The Enemy

[Gearb0x]

Lancer 217B-59KR checked the seat of the magazine and swiftness of the action on his Grakata submachine gun with a practiced ease born in the tube.  He wondered, sitting in the green lights of the troop compartment of company Z453-I85T’s transport, how many times he’d fiddled with his weapon in this manner.  It seemed like millions, and with three and a half hours left before they would enter orbit around Saturn’s moon Hyperion he was certain he would tack another couple hundred more instances onto his record.

 

Serial numbers were difficult to call out during a firefight, they took too long to say and could be misconstrued.  This basic tactical doctrine had been drilled into every Grineer Marine in the tube, when the battle of Ganymede was relayed to them as a cautionary tale.  Therefore, each Grineer received a battle-name; a callsign for commanders to shout out in the heat of battle.  Commanders and above were given two, so that the mistakes of Ganymede were not repeated.

 

Lancer 217B-59KR’s designation was Muk.  His vat brother, squadmate and best friend, 217B-5927, Kad, sat beside him in the vast troop compartment.  Fifty hardened Marines, with all their weapons and armor sat fully combat ready, waiting to meet up with the resupply galleon orbiting Saturn’s most erratic moon.  Though seemingly unnecessary, it helped morale to allow the Grineer to travel in their battle dress.  Having their gear near at hand was as automatic as breathing to them, and they tended to become unstable when separated from their weapons.

 

Muk gazed down the large troop compartment at the docking ramp, his hands checking the Grakata without thought, and wondered what he and Kad had done to earn such ire from the company commander, Ret Maerk.  Theirs were the first seats next to the cockpit compartment, and thereby the seats farthest from the ramp.  They were also seated across from Heavy Gunner Drone #4, which had been powered down for the flight.  HGD#4 had a strange audio quirk; every time it saw an enemy it screeched, “Take ‘em out!” at the top of its audio processors.  The techs could never be bothered to correct it.  The company had decided the drone was cursed, and had dubbed it TEO in honor of its battlecry.

 

Kad’s actions reflected Muk’s.  Kad unloaded, reloaded and chambered his Sicarus pistol almost as often and swiftly as Muk did his Grakata.  Kad’s shield lay across TEO’s legs, and Muk’s gaze panned back to stare enviously at the automaton’s Gorgon general purpose machine gun.  Kad was talking, as always.

 

“…don’t see why they shield this tin can and not a coupl’a stand up soldiers like us.”

 

“The Heavy Gunner Drone –“

 

“ ‘is an essential component of any fireteam.  It provides valuable firepower that can stop any foe.’ I got the same indoctrination you did, Muk my buddy.  But it’s like they care more about this heap of bolts than us!  It gets ‘omnidirectional self-regenerating repulsor shielding that deflects all incoming small arms fire’ and what do we get?

 

“Armor.”

 

“Oh, you get armor!  I get to strap my arm to a slab of bulkhead.  Have you ever tried to see through that slot?”

 

“It’s impossi –”

 

“It’s impossible, I tell ya!  Gotta peek your head over the top sideways just to see anything.

 

“Well, I appreciate it.”

 

“Oh, sure, you appreciate it.  You get to fire from behind it with five dozen rounds of two fisted fury and what do I get?”

 

“This flimsy pist – ”

 

“This flimsy pistol!  Oh, sure, it can drop targets.”

 

“But you try – ”

 

“But you try reloading after five trigger pulls with one arm strapped to a slab of Ferrite.  I swear, if I ever find out who’s responsible for this doctrine, I’ll string him up by his toenails.  And then I’ll – ”

 

As Kad launched into his fantasy of torturous revenge, Muk shook his head.  The rant before this never changed.  Muk could recite it while sleeping, and likely had.  But this part, the oddly specific and violent circumstances of Kad’s revenge, this part was always new.  Kad always invented imaginative, gruesome tortures to visit upon his hypothetical quartermaster.  So far as Muk could tell, Kad had never repeated himself in all their time together.

 

It never failed to amaze and amuse him how much thought Kad put into these fantasies.  As his hands automatically checked his Grakata yet again, Muk thought about how predictable his life was.

 

Then, something changed.

 

In the middle of Kad’s description of precisely how he’d relieve his victim of eyeballs, the troop compartment lights changed from green to red.

 

“Airlock breach,” proclaimed the loudspeakers in an automated voice that was entirely too calm.

 

All eyes turned to the rear airlock in confusion.  The troop transport was 4 million kilometers from its destination.  Nothing at all should be close enough to even lock onto it, much less breach the airlock.

 

Muk lowered his faceplate.  Kad seized his riot shield.  TEO booted up and screamed, “Take ‘em out!” into the silence.

 

Commander Ret Maerk stood in the middle of the troop compartment, the red light flashing on his armor.  He faced the rear ‘lock as it, impossibly, opened.

 

That was the last moment of stillness before the attack.

 

A bolt of negative thermal energy erupted from the darkness in the airlock and slammed the commander in the chest.  It sapped the heat from the air around him and from the moisture in his very tissues.  Water vapor depositioned into ice upon his armor and commander Ret Maerk literally froze in place surrounded by his men.

 

This assault was instantly followed by the Tenno that had fired the energy bolt.  Gleaming white, with a wide spiked halo atop its flat, circular helmet; it flew through the air with alarming speed.  The tails of its battle coat spalyed behind it as it slid down the center aisle.  The Tenno reached over its shoulder, grabbing the handle of a maul the size of a man and, without losing momentum, whirled on the floor.  The Tenno brought the Fragor to bear on its defenseless target, and the commander actually shattered into crystalline shards of ice that slammed into the bulkhead wall.

 

The Tenno stood.

 

Then all hell broke loose.

 

The fury of a dozen Grakatas filled the air in response to Commander Ret Maerk’s death.  Muk took comfort in the sound before realizing that his was one of the guns firing.  Reflexes born in the vat and honed over thousands of hours of practiced fidgeting allowed him to reload seamlessly as the next volley began.  The next volley included Kad’s Sicarus and TEO’s Gorgon and Muk could swear he saw bullet holes bleeding … something … on the Tenno’s battle garb as the weight of flying lead broke the target’s shielding.

 

Then Muk’s vision was obscured by a globe of…snow?  centered around the lone enemy intruder.    Muk fired without thinking.  Centuries of Grineer tactics revolved around massed firepower, and Muk had been made to suit those tactics.

 

With the sound of activating Rollers humming underneath the gunfire, Muk watched the four company Flameblades teleport in flawlessly.  With no regard for their own hide, they appeared instantly next to the enemy Tenno…and slowed to an ancient snail’s pace.  The Warframe cocked its hammer and cleaved through them all before they could land a single scratch on its now restored shield.

 

A distant part of Muk’s mind realized that the restored shield meant that none of the bullets fired at the target were penetrating the sphere of absurd weather in the midst of the troop compartment.  The information barely registered as he unloaded his fourth magazine into the aberrant field of ice without effect.

 

“All shields must break.  Pour it on until they do,” whispered his indoctrination in his mind.

 

Thus distracted, he was unprepared when the Tenno turned and punched the deck beneath him.  Spikes of ice raced from the enemy aftward.  Erupting from nothingness, the preternaturally sharp skewers reamed through armor and flesh alike, taking the lives of a score Grineer with them into the void from which they’d sprung.

 

The survivors, mostly Seekers, and Heavy Gunner Drones staggered as the damned ice demon sheathed his maul and readied a long-rifle.  He took his time aiming, as if at the target range.  Muk ducked behind Kad’s shield and idly realized that the Tenno might as well be so long as its power continued to deflect bullets.

 

Two shots rang out above the endless roar of gunfire, and Heavy Gunner Drone #2 fell to the ground, its head a smoking ruin of circuitry.

 

Muk readied his next magazine and raised it before a huge red bulk filled his vision.  A satisfying Thoomp filled his ears, and Muk could feel himself smile behind his facemask.  The company Napalm, 75RG-YZ50 had not been deployed long enough to pick up a battle-name.  It was called simply the Napalm.  Muk could only stare in wonder at the massive clone’s back as it advanced on the target.

 

Miraculously, the hated sphere flickered out .  Crack!  Crack! Reported the enemy rifle.  Thoomp. Fwooosh! Went the Napalm’s fire grenades.  Kad turned back and grinned at Muk just as 7SRG-YZ50’s chest cavity exploded out of the back of his massive red armor.

 

Muk was shocked enough to take his finger off the trigger and stare for half a second.  Just long enough to watch as the Tenno pointed its weapon at Muk’s face and pull the trigger.  The click of an empty chamber might only have existed in Muk’s mind, given the cacophony in the compartment, but the Tenno sheathed the rifle nonetheless.

 

It stepped forward, drawing duel alien pistols that bore a passing resemblance to ancient flintlocks.  The fires burned around the Warframe’s feet as it strode forward, seemingly invincible.

 

But the blessed Rollers finally came to bear.  Blades extended, they stumbled the hated foe into the fire.  Every living Grineer saw the target’s shield flicker out of existence.  Their assault redoubled, fortified by the success of the rollers and seeking vengeance for their fallen comrades in arms.  They poured lead onto their staggering, burning foe, and every marine knew that victory was at hand.

 

Then the Tenno raised his arm, and the world went still.  Every soldier and remaining lancer save Muk, Kad and TEO recoiled in terror from the shifting winds approaching them. 

 

The fires died. 

 

The Grineer froze in place.

 

The Tenno dropped its hand and an avalanche of force erupted from where it stood.

 

Muk cowered behind Kad's shield as chunks of ice that had once been comrades buffeted them.  He turned and watched bolts of Rubedo penetrate the alloy plating that covered TEO’s torso.  A distant part of his mind wondered what had happened to the drone’s omnidirectional self-regenerating repulsor shielding before TEO fell at his feet, its chest a pincushion of war.

 

“Taaaaa- kisch –m’ ouuu…” it droned with its last reserves of power.

 

Without fear, Muk and his vat brother raised their weapons.  Together, down to their last scraps of ammunition, alone against the enemy they stood.  They rose as one from behind Kad’s shield, the final defense between the enemy and the cockpit.

 

They rose as one in time for them to see the Fragor a quarter second before it caved Kad’s skull in completely.

Muk watched, mind numb, as his vat brother's lifeless corpse fell forward onto the deck.  Kad’s riot shield clanged as its weight wrenched the corpse down by its arm.

 

Muk looked the enemy right in the place where its face should be and saw nothing but soulless, glowing blue sensors.

 

The Frost’s overhand blow brought the Fragor down, and Muk was no more.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Gearb0x

[ELREYULTIMO]

Muk -

[Avarcaness]

Nooo! Muk....

 

I shall have vengeance... The Tenno shall feel my wr- oh wait...

[Rettycombine]

 This was a nice read.

 

I noticed that in a lot of theese grineer stories a frost is often involved, i dont often see Rhinos or Embers or stuff in the stories.

[Gearb0x]

 This was a nice read.

 

I noticed that in a lot of theese grineer stories a frost is often involved, i dont often see Rhinos or Embers or stuff in the stories.

 

Apologies.  I don't spend much time on this section of the forums, and thus haven't read much to compare to my own story.  I started writing this tale just to get a perspective on the Grineer, and was playing my Frost around that time.

 

I think I picked the Frost because it has the most interesting looking set of powers.  Nyx would have been cool, but wasn't visually interesting.  Excalibur slashdashing through the zone would have been boring.  Each frame has advantages and disadvantages as an enemy.  

 

Thank you very much for the compliment.

[Rettycombine]

Apologies.  I don't spend much time on this section of the forums, and thus haven't read much to compare to my own story.  I started writing this tale just to get a perspective on the Grineer, and was playing my Frost around that time.

 

I think I picked the Frost because it has the most interesting looking set of powers.  Nyx would have been cool, but wasn't visually interesting.  Excalibur slashdashing through the zone would have been boring.  Each frame has advantages and disadvantages as an enemy.  

 

Thank you very much for the compliment.

Rhinos powers dont look very interesting, but the effect on the protags psyche would be quite large, because his powers are so intimidating, Pulverizing enemies into a fine red mist, shrugging off several Napalm rockets, and then taking out a entire platoon with Rhino stomp + slash from hate/gram/scindo.

[Bennyworld]

Sweet, really great, more please!