-This is my first fan fiction, but I have been writing for about a year, maybe two
-I probably don't need to say this, but I don't own any of the rights to any of the elements of the story, except maybe for original settings and OCs. All rights belong to Digital Extremes, as they are the creators of Warframe.
-the idea came from a mission I ran as a nova, and was quite literally 'ambushed' as I entered the ship. The beginning is loosely based on that mission. There wasn't really a reason for the story, so I just made one up.
-I'm going for the humanoid underneath the Warframe theory.
-anyway, on with the story!
As usual, Nova received her orders from 'Lotus', and sat down at the control panel. This particular mission called for 'extra stealth', so Nova would be going on her own. She didn't see why such a mission wouldn't be assigned to either Loki, or maybe Ash, but she didn't question her orders.
Nova had already been in enough trouble after unintentionally reading some files that had been inside of a briefcase from a previous mission. It mentioned some things about the Lotus, but the text was in the Grineer language, so Nova wasn't able to understand most of it. She needed to brush up on her reading skills.
After that, Nova was put into a cryo-stasis for an unknown time while the lotus ran through her memory feed; probably determine what exactly Nova knew. She neglected to mention that she wasn't able to read Grineer. She would regret that later.
Waking up on her Liset, Nova stretched and flexed a bit, loosening herself up again, after her deep freeze. Almost immediately, she received a message, in her inbox, from the Lotus, commanding her to go on the stealth mission. Picking her Vulkar, Lex and heat sword from the storage compartment of her ship, she ignored Ordis's pointless ramblings about some diagnostics whatnot, and headed to the control panel.
As she kneeled down, a holographic ring of planets appeared around Nova. Raising her hand, she waved it to the left, until she reached Neptune. Tapping the air where Neptune was, the other planets disappeared, and Neptune grew larger, along with the names of the sectors that made up the planet. Tapping again on the sector that Lotus had marked with an alert; the Liset immediately sped up, changing course.
As the Liset was arriving on Neptune, Ordis said something strange. "Goodbye, operator. I wish you luck." Ignoring it as usual, Nova continued to the rear of the ship, going down the ramp, which lifted up, revealing the deployment system.
Climbing inside, Nova took a deep breath, and hit the eject button, making the half cylinder rotated, exposing Nova to the harshness of space, which quickly damaged her shields. Lunging at the corpus ship she was infiltrating, she grabbed one of the airlock shutters, and tore it open, being careful not to damage it too much. Climbing inside, Nova closed the hole she made, and exhaled heavily. Even trained assassins get nervous when they are deprived of oxygen.
Going through the ventilation system, Nova followed the orders that Lotus gave her, taking a right here, and a left there. Eventually, she came across an air vent, and kicked it out, as usual. Dropping down, Nova only had a second to react, before dozens of corpus wardens fired their Lankas at her, stripping away her shields, and smashing away her armour and weapons.
The stopped just short of killing her, leaving her gasping for air, kneeling, and clutching her broken left arm. Before her Warframe could attempt to re-establish her shields, a corpus general walked forward, and grabbed her head rings, shoving her to the ground, and placing a collar around her neck.
Within seconds, she could hear her Warframe stop working. Her wide area sensory augmentation system ceased functioning also, so she had no way of seeing or hearing what was happening. Feeling herself being wrenched up, Nova prepared for the worst. Instead, she felt the neck of her Warframe come apart, as her helmet was ripped off, revealing her short silver hair and light blue eyes.
Soon after, she became aware that there were tears streaking down her face. Since her eon-long sleep, Nova hadn't ever been so afraid, so terrified for her life. Trying to scurry away, she was thrown to the ground again, causing her to gasp in pain.
No matter how much she wanted to cry for help, or even just scream, she was unable. The reason being, she was mute, due to a previous injury; a scar across her throat. Her vocal chords having been cut at some point before her sleep, she wasn't able to create the sound necessary for speech.
Standing over her, the many corpus crewmen couldn't help but laugh, knowing that this was in fact a setup for Nova. "Now then," Began the corpus general. "Do you know why you were sent here?" cowering, nova nodded slowly. Again trying to open her mouth, nothing but a gargle escaped, along with some blood.
Noticing the scar on Nova's throat, the corpus general called to a crewman in the corpus language, who came forward with a paper and pen. "Instead of saying it, you can just write it down. After that we'll decide what to do with you." Her mind swimming, Nova could only think to write the truth.
In scratchy, slow letters, Nova scrawled out the words, "I was told to bring back something. The Lotus told me she would tell me what when I found it, but that I had to be quiet about it. How did you know I was coming? I didn't even have time to look around before you got me" snatching the notepad, the general skimmed over it, smirking.
Throwing it back to the crewman that had it before, the General crouched, looking Nova dead in the eyes. "You were tricked, idiot. The lotus sent you here knowing you would die." Staring at the General in disbelief, Nova tried to reason with herself as to why that couldn't be true.
'Lotus would never do that, right? We're comrades, and I've done everything she's asked! I've never wronged…' nova's thoughts stopped cold. 'That document…' she thought. As soon as she thought that, she knew. The general was right. The Lotus had betrayed her.
Hanging her head, Nova could only kneel there, staring at the ground in despair. Without warning, she began to cry again, the tears simply falling out of her eyes, and splashing on the floor. 'what now?' she thought. 'I'm really going to die… I don't have the strength to fight, my arm's broken, and my Warframe won't work… I'm screwed…'
Standing up, the general spoke in the Corpus language, which once again, Nova couldn't understand. As the crewmen began to walk towards Nova, she just lowered her head, and curled up into a ball, expecting a bullet to the head. Instead, the crewmen gently hoisted her up, making sure to avoid her left arm and the many other injuries they had given her. "We may have a use for you, Tenno."
Feeling both the overwhelming joy at the knowledge that she wouldn't be killed, and the fear of not knowing what would happen to her, Nova could no longer hold onto her consciousness, and faded away, being released from the pain. "Take her to the med-bay, and have the doctors patch her up. Make sure she's bound, though. Injured or not, she's still a Tenno."