[Fanfiction] Eternal Song

[OrdoCorvus]

O.V.SIGMA 761-34511
MEMORY FRAGMENT LOGGED 453-235-6
EARTHSIDE DATESTAMP 99.9999999999ER***ER***ERR***ERROR***
MNEMOSYNE DATABASE FRAGMENT ARCHIVED
MERCURY TERMINUS SLIPSTREAM RECEIVED
VOID REGISTRY 04190
OROKIN EMPIRE CLASSIFICATION RHO
SIGMA PHI TOWER
CONTENT AWAITING APPROVAL FROM PREFECT
PREFECT DESIGNATE: Simmons
CURRENT WAITING PERIOD: 3 EARTHSIDE YEARS
FEEDBACK LOOP INITIATED

Bespoke loyalty is ingrained in us. From the moment they pull us out of the vats, we know this. Service to the queens, to the empire, that’s how we survive. That’s how we win this war. That’s how we bring peace to this besotten system.

I survey my men: Two dozen lancers, six butchers, and a bombard, who is serving as my lieutenant. I’ve ran them through the mission a dozen times: We go in, find the Orokin cache, and get out, with less than five minutes before the Neural Sentry overrides the wavestream dampeners that keep its corrupting influence at bay. The men, they don’t care, most of them are too stupid to even know what I’m even saying half the time. But they follow orders, and that’s what I need. Loyalty.

The Bombard, 762, he nods to me. The men are as ready as they’ll ever be. Me and him, we know the odds, we’ve read the reports. Half of these vat-scum won’t be returning. Those that can survive the traps, and whatever remains of who came before us, they’ll most likely be driven mad by the void ghosts or the neural sentry. No matter, they’re expendable.

I pull at my hair. A clump falls out, taking a goodly sized piece of skin with it. 762 is watching, so I’m careful not to show the pain. I tuck what remains of my hair into my helmet. I am seventeen years old, a long run for one in my position, I could retire soon, maybe go into politics. What’s left of my body is broken, but my mind is sharp, and I’m something of a war hero. Killed two Tenno in Prospero sector. Their friends resurrected them where they lay, but we stopped them, they fled back to their eyeless mother. I could leverage that, rally for magistrate or perhaps even sector director.

“Eleven-Thirteen,” 762 says, “time to go.”

“Sorry, was thinking.”

“About the mission?”

“Of course. Ready weapons.”

I put my mask on, set the visual filters for Infrared. I breathe in the hyperbaric oxygen from the tank on my back, helps the lungs somehow. There’s a pain in my chest, sharp-like. the aerobic capacitors in my suit kicking on. Why do the Grineer fight so hard, I hear the colonists ask, it’s because of the pain. No one fights harder than a wounded soldier, and us, we’re wounded by design. What remains of my thighs tense up, the adrenaline injectors in my legs are working now, making me ready to run, ready to fight, to carry the load.

The load. I pick it up. The MK-2 Grineer Overt Rapid-fire Gallium Ordinance Neutralizer, or Gorgon. It’s an old weapon, the basic design dating back to our first conflicts with the Orokin. Crude, effective. Like us. I click the safety off.

“Fourteen-Twenty-Five,” I shout, “power the torsion beam on my mark.”

The HUD inside my mask displays the current status of the generator, old, past its prime. It chugs and struggles on the filthy biofuel distilled from the bodies of my brothers and sisters who never made it out of the vat.

“Eighty-Three percent,” I say, a lump in my throat, “hold.”

The meter ticks up slowly, interminably.

“Eighty-Seven,” I say. The meter pauses briefly as the generator gives a stutter, choking out thick, black smoke, then continues. “Ninety-two.”

I pause again, Lancer 1425 is staring at me, dull comprehension in his eyes. He’s trying to puzzle out what I’m saying as if it’s some algorithmic equation. Lancers. The meter ticks over.

“Mark.”

1425 pushes the button and smiles at me with pride.

“Good job, Fourteen-Twenty-Five,” I say with a nod, “you’re a credit to the queens.”

Idiot.

The torsion beam roars to life and fills the crater we stand in with sound and light. The lesser men cover their eyes. The golden door, a great circle of gleaming metal, seems to distort, as if it’s about to collapse in on itself, and then it opens. The Tower. The Void.

“Five minutes,” I announce, expecting that at least half of them have probably forgotten, “five minutes to make your queens proud, you despicable bastards! Lancers, advance, butchers on the flanks!”
The first line of Lancers advances through the portal, single-file. Fools. The butchers join them on their flanks. 762 and I go last. I shoulder the Gorgon, ready for whatever lies on the other side.

I am greeted by a sight the likes of which I’d never imagined. Walls of pearly white, impossibly high, bathed in gleaming light. I’ve been around, seventeen years, I’ve seen the forests of Earth at Dawn, the sun setting over Olympus Mons. I’ve witnessed the rings of Saturn lit up like fire. Never in my long life had I imagined that people could build things to rival such beauty.

I had read of the void-towers, viewed the video logs, but it was nothing to prepare me for what I saw, gilded colonnades and fountains of water. Pure water, impossibly clean. The trees that the Orokin grew as power conduits were thriving, pulsing with white power, after all the years they’d been abandoned. I was glad for my mask then, for the tear that formed in the corner of my eye would have been enough to earn me a discharge and summary execution.

The men stop, even 762, all of them lower their weapons, dead in their tracks, taken in by the beauty and majesty all around them. They were built for loyalty. To live short, ugly lives in a small, brutal system. They’re as unprepared as I am.

“It’s,” 762 stammers, words tainted with verboten emotion. “I don’t know what, how.”

“Beautiful,” I say, a dangerous slip, but a strategic one. He made one too. We are beholden to keep each other’s secret now, he can trust me.

A faint sound fills my ears. Harmonic. Music. Not the military marches I’m used to. This is different. Men singing, solemnly, peacefully, a sort of chant. It calms my nerves. It’s as beautiful as the scenery.

The song is interrupted. A short, buzzing sound fills the air, anguished screams from the Lancers comes next. While we were admiring the view, a security system had come online. An orb of white and gold spun in the center of the room, emitting searing-hot lasers from its four faces. Six of my men lay on the ground, cut in two by the machine. The rest are running for cover.

I take position behind something. I stare at it a moment. A chair, but not metal, no, cloth, and soft. I force my mind into the now and heft my gorgon, take aim at the death-orb and pull the trigger. The gorgon winds up with an audible whine. A torrent of white-hot gallium tears through the room. The laser emitters on the death-orb shatter.

Four of my men form up on it and inspect the now toothless object. A flash of light and fire consumes them as the thing explodes.

“Damage report,” 762 says.

“No time for that,” I say. Across the room, a door slides open, “Corpus.”

A stream of Corpus crewmen is streaming in, dressed in odd, white-and-gold uniforms that blend with the place like camouflage. Streams of golden plasma burst forth from their weapons.

“On my left flank,” I command, “combat formation Bravo.”

What remains of my men form up on my flank. We open fire, tear through them easily. The singing is still there, a deep baritone. Soothing. Peaceful.

We’re alone again. We press deeper into the tower, looking for something, I can’t remember what. There’s a timer ticking away on my HUD. It means something. Something important, but I can’t look at it. What does it matter?

What is time?

What is time in the face of beauty? What are the Grineer except ugliness? Why is loyalty so important when the people you’re compelled to help will leave you for dead and replace you without a thought? Who are the queens to demand this of us? Why would they do such a terrible thing, to send us to this place of awe and wonder and then demand we leave it for their pleasure?

“Time?” 762 says beside me.

The song overwhelms his voice.

“I don’t know,” I say, staring at the numbers on my HUD. They’re flashing red, I can read them but the meaning is lost. They’re just funny little lines moving.

“I hope it’s a long time,” 762 says, “a long time left.”

“I hope that, too.”

“I don’t want to leave yet,” he says, “I love this place.”

Love.

What was love?

Warm. Warmth rises in my belly. Not the bad warmth of a wound, but something good. It feels good.

Love.

That’s what the song was saying, a chant about love. Not war or victory or dominance or anything that all the songs I knew were about. This was a song about love.

“The armory,” I say, “the tower wants us to report to the armory.”

I don’t know how I knew that, but it was true. That’s where we’d find what we needed.

762 nodded, “that must be what they want us to find. The queens. They must really love us to send us here.”

“They do,” I say, “Orokin tech. Imagine the armor, the weapons, we could find there. Upgrade the whole squad.”

We make our way deep into the tower, unobstructed by its traps. The Corpus soldiers ignore us, and we ignore them. They understand the value of loyalty. Loyalty to the tower.
They love the tower.

I love the tower. My loyalty is as absolute as the song.

Edited December 14, 2015 by OrdoCorvus