"Wonderful," Rhino exults, spinning through shattered wreckage. Glee pours off him in waves. His archwing trail turns radiant as a burst of speed sends him careening through a chunk of floating debris. A feeling of chagrin replaces the glee, for a moment.
An Excalibur almost reprimands him, but only a brief Sending of reproach leaks through before she sees something that changes the mass Sending into one of wonder.
The clan glides through space and the wreckage of a Corpus ship. Neither the vast freedom or stark coldness of the broken ship impress her. The clan flits and darts experimentally around in unbelievable numbers, heedless of the limitations of cell or gravity. Neither their numbers nor their swift, agile movement awe her. The Balor Fomorian, a massive Grineer warship capable of wiping out entire Relay stations and, clearly, Corpus vessels, is already visible dozens of kilometers in the distance. Neither its size or destructive power surprise her.
The form of a slim, armoured woman floats past her, spinning almost lazily as clawed hands drag soundlessly against the Corpus vessel's ruined hull.
Valkyr's peace is what surprises Excalibur, the leader of their clan.
She watches as the berserker floats along, handler darting back and forth, even crashing – yet again – into another broken piece of hull without managing to disturb her.
So Excalibur only Sends the question, "everybody gathered? Good. We have another twelve minutes before the other clans check in."
Her entire clan Sends acknowledgment.
"I never expected you to like it out here," Sends a Zephyr, overheard by everyone but directed at the exultant Rhino.
The Rhino replies with both mirth and solemnity, genuinely surprised at Zephyr's surprise. "I have always wanted to move quickly, to be so fast nothing could hit me. I'm afraid of being hurt, and I feel safe as Rhino, but I have never been able to move as quickly as I would love so much to."
He doesn't Send the words, but the meaning translates from the images and memories. The entire clan feels the emotions Rhino feels when he is shot, when the power of his frame's Iron Skin shatters, and the perpetual yearning for that rush of motion that he can only taste when charging.
A Volt Sends his agreement, as does another Zephyr, but the Rhino has moved on in his thoughts and actions.
Excalibur watches him float towards Valkyr. She knows he wants to fly far and fast, but chooses to remain with the inexplicably becalmed Tenno. She glides towards them as well, confident in her archwing proficiency. She doesn't need more practice. She can afford to spend time with the clan's most unstable member.
She Sends the Rhino, Valkyr's handler, concern and curiosity. He Sends back reassurance, "it's like she doesn't know a battle is coming. She's more calm than I've ever felt."
Tentatively, Excalibur reaches out, touching Valkyr's thoughts. Her mind recoils with the same instinctive jerk and hiss that a Voidless might give when burned.
Tenno, of course, tend to take being lit on fire in stride.
"I believe you are right," she agrees, Sending tinged with sadness and regret.
A Mag skips along the bulk of the Corpus ship, grabbing hold and then spinning around the other side in an impressive display of skill.
Rhino turns to look at Excalibur, sensing his friend's pain. She is, perhaps, less subtle than a leader should be. Their discipline has waned in the years since they awoke, and emotions are difficult things to control.
"It is not your fault." Firm. Confident. Reassuring in the way only true belief can be.
Images return over the Sending, of Excalibur standing before her clan and telling them the only way to save the people of Mars is to fight the Grineer. They needed to sacrifice their own sleeping Tenno kin for the sake of an entire planet's worth of humans. "Protect and Serve," she'd reminded them, the part of the Tenno code that encapsulated her decision. "We are their only protectors, and we know what the Grineer will do to them."
She'd managed to convince herself that the sleeping Tenno weren't worth saving. They were not worth incurring the wrath of the Grineer war machine.
She'd been wrong. In so many ways, she had been wrong. Her clan had fought with her, loyal even to those decisions they disagreed with. They'd joined her fight against the Grineer assaults. Her clan had been in the minority amongst the Tenno, they were dozens against many hundreds, but they'd fought even their own kin for the people of the Mars colonies. And they had failed. They had slowed the Grineer assault, saved a scant few colonies, but the cost was unimaginable.
No. The cost wasn't unimaginable. At least, it isn't anymore.
It is floating along beside her, claws dragging soundlessly in the metal of the Corpus debris.
It had been a risk, choosing to bring her. It always was. Still, Excalibur had made the decision. The Tenno need everyone today, and Valkyr is the strongest of them all. As long as she doesn't lose control – Excalibur forces herself not to think, "as long as we don't lose control of her" - she will be the vanguard that wipes away Grineer resistance inside the gargantuan enemy they are about to face.
"Trust and Complete," Excalibur Sends back. The battlecry of the Grineer supporters, the loyalists determined to save their own. And they had. So many of the Tenno had been saved because of the fury and passion of those loyal many.
Except for the select few who'd been taken by Alad V, because the Corpus weren't quite as busy fending off Grineer ferocity as they could have been. As they would have been, without Excalibur's clan and the few who'd worked with them.
"Adapt and Overcome," Rhino chides. His meaning is clear: she will have to learn to live with herself, to defeat her own doubts as she would any other enemy.
It is a thing easier said than done, but knwoing that her friend truly believes, without reservation, that she made the correct decision makes all the difference.
The three drift together for another few minutes, then Excalibur Sends to the clan the command to gather up. Swiftly, every Tenno in the clan gathers together at the edge of the debris field, watching the oncoming Balor Fomorian silently crush asteroids and push aside ship wreckage on its way to the Relay.
At exactly the scheduled time, Excalibur radios a ready ping to the Lotus. Her clan is in position.
Two seconds later, Lotus' face appears in every Tenno's vision.
"Alright," she says, "you're in position. We won't get another chance at this."
There was a palpable pause, and Lotus seemed afraid. Anxious. Then she says, "go."
And the Tenno go. In one mass, in the same moment, across the system, every Tenno ever woken begins towards a Balor Fomorian threatening a Relay. The Grineer have sent their most powerful weapons to destroy the only places Tenno ever meet the Voidless outside of combat. The Tenno now respond in kind.
There is a gap of empty space between the wreckage where the Tenno hid and the asteroid field the Balor Fomorian now pounds through. It is not ideal, but the distance synchronizes Excalibur's clan with every other one across the system. They will need that advantage.
An image appears in Excalibur's mind, a brown, domed hulk of metal. She looks to the side to see several Tenno approaching one. When they get too close, a translucent sphere of energy traps them. Two try to fly out and bounce off the energy field.
"Tenno are trapped in a Zeplen's energy net," Lotus explains, "destroy the Zeplen to let them escape."
Immediately, a dozen Imperator rifles turn on the Zeplen and rip it to shreds. Another two times groups of Tenno arre caught, but both times the offending Zeplens are annihilated before they can slow the Tenno significantly.
Then the Tenno enter the asteroid field and, shortly after, range of the Fomorian.
A laser tears through space, and Excalibur is certain she can somehow hear it roar. Tenno scatter and, by pure luck, the attack misses them all.
The next laser vaporizes a Volt and an Excalibur.
There is nothing their leader can do. The Warlord Excalibur can only fly on, hoping that there are enough Tenno left at the end to assault the behemoth.
Then a cell of Tenno form into a tetrahedron, a Nyx leading the group. The Excalibur Sends a question, and is met with an immediate response. A Tenno has remembered.
It is not much. It never is. A flash of four Tenno flying in the tetrahedron against oncoming ships, close enough to cover every direction and covered by an Odonata archwing's shield. As usual, it is knowledge without context. But that doesn't mean the Tenno can't take advantage of it.
Excalibur gives the order, and immediately her clan forms into cells, less a swarm now than a salvo of missiles.
It reduces their profile, keeps them in groups that will be able to assault the inside of the ship, but it doesn't save everyone. Six more Tenno die before reaching the ship. A cell falls behind when, seeing the Fomorian's guns training on them, they dodge into a Zeplen net. At least they live.
When the clan reaches the ship, they scatter, each cell searching for a weakness. Four cells move in for the most important job: damaging the power generators. Excalibur, Rhino, Valkyr, and a Limbo all fly up, up, and around, easily dodging the defensive guns meant for enemy ships and, in a pinch, small asteroids.
Then the fighters begin to pour out of the ship.
Dargyns are tiny things, a pod with thrusters and a Grineer in the center. Dregs are even smaller, barely more than guns with rockets and sheets of armour welded on, with a rudimentary computer somewhere in the mix.
Battle begins in earnest for most as they try to fend off the oncoming horde. Missiles knock a dozen Tenno out of the fight in mere moments, before any of them can activate their countermeasures. Their kin fight to defend their bodies as others move to revive them in time.
Excalibur ignores it all, following her cell rather than interfering. She can only search for her obvjective. Valkyr and Rhino annihilate as many Grineer fighters as they can reach, including a massive mining robot known as an Ogma. Excalibur scans the battlefield.
Then she sees it and, with a powerful effort of Sending, so does every member of her clan. The very paths the Grineer are using to escape the Fomorian can be used to infiltrate the vessel. Nearby, a cell of Tenno activate four shields and simply charge into the fighters' exit tunnels. A pair of Elytron archwings fire powerful warheads into the breach, doing little damage when the missiles detonate on escaping fighters.
Excalibur slices through a Dreg and reflects a missile back at its launcher while Sending a plan to her cell. Limbo attracts the fire of several Dargyns and ignores the missiles as they pass through his body. At Excalibur's command, he flips around and snaps his fingers towards each member of the cell in turn. Valkyr gives a silent scream of rage as she passes through an Ogma, but Rhino manages to guide her even as the same mining robot cleaves ineffectually through his body and archwing. Then Excalibur, too, turns incorporeal, and leads her cell into the breach. The Tenno pass through the oncoming forces as if they weren't there, quickly making it to the other side. The hive of the hornets, as it were.
Two other cells have beaten them in, and another arrives as Excalibur took stock of the situation.
It is a colossal room, seeming to stretch as far as the eye can see in every direction, with walls of ferrite and alloy armour broken by an uneven patchwork of exit tunnels.
And everywhere, everywhere, there are fighters. Dargyns and Dregs in docking rows, blocking the view in their numbers so that Excalibur can only see the walls along the lines between the fighters.
If they wanted to, the Grineer could wipe out the Relays with these forces alone.
She Sends to her cell, even braving the ravages of Valkyr's mind to impress upon her the need to leave. Other cells will handle this; she can trade information with them as her own cell moves on. The four cells tasked with sabotaging the Fomorian's Omega generators are inside the hull of the ship, about to activate their disruptors and deal what damage they can. She needs to capitalize on the ensuing chaos.
They fly downward through the ranks of fighters, killing only what they have to and fleeing the rest. A Volt manages to short-circuit an entire row of Dregs in their path, but Excalibur doesn't expect much more. Sendings coming in tell her that the Tenno using their Warframe abilities while attached to archwings are having difficult times concentrating afterward, like something is interfering with their powers.
Lotus, late as she often is, chimes in, "good, you're inside the Fomorian. While other Tenno deal with the generators, you need to get to the bridge. The ship is massive, and this will be the most extensive Sabotage and Exterminate mission you have ever undertaken. Good luck."
Jehnadaye-eeaem, Excalibur thinks, though she doesn't know why. The word is a blessing for a difficult battle and a glorious victory. She likes that. She must have used it often in her previous life, before she lost her memories. She Sends the sentiment to Rhino as they all float to the bottom of the hangar, and he agrees the concept suits her well.
It isn't until they leave the hangar and enter the ship proper that they finally feel gravity again, and their archwings drop from the magnetic clamps at their backs.
Then Valkyr sprints forward and around a corner. They chase after her to find two Grineer, torn to bloody tatters. Valkyr has already moved on.
Excalibur doesn't blame her. Not really. They've just flown through an entire hangar filled with enemies, and Valkyr obediently flew past every one, even after engaging in combat only moments before. It had been a remarkable effort of self-control on the berserker's part. Now, they are dealing with the natural consequences.
Excalibur and Rhino sprint down the hallway, one cleaning up the few survivors while the other simply crushes anything in his path.
Limbo follows nonchalantly behind, sticking his head through walls once in a while in the riskiest move Excalibur has ever seen out of one of the daredevil masters of the Void. What if he misjudged and fell through the floor, or out of the ship? They'd all heard stories about what happened to the Limbo who'd… "provided" the blueprints the Tenno used.
Excalibur has never gotten up the nerve to try out the frame, though she will often accept the safety and energy of the rifts a Limbo generates. There is something relaxing about walking through the Void.
Unlike this moment, which is not relaxing at all. Instead, they have run through almost two kilometers of hallway and still not managed to catch up with Valkyr. Personally, Excalibur feels Rhino could be moving a little faster but, to be honest, they'd need a Zephyr or a Loki to catch the berserker when she is on the run.
Then Rhino loses his patience. With a roar that leaves even Valkyr's cries paling in comparison, he charges down the hall, slamming into the wall at the end. He uses the impact to reorient and charge again, following the berserker with stunning speed.
It isn't something she normally thinks about, but Excalibur supposes a charging Rhino and Valkyr might be an intimidating combination.
"Limbo," she Sends. Sort of. Sending doesn't truly involve names. Instead, she Sends a patchwork impression of the Limbo's identity, readily identifiable by any Tenno as the one she is referring to. Names are unnecessary to Tenno. But "Limbo" will do, if one insists on trying to get the meaning across in something as meaningless as words. "Report," she orders.
A Sending of several large rooms, usually nondescript cubes of brown metal with steaming pipes jutting haphazardly from walls, comes back to her. Then a few images of rooms filled with crushed Grineer, the result of an unfriendly trip through a Limbo's Rift into the Void. Finally, a Limbo surrounded by Grineer corpses, hacking into a computer terminal.
She waits patiently for a few seconds, walking back to the section of hallway the Limbo will return through.
"A Tenno operative has downloaded a map of the Fomorian's internal structure," the Lotus informs her. "This should make your job easier."
A detailed map of the Fomorian places itself in the upper left of Excalibur's vision at the same time Limbo walks through a rusted wall towards her. Even with his undisciplined air of victory, she can't help but congratulate him. This intel is not only helpful, it was obtained with little time wasted and no complications.
She does wonder how any Limbo can so confidently walk through walls, however. Most are afraid to even walk through enemy combatants, as the cell did to enter the Fomorian. Walking through walls is only a mental slip-up from walking through the floor, which is a second's hesitation away from floating in space.
Pushing the image from her mind, Excalibur races back down the halls after Rhino and Valkyr. She dodges around corpses and pools of blood where she can, but splashes herself a shiny new red regardless. At least it won't take long to wash off.
The entire ship rocks, dims, and lights up again.
"Fomorian disruptors have disabled the Balor Fomorian's Omega generators," the Lotus informs them. "Move quickly. When they reactivate, the damage will be catastrophic."
Excalibur doesn't need to be told. She just needs to catch up with a rogue berserker before she does something that jeapordizes the mission.
On the other hand, the Warlord thinks as she takes a detour around a hallway piled high with corpses, she's doing a very good job of thinning the herd.
Excalibur and Limbo catch sight of Valkyr and Rhino seconds before the ship shakes, throwing them all around like shaken dice. Shields flash and Excalibur is thrown back and forth, unable to catch herself, until the world stands still again. She raises her head and picks herself up.
She did not catch the worst of it, not by a long shot. Rhino has put dents into the floor and ceiling so deep it is a wonder he didn't go through them.
She also did not perform the best.
Valkyr stands in the same spot as before, as if nothing happened. Limbo is standing up, letting go of his energized grip on the floor. He doffs his hat at Excalibur, and she turns to catch up with Valkyr before the berserker begins her rampage again.
"Tenno operatives have damaged the Omega generators," Lotus informs them. "The ship should be unable to move and charge its cannons simultaneously. You've bought some time, Tenno, but there is more work to be done. Make your way upwards towards the marked objective. You know what to do."
A yellow marker appears on Excalibur's HUD. Probably the best Lotus can provide. Excalibur can't imagine trying to coordinate every Tenno in the system on almost a dozen simultaneous missions. It is astounding she is able to communicate with her Tenno at all.
Valkyr has, if not calmed, at least slowed down, and Excalibur takes the lead for the first time this mission. By ordering Rhino to take the lead.
Valkyr and Rhino are the most durable of the cell, and thus the best choices to take the brunt of the incoming fire. Valkyr had done an admirable job up until the generator's explosion, and there is no reason she can't continue to do so, with a little guidance.
The alarms go off.
Of course they do. An explosion just shook the ship. Even the copy-of-a-copy soup that makes up a Grineer brain can figure out something is wrong after that.
Grineer soldiers, armed with rifles and shotguns, begin flooding into their path. All die just as easily as the fresh corpses covering the ground behind.
Then the cell reaches a room on fire.
Valkyr charges in, but Rhino is hesitant to dash through the flames without knowing what's on the other side.
Limbo has it covered. With a casual snap of his fingers, Excalibur passes into the Void, then dashes through the flames. It is a disconcerting feeling, the plasma passing through her body instead of around it, but her shields thank her.
It takes Excalibur a quarter of a second to adjust to the light in the next room, and another second to take in the chaos.
The room is big, with ramps on either side leading to walkways lined with Grineer troops. The room is several stories high, with tanks along the leftmost wall and underneath the walkways on both sides. Fire covers much of the floor, and Grineer send down a crossfire on Valkyr and Excalibur with laughing impunity. Valkyr is halfway through a leap when she is knocked back to the ground by a hail of Ogris missile fire. Napalms, bombards and heavy gunners fill the room with a rain of fire, missile, and lead.
Valkyr lands as gracefully as ever on the floor and screams out her rage. For a moment, she fills the room with the sound of pain so intense it drowns out the explosions. A feeling of power and focus fills Excalibur, and she knows what to do.
She leaps into the air as missiles pass through her ethereal form. All eyes follow her ascent, frightened of what the Tenno will do once it reaches them.
From the depths of her being, Excalibur calls forth the truest manifestation of who she is. Her graceful corkscrew tapers off as she reaches above her head, grasping at an invisible blade's hilt.
Behold the Exalted Blade!
A blade of pure energy appears in her outstretched hand. Its creation gives off light as bright as can be imagined, a blazing purity that whitens the room and renders the fires of the sun dim in comparison. A light that sears directly into the eyes of every Grineer in the room.
Screams filled the room and Excalibur reorients, selects a target, and lets the blade guide her. It takes the life of a bombard first, and excess energy arcs past to cut through two heavy gunners. In the same fluid motion, the blade guides her to its next target, a napalm who fires at his own feet in panic, setting the walkway on fire. Three more die to the blade itself, seven to the awesome energies that even Excalibur cannot contain. She dances across the walkway, through fire and blood as the blade takes lives more easily than its victims had ever taken breath. In mere moments every Grineer on the walkway is dead.
Across the room, Valkyr is only a pair of seconds and corpses behind her. The last Grineer falls as Rhino charges through the flames with enough speed to snuff them out.
Excalibur kicks some blood off of her legs. Valkyr, in stark contrast, is painted red except for a patch on the flayed half of her face. She ignores the mess entirely.
They need to go up. The target marker is high above them, through floors and floors of Grineer, and they don't have the time to deal with that. Even with Valkyr's ferocity and Rhino's power, another room like this one will mean the Fomorian reaches the Relay before the Tenno reach the control room.
Excalibur looks up at the ceiling a couple dozen meters above, and has an idea. She Sends her plan to Rhino, who relays it to Valkyr for her. Excalibur waits, hoping Valkyr will understand, hoping she will help them.
Valkyr stares at her for a moment, fists clenching and glowing claws radiating the same deadly energy as the Exalted Blade.
Then she looks up towards the ceiling and leaps.
Tension eases out of Excalibur's frame, and she follows, bouncing between the tanks and wall with noticeably less grace than the berserker. Even so, she lands the first strike on the ceiling, lashing out with her blade and gouging a chunk out of the ferric, pockmarked barrier with an arc of stray energy.
Valkyr follows up an instant later, attacking the ceiling with the same fury she would an enemy. Excalibur joins her atop a tank and, within moments, they carve a hole into the upper floor. One by one she, Valkyr, Rhino, and Limbo leap up and into the next floor.
Excalibur Sends her amazement that Rhino managed to get Valkyr to cooperate, congratulates him on his bond with her, and wonders what he Sent the feral Tenno.
Rhino Sends back shame with the answer, "I told her the monsters were on the other side."
That chills Excalibur, the idea that her friend would lie to a fellow Tenno. With effort, she pushes the idea aside and takes off towards the objective. They have a Mission to complete.
The Lotus appears once more. "Sabotage missions are reporting success, but the Fomorian isn't stopping. Get to the command center. You may be the Relay's only hope."
Excalibur gives silent thanks that, even with the heavy resistance they had faced, her cell is one of the lesser concerns of the ship at large. More than a dozen cells of Tenno make for an effective distraction.
The Grineer forces collapse upon them, called from ahead and behind because of Excalibur's clever plan. Still, they fight their way forward. Limbo takes to setting electrical taser traps behind them wherever he can, just to slow down pursuers.
Then Valkyr goes down in the center of a crowd of heavily armoured Grineer.
The cell flies into action instantly. Rhino slams the floor and a wave of force knocks every Grineer in the room off their feet. Limbo sends Valkyr into the Void to recover her energy, then does the same for the rest of them. Rhino crashes through the immobilized Grineer bodies and Excalibur weaves through them while Limbo simply dashes through. Valkyr can do nothing more than rage helplessly as her Warframe loses functionality, slowly shutting down in a "bleed-out" state.
All three Tenno reach their cellmate and green smoke pours onto her from their hands. The smoke is a nanite regenerative fluid that overrides the bleed-out. In moments, it repairs Valkyr's suddenly shattered frame. The fluid is the same that runs through every Warframe to keep it functional.
In seconds, Valkyr is on her feet again. Her cell has given their lifeblood to heal her, but it is a burden made light by many hands.
Still, Valkyr is not easily downed. Her condition leaves her almost unable to feel pain, and her powers render her immune to physical damage. The amount of time it generally takes to reach the end of her endurance is orders of magnitude longer than any enemy survives to present a threat. Simply put, if Valkyr goes down, other Warframes rarely stand a chance.
The cell turns outwards from the scene and kills every helpless Grineer in the room.
They have a Mission. There are greater concerns than the danger any one of them faces.
Excalibur reluctantly orders Limbo to leave Valkyr in realspace. In spite of the energizing effects of the Void, the cell cannot afford Valkyr's frustration if she cannot kill her enemies.
They fight on and on, and Excalibur gives up cleaning the blood from her frame. Rhino begins to show the signs of serious damage, even after repeated activations of his secondary armour. Limbo runs out of Castana electrical traps. Valkyr starts to run low on energy, and is consistently forced to use weaponry aside from her claws.
As with any Mission, in spite of everything the Grineer can throw at them, the Tenno reach their objective.
Before them stands a bulkhead door so massive and obviously thick Limbo doesn't even try to move through it. On either side of it are two security terminals. Limbo and Excalibur move up to them.
Activating her frame's interface, Excalibur is as unsurprised to discover the high-level security system as she once was to find out she could use a sword. Some things are so true as to be simple, unquestionable reality.
Limbo and Excalibur Send their progress to each other, deactivating the door's locks within a second of each other. Still, electricity streaks from the terminals and courses through their frames as the doors open, pulverizing their shields and knocking Limbo into bleedout.
Then a flaming scream passes by them and an explosion slams into the ceiling above them. The force of it turns much of Excalibur's armoured back to ash and throws her forward into the next room.
Doors slam shut to cut off the breached compartment.
Limbo's failing frame is sucked out by the force of the vacuum along with one other.
A powerful Sending shows Rhino watching he ground fall away as he flies upwards to the hole in the ship. He tries to tell Valkyr to stay with their leader, but Excalibur watches through Rhino's own sight as Valkyr tries unsuccessfully to activate her ripline. She is out of energy. Desperate, the mad Tenno leaps into the air after her handler. Both follow Limbo into the vacuum of space. The Sending ends when a passing Dargyn launches a missile at the two helpless Warframes.
Excalibur leaps to her feet as soon as her senses return to normal. Hyperactive nanite fluid is already repairing what damage it can, but she only has an instant to take stock of her situation.
No Tenno needs more than that.
Even so, she isn't prepared for the massive hand that grabs her by the throat and lifts her into the air.
"Ha. Ha. Ha. Little Tenno..."
The figure holding her is a massive, armoured Grineer with hands large enough to span her torso. Behind him, another one of similar size holds a rocket launcher as big as Excalibur. On the other side of the room, two smaller Grineer sit at terminals with displays of the battle outside, guiding the ship ever onwards to the Relay. Both have weapons strapped to their backs as an extra precaution.
Excalibur and her captor look into what passes for each other's face.
"Tenno skoom fail," the massive Grineer continues to laugh. The brass peacock fan on his helmet glints as his body shakes. Behind him, the rocket launcher-wielding Grineer stomps a prosthetic leg against the ground. The sound echoes in the large room.
Peacock pulls a suitably oversized trident from his back…
Excalibur takes in the room, searching for a way to accomplish her Mission.
The bulkhead door is closed. The floor is mostly flat, with surprisingly minimal wiring. The ceiling stretches high overhead, over ten meters up. The walls are covered in wiring and piping, a messy patchwork of Grineer engineering. The computer terminals are on the other side of the room, attached to all the controls for the ship's movement and main cannons. The processing machinery piles against the wall behind the terminals in a Grineer haphazard way. The lighting in the room is yellow, not white, creating artificial partial colour-blindness.
The Peacock Grineer holds a trident and carries a net at his waist. His armour is thick, with few weak spots even at the joints. This will make him slow, but he has range and the equipment to immobilize an opponent.
The Grineer with a prosthetic holds a rocket launcher he can't possibly use again without wiping out everything in the room. His armour seems less like protection and more like a rack to hold as many weapons as he can physically carry. His prosthetic will limit his mobility, and his armour is weak.
Excalibur is equipped with a Braton automatic rifle for crowd suppression, a Lex semi-automatic pistol for anti-armour purposes, and a "Heat Sword" incendiary longsword. The armour on her back is ash, and her frame is at less than half of optimal condition. Her shield readout flickers between numbers. Her Void energy is low, but not depleted, thanks to her habit of keeping an emergency ration – this moment counts as an emergency.
And Excalibur is not leader of her clan for no reason.
Peacock shakes her, screaming, "Tenno beg!" He raises his trident and shakes it, too.
Prosthetic says, "Tenno… n… no speak."
Peacock roars and drives his trident forward, determined to end the matter quickly if the Tenno will not pander to his gloating.
Excalibur's feet come up, kicking out and slapping the trident aside. With a mighty heave, aided by the blood covering her frame, the Tenno slips out of Peacock's grip. She kicks off his chest, flipping backwards as she draws her Braton in her left hand and Heat Sword in her right.
She is not leader because she is the most skilled. The Tenno have no shortage of skilled warriors.
Before the Grineer can react, Excalibur raises her sword and pulls its trigger. A blast of fire jets from the blade, blinding her enemies. At the same time, she points her rifle at the most important targets: the Fomorian pilots.
She dashes towards the trident-wielding gladiator and peppers the control console and its attendants with bullets. One goes down, but the other dives out of the way, and errant bullets ping off of a Grineer-durable computer terminal.
Excalibur brings her sword down towards Peacock's knee joint a moment too late. The walking armory has recovered more quickly than she predicted, and a Gorgon heavy machine gun roars to life, spraying Peacock, the ground, and herself with abandon. Excalibur is knocked off balance, and her shields flicker low as she attempts to roll behind Peacock's legs for cover.
Excalibur was not chosen for her charisma. Words mean little to the Tenno; only intent matters.
Peacock, too, has recovered now. Excalibur leaps over a swing of the trident, keeping watch on Peacock's other hand and Prosthetic's movements. Peacock gropes for his net. A quick parry manages to slow the Grineer down another second, but Prosthetic is moving around to get a clear shot. Excalibur darts around and away from the net, towards Peacock's trident hand.
Another parry deflects the trident over Excalibur's head, and she takes the spare second to trade her Braton for her Lex.
The first shot pings off Peacock's left hand, but the second one penetrates the armour of his wrist, and he roars in pain.
She is not Warlord because she is strong or fast or agile. These are all traits of her Warframe, which any Tenno could have.
Excalibur leaps upwards onto the injured Grineer's chest -
"The Balor Fomorian is in range. It's cannons are charging!"
- factors the warning, reaches an arm towards Peacock's neck. She uses the sword to extend her grip, wrapping it around the Grineer's neck. Her left hand comes up with the Lex and she pulls the trigger.
Misses as the Grineer lurches backward, causing the Heat Sword to dig deep in the back of his neck. Excalibur kicks off, abandoning her sword. She rolls with the Grineer's momentum through the hail of bullets Prosthetic unleashes.
The Gorgon is a powerful weapon, but inaccurate. Unfortunately, this is generally not a concern at close range.
Excalibur lands meters from Prosthetic, sliding underneath his line of fire.
An echoing BOOM sounds from above.
The Lex comes up and fires once into the side of the Gorgon, rendering it useless. Then Excalibur leaps straight up, snatching a rocket from its slot on the Grineer's armour, and fires another shot into the Grineer's faceplate.
Adapt and Overcome.
The rocket is the same type that ripped through the side of the Fomorian. It will destroy the computers controlling it without trouble.
The Clan chose Excalibur because she understands how to adapt to any situation and overcome any enemy.
She lands facing Peacock again, keeping Prosthetic on the edge of her vision, and holsters her Lex. Peacock is still working on standing up and Prosthetic is tearing his faceplate off in order to see.
Another thundering BOOM sounds.
There is an instant where Excalibur wonders if she has made a mistake. Not a tactical error, but one of principle. The rocket is ammunition, and therefore free for the taking. On the other hand, she intends to use it as a bomb, a weapon unto itself. Theft of a weapon is unforgivable to the Tenno…
She places a hand against the tip of the rocket, summoning the energy to call the Exalted Blade forth.
A rocket's roar from behind her causes her to turn, and the move saves her, even if just for an instant. The hammer blow from a Jat Kittag takes her in the side, crushing her right arm and throwing her across the room.
The other pilot, the one who survived, has joined the fight.
Excalibur slams into the ground, as heavily as only a crashing Warframe can, and skids against the floor, sending up sparks until she knocks softly against the wall.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
Excalibur takes stock of her situation. That numb and somehow horrifying feeling of pain courses through her, and she clamps down on it with long-held discipline.
Her shields are out and not recharging. Her Lex was holstered against her right leg, and is now crushed. Her right arm is unusable. All other limbs functional.
"The guns are charged, Tenno! Get out of there!"
Excalibur pushes her frame to stand, and faces the oncoming Grineer. She is down to one arm and a Braton against Peacock's trident and net, the pilot's Jat Kittag, and Prosthetic's Ignis. But every second she delays them is another for the people of the Relay to evacuate, and for her clan to follow Lotus' command and escape.
BOOMBOOM.
"No," comes the Sending, and the hammering intensifies.
BOOM!
BOOMBOOM!
BOOM!
Rhino?
Another Sending, this one not a word, but a feral scream of defiance.
The Grineer falter, and Excalibur realizes it is not a Sending at all.
The war cry reverberates through the walls and echoes through the control room, filling Excalibur with the smallest fraction of Valkyr's fury.
Then Rhino's roar joins Valkyr's scream, and the noise drowns out the constant hiss and whine of the Fomorian's pipes, drowns out the Grineer's angry and terrified words, and drowns out Excalibur's very thoughts.
There is only Valkyr's defiance and Rhino's adamance.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Suddenly, Excalibur doesn't care that she has only one weapon. She doesn't care how close she is to breaking down. There are enemies before her, and a Mission to accomplish.
She charges forward. Flames envelop her and Valkyr rings in her mind. She shouldn't be able to continue, but she cannot think of stopping. There is only the enemy, and Valkyr's will alongside her own.
The net swings towards her. She will not be stopped. There is no direction but forward, no sound but Rhino's determination.
BOOM!
BOOM!
A blinding flash of light, and the net falls into four pieces. Pivot, parry, and stab the Exalted Blade into the giant gladiator's chest in the instant before it winks out of existence.
Her momentum does not slow. Excalibur swings around the Grineer's falling body, flying up feet first to rip free the blade stuck fast in the armour of his neck.
The smallest burst of energy redirects her, and the pilot panics as his surviving fellow brings the flamethrower around. The smaller Grineer's Jat Kittag comes down, slamming into the ground with enough force to put out the flames licking at his flesh.
BOOOM!
It barely slows Excalibur, whose blade sinks into his throat, then swings out in a spray of blood towards the walking armoury. The sword leaves her hand along the same arc.
Incendiary blade meets volatile fuel, and neither survive. Nor does the final Grineer.
Excalibur is once more thrown backwards, unable to even thank Valkyr for her blessing as the sound of the two Tenno drowns out every thought except one.
The Mission.
She cannot slow. Only destruction fills her. There is only a single-minded need to destroy as the cacophony reaches a crescendo. She turns and charges towards the computer terminal, drawing her Braton and emptying the entire clip into the command terminal. When that fails to destroy it, she drops the weapon and punches the Grineer machinery. Over and over again, denting and crushing the hardware with her fist until, finally…
"Tenno, you did it! The Fomorian is drifting – computer systems are going offline! I can't – Good work, Tenno."
Excalibur doesn't process the words until seconds later, when the booming and screaming dies down and she can think again. She looks down at her mangled arms, one crushed by a hammer, the other used as one. Her shields are still offline. Her Warframe threatens bleedout with each passing second.
She sits down heavily to wait for extraction.
Mission accomplished.