Wrong
It was all wrong.
Everything was wrong. The ship was quiet at long last. The humans had finally finished their squabbling. Or something. There had been an impact, but he had never really noticed it. He had been busy trying to understand what was wrong even as humans had died all around him. It had taken him some time to come to the understanding that everything was wrong.
His name was still Tanah and he was intact as best he could tell. But he was alone. This wasn't right.
He had never been alone and it hurt. It hurt so much that he was all but weeping when he heard a soft noise nearby. He spun to see a human lying there, trying to speak. He knew enough human anatomy to know that the from was lying all wrong, that the being was dying. That it lay with just a fragment of life still glimmering in it. He didn't understand the words. The human wore some kind of green and red armor but it wasn't anything that Tanah knew.
And it was tech! What? They knew better than that!
Tanah reacted out instinctively to touch, to soothe the poor tormented soul. It was what he did. He was no warrior, no fighter, no killer. He was a soother, a tender. What might have been called a 'farmer' by humans once upon a time. Admittedly, what he farmed were positive emotions, but still, he planted them, tended them, grew them and harvested them, all the while causing as little harm as he could. Harm was never his goal. Harmony was always to be preferred.
The human tried to recoil, but his body wasn't working. His voice with its unintelligible monkey babbling changed as Tanah touched him and Tanah felt the human's pain fade. Tanah was, he had to admit with no hubris, quite good at that. It was what he was for. Soothing.
Be at peace. Tanah sent in way that could not be denied or disbelieved. I cannot save you, but I will not harm you further.
You… The other's mind was just as broken as its body. Why?
There were so many facets to that one word question. The human was wondering why he didn't hurt anymore. Why he had been hurt in the first place. What was happening now and what would happen next. Tanah had no answers for him. Tanah had no idea where he was or what had happened. Just the look of the craft he was on showed that it had been a long time since the battle.
The war! The Tenno! Natah!
Tanah knew what he had to do! He had to find his sister! That said, he had something else to do first. Sentient he might be, but he was not heartless. His Mother had raised him better than that.
Rest now. Tanah sent gently into the other's weakening mind. The human who sank into a slumber from which there would be no returning. His pain and fear faded with his life. Tanah hovered down to settle on the floor as the human breathed his last. Whatever evil you have done, may you find absolution in the next life, human.
Only after the human finally lay still did Tanah reach out with an appendage to scan the tech that filled the human's suit. The systems were laughably primitive and the security was just as laughable. In moments, Tanah had information.
But it made no sense.
The war was over?
Tanah stared at the information that flowed across his mind. Data didn't lie. It could be changed, obfuscated, deleted, edited, whatever… But it didn't lie.
The war was over. The Sentients had lost as ludicrous as that had seemed before. Natah and her children had prevailed, but then something had happened and the Orokin, damn them all to the deepest recesses of whatever horrific hell that humans imagined, had fallen as well. And now? The data was so incomplete that that he was left with more questions than answers. This human had been fighting something here. Not anything that Tanah knew. Some kind of misshapen things that shared the same face? Ick.
That paled beside a small bit of data that Tanah sudden brought to the fore.
The Lotus was missing!
I… Tanah did not like the feelings that came over him. The anger, he banished. The fear, he acknowledged and let pass away. The sorrow? That was harder. Natah… He pleaded in his mind. What happened to Natah?
The man who had died here didn't know such things. His name had been Oleg and he belonged to a group called the 'Vandals'. Tanah wasn't human to sigh, but he felt suddenly as if he should. He had dealt with lots of humans. He hadn't enjoyed what he had done when he and his kind had arrived in this benighted orange star system, but he was good at it and he hadn't been about to make any of his kin do it. The human at his side was dead. Tanah ordered his nanites to consume the being, to use the energy contained within the still living cells to help repair damage that Tanah could sense in his own chassis. He hoped the human wouldn't mind. It did feel like a desecration. He murmured a half remembered prayer. Faith wasn't something that many of his kind understood, but for him? It was all he really left.
His sensors came fully back online and Tanah went still. He could sense many life forms nearby. Not every Sentient had such sophisticated sensors, but Tanah had always been tasked with finding beings who were lost as well as his other duties. There were more humans, but they were all huddled in one small area and there were a number of other forms, nothing that Tanah knew, surging around them.
Wait! He did know them! Infested! Attacking the humans? What?
No.
Tanah went totally still as another form impinged his sensors. A familiar form. The Rhino Prime warfame fought as Tenno always had in Tanah's memory. With grace and skill, poise and fury. The warframe stood between the huddled humans and Infested horde. Alone.
There was one open hatchway that led to the small room where the humans were cowering. The Tenno was holding that portal, keeping the horrors away from the humans. They had no chance against Infested. Tanah dared do nothing but watch as the Tenno fought larger and larger masses of Infested who sought to pass, to consume. The Tenno would not allow it. There was no way for it to win. Tanah's senses were ranging wider now. He could sense hives in the area, hives that were even now churning out larger and more varied masses of Infested. And-
He was in motion before his intellect caught up with his emotions. A great cry went up from the humans as the Tenno who had defended them so bravely fell to an even larger mass of Infested flesh. Whatever it was, it had four legs and had thrown some kind of spikes that impaled the warframe to the floor. It was poised to stamp on the Tenno and end the bioarmored warrior when the bolt of energy that Tanah threw hit it from behind. Its spun seeking its tormentor.
Everything stopped as Tanah hovered into view. Everyone was staring at the Sentient as Tanah gathered his wits again. This was bad. He had no chance against a horde of Infested. He had no chance against a Tenno, even a wounded one. He didn't care. He had seen young humans in the group. Buds. He would not stand aside and watch them slaughtered. He had seen too many buds die, too many human children die, to ever stand idly by and watch it happen again. Natah had saved him. He would not deny her memory.
The humans gave a cry as Tanah moved to hover over the Tenno. The Infested thing stared at him and he waited. The Tenno was sitting up and had an oddly shaped pistol in hand, but it clearly couldn't tell whether to shoot Tanah or the Infested thing.
Spikes flew from the Infested, but Tanah had seen what happened to the Tenno and even not a warrior, he was a Sentient. He had been prepared. A shield slammed into place millimeters from his metal skin and the bone darts shattered harmlessly on it. He couldn't help the Tenno, but he wouldn't leave the kids to die. Just as his sister couldn't have left hers. This was not a battleground he would have chosen, even if he had been fighter, but there were possibilities here if he could use them.
It was hard to say who was more shocked when the Tenno slumped and a transparent form erupted from the warframe. It certainty shocked Tanah, but the Infested recoiled a step as well. Then Tanah felt hope flare! This was one of Natah's children! But… The male form obviously did not know him. The low frequency noises that the human hologram made were gibberish to Tanah. He tried several translation programs and finally found one that told him that the Zarimon child had asked 'What are you doing?'
Tanah could not reply the same way. What he could do was project an image on the ceiling. Everyone jumped as a Lotus symbol appeared in the ceiling. His sister's chosen alias. He didn't entirely approve of her choices, but Hunhow had lost his way and the Orokin had been evil, so… He would not fight Tenno if he had any choice, but defending children was always going to be his choice. That was what had spared him when Natah had come for him. All that had spared him, really. He hadn't had a chance against her physically or electronically. Instead of killing him, she had done far, far worse. She had opened his eyes and shown him the truth of the evil he had done. He still hated her for that on occasion, but in the end? He did still love her. She was his sister and what was more? She had been right.
The holographic child did not react. The Infested thing did. It hissed, preparing to charge. Tanah blinked into a sideways teleport and then fired off an energy blast to sting the beast. As he had hoped, it turned away from the Tenno and humans to charge him. He hovered in mid-air as it charged. Only when he was sure it was committed to its charge did he launch himself upwards. It saw what was behind the floating Sentient too late. It tried to stop short and failed. Its mass and momentum carried it right into the deep reactor vent that had been behind the Sentient and its wail of rage and fear dwindled swiftly in the distance as it fell. Even if it survived the fall, it would take some time to get back up to where Tanah was. The other Infested were closing in, eyeing him warily. The Zarimon child threw energy, but was quickly surrounded. An Infested slammed into the quasi-energy being from behind and Tanah felt hope fade with the child as the form wavered and vanished. Not dead, but he wouldn't be able to come back swiftly in all likelihood. Tanah was alone.
He had no choice. He could escape easily. But he could not leave the young of any race to perish. The Tenno would return, probably sooner rather than later, but the humans? No. If the Infested reached them, the humans would pray for death. They would be subsumed into pain filled horror and oblivion would not take them for a long, long time. He had seen it happen far too many times to allow that fate to happen to any.
That said, he had few options and fewer of those were good. He queried his sensors again and a few of his systems responded. So few, but one was still active. Not even close to his first choice, but his only option. Even as the Infested moved closer slowly and the humans cried, Tanah fired a bolt of energy into their midst. None had time even to scream as the energy expanded violently into a hazy blue sphere of light. It enveloped them and carried them away to safety. The place it would take them to was tainted beyond belief from what he had done, but they would be safe there.
Now, he had to escape.
The Infested, denied their prey, turned on him and the fallen Tenno. Tanah hovered over the Tenno, thinking hard. He couldn't teleport the Tenno. He wasn't sure what warframes were, but he did know that they were incredibly durable, incredibly regenerative and incredibly dangerous. Then he went still as a chuckle sounded followed by a voice. In a language he knew and a voice he hated.
Still being stupid? The form that strode out of the gloom was someone that Tanah had prayed never to see again. The warframe was the same misshapen lumps of biometal that shimmered with the same energy. So insufferably noble?
You will harm no more innocents, Tenno. Tanah snapped as the Infested retreated. Bestial or no, they knew that they were outmatched in a fight between Sentient and Tenno. Not that Tanah could fight this one. He wasn't a fighter for one and for another? He had no chance. This one knew every strength and weakness that Tanah had because he cheated. Tanah went still as the newcomer moved to examine the fallen Rhino. Leave that one alone! I will tell them you are here and now! They will stop you!
Who do you think the Tenno will listen to, monster? The other asked snidely as he touched the torn warframe.
I am sure you will spin lies for them just as you spun them for me, but there is something that I know that you likely don't. Tanah said flatly.
And what is that? The other inquired.
Nikis lives! The challenge is not done. Tanah said softly. When he spoke again, it was loud and piercing, a shout in electronic noise across every wavelength he could access. NIKIS! Before Tanah could spoke again, the other's energy grabbed him and held him, but the mental scream that was half rage, half agony made it through. KRONUS IS HERE AND NOW!
"What the-?" A familiar voice pulled Tanah out of pain and he stared at black armored boots that suddenly were astride his form was it lay on the ground. Then Nikis started to laugh as the other warframe recoiled. "Well, well, well. Hello again, Kronus. Long time."
The other warframe sputtered something and took a step back but it was too late. Nikis was firing. Tanah could do nothing but lie there as Nikis emptied his Magnus revolvers into the other warframe. Before it fell, Nikis had reloaded and was firing again. Then it shimmered in blue energy and was gone. Not dead. He never died. It was incredibly hard to hold someone who could travel in time long enough to kill them. Even one who deserved it so much as Kronus did.
"Damn!" Nikis cursed vilely for a long moment before the boots turned to face Tanah. "Shit. Lousy cowardly piece of crap! I so wanted to give that slime to Hayden this time." He knelt down to scrutinize the fallen Sentient. "Tanah… Oh crap, Tanah." His hand touched the rent metal of the Sentient's skin softly.
I failed, Tenno. Tanah begged. He followed me. He must have linked to me somehow. Use me to trap him. Just… I sent the humans here to safety… I… The children… I...
"Easy." The Tenno who predated the creation of the Sentients by several millennia said gently as soft orange energy flowed across the Sentients wounds, binding them. Repairing his broken chassis as easily as a Sentient might have. No one else in Tanah's experience could do such except Tanah's kind, but Nikis had done it before. Healed similar wounds caused by the same Tenno before.
Nikis, please! Tanah begged. I can't stop him. He will keep coming.
"This wasn't your fight, Sentient. It was ours." Nikis was still gentle. "Our mistake, our mess to clean up. You are just collateral damage in our war with that blinking asshole."
Language, Nikis. Tanah complained and Nikis chuckled again.
"You know? You are the second religious person to tell me off about that recently." Nikis was chuckling as he finished the work. "Geez, I hope this doesn't mean a theocracy is forming. Those always make a mess." He stepped back and then looked at the fallen Rhino. "Better get gone. Brother Zims will wake soon."
Where would I go? Your brother fought bravely. Tanah said softly I… I am no warrior, Nikis. But kids...
"I know. Where did you send them?" Nikis asked. "He will want to know."
The lab is deactivated and secure. Tanah said sadly. The pens are safe. I never thought I would say that. Nikis nodded. Tanah made a human sounding sigh. It was the only place I could think of and I know Hunhow cannot get in there. They will sleep until I can get them out.
"Safer than most places these days." Nikis agreed. "Kronus…." He spit and likely would have cursed, but looked at Tanah and refrained. The Sentient appreciated that as he rose back to a hover. "Just what we needed. An insane Tenno time traveler back again."
He thinks he is doing the right thing. Tanah could not slump but his entire posture was of dejection. Just like any fanatic in any of human or Sentient history, he is right and everyone else is wrong.
"Get out of here." Nikis commanded as the Rhino flared with power. "See to the humans, I will… be in touch or my mate will."
Your mate? Tanah asked. You saved Kalina? He went still as Nikis did. No, no, no! We couldn't have lost Kalina too!
Get out of here, Tanah! Nikis snapped silent as the other Tenno moved a little. If he wakes and you are here, it won't go well! Go!
I don't think it matters, Nikis. Tanah said as he hovered away. One of the Zarimon children saw me.
We will handle it. Nikis promised. We will be in touch. Go!
Blessings of the Almighty be upon you, most ancient of Tenno Guardians. Tanah said formally as he keyed for a teleport to his lab. His horror. His past.
Right back at'cha, ya silly priest.