but abandoned, as they descended deeper into the colony. The Watch had been severely outnumbered and surprised, but they had beam weapons and tight firing channels. The price paid to subdue them had been savagely high.
It was perhaps merciful that the Solaris' view was often blocked by the vast infrastructure that supported the central elevator.
Prospect 141 was in a state of open anarchy. The rebellion had came and went. Now the downtrodden freely looted the streets; ravenously picking over the salubrious areas the Watch had so sternly denied them all these years.
The only place left alone was the Upper Tier. Those few that dared to venture there saw the fire and flames on the horizon, and retreated; knowing there were some chances not worth taking. Some places no mortal could hope to witness, and survive. Stories of the fires on the horizon; of the endless screams and raging lighting would live on, in whispered stories passed on from generation to generation.
The surviving Solaris bore witness to a colony surely damned by their actions. The Board would not suffer such impudence lightly. Nef Anyo in particular would deem the rebellion a personal insult. Examples would be made.
Neera looked at the brawny cutter, Sparks. He showed no emotion to speak of (and had no means of expressing it, even if he wanted to). But he could sense the despair radiating from her. The brutish welder rested a hand on her shoulder, gave it a supportive squeeze.
"It's alright, lovey." Sparks' face lit up in time with his words, "The Board won't scrap the colony. Too much investment in the site. Frozen Sector's lucrative, too lucrative even for a second rate colony like this. It'll be tough on these people, but they'll survive. As they've always done."
Neera studied him, her face set. Her eyes were red rimmed, but clear. She had a job to do.
"You're sure?" she asked.
"Course they will. Board need the labour pool, don't they?" Sparks nodded at the Data Mass clutched in her hands. "Important thing is we get that thing there clear. Into safe hands. Make it all worthwhile, eh?"
The lights above shivered once more. More dust sifted down the lift shaft. The Solaris looked up as one.
Sparks chuckled darkly as they descended deeper and deeper into the bowels of the colony.
"Still, all things considered; reckon the Board 'ave their hands full right about now."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The halls beneath the Northern Landing Pad lay in ruin. A great and terrible battle had taken place here; waged between two men hell bent on killing each other. No quarter had been sought, and none was given. There were no witnesses to it, and long after the Battle for Prospect 141 ended, it would be forgotten; just another destructive curiosity to be picked over by the salvage teams that would surely follow.
Its aftermath would stay with Isolde for the rest of her days.
She followed the trail of shell casings, broken furniture and dents in the walls that marked the path of Vern and Eythan's duel. She paused by a slick of blood on the wall. A hand print.
Bullet holes coated the walls. She paused. A Hikou throwing star was wedged in the wall at head height. She stepped carefully past it; through yet another hole in the wall. She found one Lex; discarded, smashed into component pieces. Then another; top slide locked back; snapped empty. There were starbursts of shrapnel and burn marks that scorched unlikely places on the ceiling.
A trail of emptied shelves and discarded fall back weapons; secreted and improvised, that spoke of a struggle fought to the most bitter inch.
It was not one sided. More than once she saw gold flecks on the wall; where a body had been thrown or battered into a wall. The sprinkler systems sluiced down from above; soaking her. A hundred small fires competed with the emergency lighting; rendering the machine shop beyond a bitter crimson.
Isolde gasped. She floated forwards on numb feet.
Vern sprawled in the middle of the floor. Pinned in his chest was the golden nikana; buried to the hilt.
There was no sign of the Dax. It was a message.
Yet another challenge, taunting her. Goading her.
Isolde tore her hooded cloak free as her knees splashed to the floor beside him. She did her best to stem the bleeding; swabbing with the cloak. She had no idea where to start. Vern was more cybernetic than flesh, and even then he was a bloodied wreck.
His hand was little more than a mechanical stump; ground to pieces from where Vern had all but demolished it against his opponent's face. Splinters of golden armour were embedded in Vern's ruined fist.
Vern groaned a chuckle when he sensed Isolde was there.
"He bled. Oh I promise you, he bled."
Vern's goggles were missing. He groped about with his one remaining hand, which trembled with a palsied quake as he felt her burning cheek. With a start, she realised he was blind.
"EMP Grenade. One of my own." Vern turned his head to one side, as blood pulsed out of his mouth freely. He coughed, spat. "Was out of options."
He stirred, went to move. He hissed; pinned in place. His webbing, normally festooned with throwing knives and explosives, was entirely barren. Her hood was soaked in blood now.
"Don't move…" Isolde despised how weak she sounded, the helplessness in her voice, "I'll get help…"
Terrenus Vern chuckled at that.
"Don't get soft on me now, girl." He felt up toward her face, wiping her burning cheek, chuckling. "This was always gonna happen, sooner or later. Part of the job description. Profitable lives, not long ones."
Isolde was shaking now. Not in fear, or sorrow. Something more primal; dormant since the Old War. She swiped her cheeks, unable to stop the streaming tears.
"I'll bury him." Isolde swore, her voice low and venomous. "By the Void and all that's holy I'll bury him."
Vern smiled slightly at that.
"That's my girl."
Then he settled his head back, eyes closed. His voice was little more than a rasp.
"A thousand contracts. Endless hunts. Creatures and beasts. Good men, evil men."
Vern's face was set, at peace. He shuddered, swallowing heavily.
"Never once fought for myself, though. Felt different. Felt right."
Terrenus Vern coughed, once. His good hand wiped at Isolde's streaming face affectionately.
"Be seeing you, kid."
Then his hand fell limp.
Eventually, Isolde rose to her feet; still clutching the bloodied rags in her hands. She drew the nikana from Vern's body cleanly; cleansing it with a measured swipe of the blade.
She tilted her head back, eyes closed. Felt the stream of the sprinklers wash over her; a cleansing wave that did little to quench the rising inferno within.
With singular will, the Tenno reached out with the Void, to where a silent ship lay in orbit; long forgotten.
And broke an ancient promise to herself.
-
"Consider the longevity of our Empire. The expanse of the Rail. We have existed for centuries, constrained only by the limits of our collective imagination.
Yet there is a frontier unconquered. These survivors of the Zariman, with their fitful devil minds; they swim in the shadows of the Void, unmoved by its currents; unswayed by its eddies. A Gift? A Curse?
Both of these things, and so much more.
A chance to plum the endless depths; to be stared at by the howling Void, and stare right back.
An Opportunity."
- Unknown conversation, Vitruvian 4-9 (Recovery Site Redacted)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then.
The Tenno return to The House Eternal. To re-arm, to reflect. To kneel before their Master, and give thanks for the many gifts bestowed upon them. The singers and bards are gone now. The halls are forlorn and silent. Even the cloisters are barren. Only the most trusted Dax remain. They linger behind, hands twitching by their swords; pacing, frustrated. They long to join their comrades on the front.
The Lorists and Archimedeans stand aloof from the Tenno, content to observe but never interact. The children are placed in turn in the Somatic Link; an unnecessary Cradle. These Tenno Dream no longer.
The Tenno endure the tests, cold and unblinking.
The war is not unfelt; by Sohren most of all. He has grown exacting; harsh, distant. He has seen too many Dax fall before his eyes; good warriors expended in the endless furnace of the War. His father had been one of the Golden Few, as his father before him. As a child he had dreamed of becoming Dax, brave and loyal and true. Yet the Void has denied him this dream; providing an all new nightmare in its stead.
He will never follow in his Father's legacy. Instead, he is damned to surpass it.
Kael and Isolde follow him dutifully; Kael, as cold and precise as the blade he wields; Isolde, colder still. Her songs never lift the halls, nor do her smiles light the room. Sara is the opposite; she hides her despair behind caustic smiles and brittle laughs, but the others have seen her wipe her eyes; in those unguarded moments.
Still, they remain strong. The mission is everything to them.
It is the decree of The House Eternal. The Empire will endure.
Doric watches them all; concern ever-mounting.
They are told little as to how the war truly progresses. Doric has to piece it together from unguarded asides from the strategos that hurry from one briefing to the next. A patchwork picture is formed.
Other Tenno operate under the will of the Executors; deploying from staging areas far removed from the House Eternal. Doric reads of their deeds in the Lua despatches; of heroic sacrifices and desperate victories, hard-fought. He imagines his own Cell fighting alongside them; comparing their abilities with their brothers and sisters further afield.
This question above all others vexes him. Why have they been separated?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fire and fury. The Dax hurl themselves upon the Foe. Golden bodies fall; rendered scorched husks, blackened by streaming energy.
Steel and swords clash. Cutting beams hiss. The Destroyer's Children sing their deadly song.
Sohren is up ahead. He carves a path through the foe, Kael at his side. Isolde and Sara hold the flank; pressing ever onward. Screaming hellfire and robotic wails fill the air.
It is up to Doric to hold the rear guard. He is the largest, the strongest. A rock, upon which the surge of all counter-attacks break. He marshals the forces at his command; the pitiful remaining Dax fanning out; their blades high, eyes searching the heavens. Another attack could come at any moment.
There is a lull in the carnage, as Sohren and the others drive deep into the temple. Doric holds the annex with the rearguard.
Doric stands tall, marveling at the ruined majesty of the ruins around him.
In truth they were late. The Dax had assaulted the Citadel an hour before the Cell's arrival. The annex is a vaulted place; once colonnaded and proud with splendour. Now it is a charnel house. Broken Sentient and scorched bones splinter underfoot.
A hand grasps his ankle; slick blood spattering cold stone. Doric looks down.
Death was a mercy to this warrior. The body the hand is attached to is little more than a torso. The skin of the face has been burnt away on one side; showing white bone, teeth and a single staring eye in anatomical cross-section. Doric frowns, leaning down; peering closer.
The hand is known to him. After a moment, Doric cries out in horrified recognition.
It is Trainer.
He is surrounded by fallen Sentient. Their chassis broken, their Oro crushed with a destructive totality that shocks even the Tenno. Trainer's pistol is empty, his sword broken in two. The riven hilt has been driven clean through another of the infernal machines, pinning it to floor beside him.
Trainer's other eye blinks. His lips gasp for air with an agonised croak.
He is still alive.
Doric witnesses a level of willpower than transcends the superhuman. Trainer reaches up with his remaining hand and beckons Doric closer.
The ancient Dax strangles out the words, every syllable in agony.
"Beware the House. Beware its Lies."
Doric blinks.
Trainer is gone.
Doric never learns his true name.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Months pass. There has been a breakthrough. A counter-attack on the front has proven wildly successful. The Sentient advance has stalled. There is a reprieve.
The mood amongst the House Eternal is buoyant. Courtiers return, in select amounts. Music fills the halls, once more; but it is hesitant; tempered by an unspoken tension.
There is no sign of Lord Septimus. The Tenno are ordered to remain as they are.
The Tenno languish in a state of limbo; restless.
The Tenno are forbidden from seeing their Lord. They are forbidden from the front. They are to remain here, and here alone; until instructed otherwise. Left to their own devices, they roam the halls; enjoying an unusual degree of freedom, albeit within the carefully supervised confines of The House Eternal.
The other Tenno notice the change in mood, but know better than to comment on it. Sara becomes less sullen, glad to be away from the death and destruction, if only for a brief respite. She spends her time with her Warframe and the artificers; decorating its elaborate chassis, humming to herself sadly.
Trainer's death has weighed heavily upon them all.
Grief is expressed in many ways. Kael and Sohren train, blade brothers now; readying themselves for the next phase of the endless war, that must surely come. Skana after skana is called for. A crowd of Dax gathers in size with each progressive contest, marvelling at their skill. They will honour their mentor's memory the only way they can.
Doric spends his time in the library, alone. Books are not forbidden to them, and he takes comfort in them when he can.
The room is a vast place, panelled with Earthen wood and lined with cool stone; an unusual affectation for a space of Orokin design. Row after row of mouldering books line the shelves; entirely at odds with the sweeping alabaster and gilded archways of the halls beyond. A vaulted cloister runs around the perimeter of the shelves; serving as an elevated viewing gallery of the priceless relics.
Many of the tomes are in languages long since forgotten. Doric has been through many of them over the years, has translated what few he could. He has not come here to read, not today.
He sits at the games tables; set apart in an open space in the heart of the library.
He repeats Trainer's words in his mind, over and over.
Beware the House. Beware its Lies.
He dares not share the warning with the others. He ponders over the Komi board, lost in thought. Beside it are several other games; each more complex than the last. He plays himself regularly; articulating strategy in multiple languages under countless rule sets. He plays each of the boards in unison. It helps him think. It calms his frenzied mind.
Doric is broken from his reverie by the scrape of a chair against the stone floor.
Isolde sits across from him; fingers laced together under her chin. She studies the Komi board, then regards Doric with those startlingly violet eyes. Her book of poems sits on the table beside her, forgotten.
"Let's play."
Doric looks up, his dark face set and solemn. She has changed much from the girl that used to sing joyfully in the golden halls of the Zariman. Cold now, aloof. Focused on the mission, above all else. Still, her presence in the library is not unusual. Often she can be seen in one of the far alcoves, a frown upon her face as she devours yet another history or poem.
She has never shown an interest in the games before.
"It's a simple game. You'll grow tired of it."
"Try me."
They play. Doric blinks. It proves more difficult to best her than first anticipated.
"Again." She says, at once.
They play again. The result is closer still.
"Once more."
Doric finds himself frowning at the board, wondering quite how she managed to outmaneuver him so.
"Another game." Her attention is on the next board. "Something more complicated."
Her voice speaks in his mind.
Don't react. We are being watched.
Doric's face remains still as he draws her attention to a far more elaborate set on the next table.
It is a three-tiered board, with a maddening variety of many-sided dice. The pieces range from the lowliest foot soldier to the most elegant star-galleon. The value of each piece is defined by the material they are crafted from; in descending value: ivory, steel, wood.
The game is antiquated, long out of favour with the Golden Lords. Nevertheless, Doric has learned its rules, the careful steps that can be taken. He explains to Isolde the subtleties, the strategies and counter-moves necessary to win the game. Even then, his introduction is painfully high level.
"The Golden Lords call it Ars Bellica, though it is often shortened to simply Bellica. Three boards: space, ground, tower. One must master all three before pressing their opponent's tower."
He illustrates the rules in a practice game: he against himself; demonstrating the nuances from one board to the next.
All the while, the Dax watches them. Doric spies him in return; reflected by the polished ivory of the galleon shows to Isolde.
The Dax is one of the proudest members of Trainer's flock. Strong-willed, ambitious; a peerless fighter, by the exacting standards of the Dax soldiery. Vehemently loyal to the House Eternal. The gaps in the ranks have afforded him a meteoric rise in station.
With Trainer's death, he now stands as castellan to Lord Septimus.
This promotion is behind much of the change within The House Eternal. It is his men who deny the Tenno access to the High Archimedean; his men who watch their every move with a thinly disguised animosity.
His name is Eythan.
"Focus on the pieces." Doric says softly, as Isolde scrutinises the board. They are playing their first proper game.
No more Void Talk. The Dax lack the command of the Void, but are not without a sensitivity. Their prolonged proximity to the Orokin has granted them as much.
Different avenues of communication are required.
A new language is developed, leveraging the complexity of the game to the Tenno's favour. A form of spy-craft, devious even by Doric's standards. Isolde catches on quickly.
The complexity of the game is such that pieces can interchange and flow with alarming speed. Doric establishes the baseline structure of their impromptu language; defined by strikes, feints and retreats. They are forced to pantomime reactions of perceived victories and defeats; under the ever watchful eye of the Dax across the library floor.
The true conversation is conducted through the Bellis Board. Isolde opens with a daring strike:
Lord Septimus is ill.
I am aware. The servants speak of it often.
Isolde's cruisers then batter one of Doric's forward positions.
Then you know there is to be a ceremony. A coronation, of sorts.
Doric swiftly counters; his own forces weathering the initial storm and mounting a reprisal strike of their own.
A successor?
I am not certain. The servants say little, and the Dax even less.
Do we know when this ceremony is to take place?
Isolde frowns as Doric makes a blinding series of adjustments to his forward line.
She rallies her forces as best she can, brow knitted:
No. The cards have spoken to me, but their words make little sense. Just a single word, over and over.
Doric holds his line, bowing his head to Isolde:
Show me.
Isolde leaves her flank open with a piteously exposed counter-pushed; a clear signal that their conversation is over. Doric exploits the gap ruthlessly.
Isolde pushes herself up from the table with a defeated sigh.
"I had hope to best you, but I have a lot to learn, it seems. Next time, Doric."
The Tenno rise to their feet, exchanging a bow.
She turns on her heels and departs, leaving him alone at the table.
She has left her book on the table: Great Minds and Poems of the Orokin Third Age. It is her favourite.
Doric spares a glance at the polished ivory pieces. The Dax is gone.
He does not open the book until he is safely lost amongst the endless shelves.
A single tarot card is inside. The symbol is known to him.
It is the Ouroboros; the Endless Serpent.
Its meanings are many and varied. Its origins are in alchemy; the snake that eats its own tail, and is then eaten in turn. An infinity loop; an endless process that repeats itself, over and over.
Continuity.
Warframe: Just Another Number
in Fan Zone
Posted
"There are few compacts made between the Grineer and Corpus Empires. Fewer still are honoured.
The operation of the Solar Rail is one of them, central as it is to the day to day logistical operations of their respective cultures. Troop movements, trade delegations - it doesn't matter. Cooperation is required, and cooperation is given, however grudgingly.
The Dark Sector quarantines are another. Eris and the surrounding grave sites are kept under strict isolation, and violating quarantine is punishable by death - or worse - permanent exile to the Dark Sectors.
The reason behind this agreement is clear: the Technocyte plague must not be allowed to spread.
And yet every once in a while, whether by fluke or happenstance or some other malevolent force of imperceptible design, a ship appears on the horizon. It has carries no life signs, it has no targeted destination. These ghost ships drift through the trade channels, harbouring all manner of nightmares for those unlucky enough to stumble across them."
- Tenno Doric
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The walls unfurled. Twisted shapes emerged from the steaming heat, dropping from walls, ceilings; scrambling out from tunnels unseen. Where once there was a jungle of flesh and skin, dripping with menace but devoid of life, soon there was a shambling horde of nightmarish shapes, sprinting towards them with frightening speed.
So many targets. Too many to count.
Grahk didn't blink. Instead he opened fire in methodical bursts, methodically putting the Karak to work. Krint and Freghor added their Hinds to the din, dropping to one knee as they hastily formed a firing line.
Nightmares burst and fell, shredded and pulped. Still more came.
"Fall back, Formation Bravo!" Grahk rose to his feet, back-pedalling to the hatchway behind them. His shell-kin followed suit, alternating turns as they turned and addressed in bounding sequence. "Maintain fire rate!"
The magazine clacked empty. Months of training kicked in. Release, replace; lock and snap. Re-sight. Fire or die.
Then Freghor was gone. Snatched up and away into the ceiling with a muffled yelp. The scanning unit hit the floor, coated with slime. Its bleating swelled into a frenzied shrill as the infestation poured in through the chamber.
A tentacle lashed out around Grahk's ankle. He went down on his back, hard, the wind driven out of him. With monstrous force he was pulled toward the horde, leg-first. A wall of fangs and claws and broken things reached for him. His machete wouldn't reach. No time. No other options.
Grahk flicked the fire-select. Full cycle. The Karak was not known for its subtlety, nor its ammo economy. There was no time to debate. No time to think.
It sawed clean through the horde. The tentacle itself burst apart, shredded entirely. He was free. Grahk rolled onto his stomach and half clawed, half sprinted for the hatchway. Krint roared encouragement from the hatchway ahead, as he snapped shots that whickered into targets far closer than Grahk liked to hear.
There was no way he was going to make it. They were right on top of him.
"Down!" that was Mox. Grahk knew his gene-brother well enough not to argue. He threw himself flat.
The rest of Squad Five opened up as one. Sheets of hard rounds bit into flesh and skin and steel. The nightmares wailed but kept coming, falling in tumbling droves. Grahk scrambled his way forward in a hunched crouch, almost diving into the arms of Zoln and Pakhor, who hauled him clear.
"Back! Back!" That was Sergeant Telb, his voice a hoarse croak.
Specialist flame units were brought up. Seena and her command team were with them now, Brakarr too. Their weapons joined the cacophony. With them were mission specialists, a kill-team Grahk and the others had not known existed. Three Scorch operators went to work, fuel tanks gurgling and sloshing as they shuffled into position, pilot lights hissing in anticipation. They took up position at the yawning hatchway, raising their projectors in unison. They clamped their fingers on the trigger, right as the horde closed the gap and pounced for them.
There was a roaring whoosh and thick jets of liquid fire hosed the chamber of horrors, slamming the fiends back.
The screech was louder than any descending shell Grahk had ever heard. It pierced his mind, and yet as he lay there panting and exhausted, he could only stare numbly at the flames as they consumed the corruption beyond. The Scorch units seemed impassive to it all, their faces unreadable behind the monocular lenses of their facemasks.
Even so, above the belching hiss of their chemical spray, and the crackling heat of the flames, Grahk could hear them laughing.
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Grahk spent a month in an isolation cell after that, closely monitored by the Galleon's crew; left with little in the way of company but his own (admittedly limited) thoughts.
The Scorch units were never far away, and he could hear them patrolling out in the corridor beyond, their voices muffled but the smell of their gasoline tanks ever-present. Was he infected? Could the infestation have penetrated his armour? There was no way to tell. It had been stripped of him, taken for decontamination. He felt oddly naked without his carapace, stripped as he was to his bare body-glove.
Two weeks in, any fears of infection gave way to boredom. Grahk passed the time as best he could. First by counting rivets on the walls, then by devising a workout routine of his own creation.
What little he learned was from Mox's occasional visitations, where they mumbled a conversation through the speaking grille inset into the reinforced doorway.
The outbreak on the derelict Corpus ship had been contained and – the threat to the Rail extinguished (in this case quite literally) - the ship was summarily scuttled. Squad Five received recognition for their part in discovering the infestation, with Telb in particular receiving a commendation for requesting specialist reinforcements so quickly.
It marked Squad Five as a trusted unit in Seena's command hierarchy. They were solid, dependable.
It was perhaps because of this reputation that they caught the eye of General Sargas Ruk, and his elite Artefact Retrieval Teams. But that was later.
When it was finally time to emerge, the entirety of Squad Five awaited him, clapping and cheering. Brakarr was there too, and the hulking Bombard slapped him on the back so hard Grahk's knees almost gave out.
Grahk remembered that time with a wistful fondness that was rare for a Grineer, particularly a line trooper.
This was fitting.
For what followed was only horror.