Aboard the merchant vessel CSV-0110F, an antiquated rust-bucket not too dissimilar to the salvage it hauled through the Origin System, in a stark, well-lit boardroom on the fifteenth floor of the primary personnel wing, five executives sat around the table, their pressurised suits concealed beneath ostentatious robes, their helmets pivoted backwards to reveal their faces. From a projector in the centre of the table emanated a set of charts and spreadsheets detailing the records and projections of the vessel.
"As you can see, the figures are very respectable," said Azef Dalo from his seat at the head of the table. "Profit has increased by 5.3% since the last financial year and our debt is still well within acceptable limits. If this continues, we'll have the funds to buy a new vessel within a year; one that doesn't require us to spend all day wearing pressure suits for fear of a hull breach. We've also acquired the salvage rights to over a hundred abandoned facilities on Europa from Alad Electronics, so our supply of goods is assured."
There was a smattering of applause from the others, after which the murmur of conversation filled the air in the boardroom. Profit beckoned for Dalo and Partners (Pty) Ltd, a one-ship venture plying its trade around the outer planets, and for all Corpus the call of profit was not easy to resist.
The grating blare of a siren brought the levity to a halt. Azef pulled his helmet into place and heard the hiss as it sealed. The action was almost-routine; minor depressurisations and hull breaches affected the CSV-0110F on a regular basis, the ageing hull and antiquated shields failing to withstand the occasional impacts with space debris that every vessel suffered. As the interface of his helmet activated, he swore. There wasn't a breach: the cause for alarm was listed as "Unusual Void Energy Signature Detected". While the impassive helmets betrayed no emotions, he saw the worry in the way his companions rushed for the door.
"Possible Technocyte Virus outbreak in wing 01101-C," Azef barked into his helmet, broadcasting across the standard address frequency, "Seal the wing and deploy a squadron of MOA. All crewmen, seal your suits and ready your weapons."
A burst of affirmations over the channel confirmed that all due precautions were being taken: suits were sealed against the Technocyte spores and flux rifles were readied to counter potential threats. The MOA operators confirmed their readiness and set their robotic proxies into action. Unwilling to follow his colleagues to the escape pods just yet, Azef brought up the camera feeds from the sealed wing, looking for signs of the Infested. There didn't seem to be any, which was highly worrying considering how obvious Technocyte Virus outbreaks tended to be. None of the cameras showed anything out of the ordinary and there were no reports of sightings. There was a possibility that the alarm was a glitch, but it was remote enough to be dismissed; sensors were practically the top priority of any vessel that travelled the solar rails frequently.
All of Azef's speculation was brought to a halt as one of the camera feeds degenerated to static. A glimpse of some creature, humanoid but distorted beyond any Grineer creation, confirmed the presence of something aboard the vessel. It may have been an Ancient, a lone Disruptor disabling the electronics ahead of a full-scale assault, but subtlety and stealth tactics were wholly uncharacteristic of the Infested. Rather, the graceful swiftness and dreadful silence of the figure suggested a different, deadlier foe. Making sure not to broadcast over any unsecured frequency, Azef spat out a single word:
"Tenno."
Struggling to contain his nervousness, Azef attempted to take stock of the situation. The Tenno were faceless, silent killers, inscrutable as they were brutal. Utterly enigmatic, they would fight alongside you one day before slaughtering you mercilessly the next. There was no standard operating procedure on dealing with a Tenno attack, but a few protocols had to be observed. Everyone was on full alert, even outside of the assaulted sector; Azef himself fidgeted nervously with a Detron as he steeled himself to make an announcement. Every competent manager knew how to modulate his voice and exude an aura of confidence at all times, whether in the boardroom or on the battlefield, but seldom had it been quite so difficult to maintain composure. Broadcasting across all frequencies, Azef spoke:
"Tenno. We know where you are and, in Profit's name, beseech you to leave this vessel immediately."
The only response was silence.
Following the announcement, several minutes of dreadful silence ensued. The cameras showed nothing atypical; not one report of activity enlivened the comms. Even the usual stream of feedback from the MOA corps was muted and dull. Finally, the unbearable quiet was broken by a pained gurgle, issued in a burst of static over the encrypted combat frequency. Azef hurriedly attempted to pinpoint its origin; moments later he had the floor and room. As if loosed by the dying gasp, a surge of voices filled his ears: reports of contact, followed by sounds of gunfire and requests for assistance – requests which, in many cases, swiftly changed to pleas and screams. Alarms shrieked as inhuman abominations were spotted for a moment by a camera, accompanied by shrill pings indicating that door barriers had activated. The cacophony painted a picture in chaotic strokes: the Tenno were cutting a bloody swathe through the ship, leaving no survivors in their wake. The trail of their destruction revealed a clear path headed, judging by the direction, toward the primary dorsal monorail connecting the modules of the vessel. With the sector sealed, it would be the only way for them to move through the CSV-0110F. The destruction they'd wrought across a single sector of the ship over the course of a scant few minutes was horrifying – and costly – enough; they could not be permitted to spread farther.
"All guards, get to the dorsal transit station," Azef snapped, "It is absolutely imperative that they do not force their way into a monorail."
A chorus of nervous assent filled his ears, accompanied by the chittering notification of MOA deployment, no fear evident in the voices of their operators. The calm, stoic mindset granted by the combat drugs, collected even in the face of extreme danger, was almost enviable. The robotic proxies would stand, utterly stoic and collected, firing steadily until, inevitably, they were cut down by the Tenno, a colossal waste of valuable equipment exceeding even that caused by a significant skirmish with a Grineer galleon.
The atrium of the transportation system, the hub connecting the sector to the rest of the ship, was a marvel of Corpus engineering and architecture. The entire dorsal transit system was maintained in a constant state of vacuum in order to minimise friction and the stations were no exception, lending an eerie silence to the three layers of platforms bearing the airlocks that would permit ingress to the monorails. Each platform was dotted by crewmen and MOAs, Ospreys hovering above them with a vacuum-induced quiet. At Azef's orders they waited, weapons trained at the entrances. A single carriage still remained docked at one of the upper platforms, locked into place by the emergency routines – a sensible measure to prevent the spread of a Technocyte outbreak, but unlikely to deter the Tenno for anything more than a moment. In the control room, sequestered safely near the fore of the ship, the best technicians were themselves attempting to override the lock on the rail, to minimal success. Extracting the carriage in time was the only hope of halting the advance of the Tenno. To that end, the remaining crew of the 01101-C sector would guard the carriage to the last, buying a little time with their lives. Azef watched the atrium from the camera feeds, the sombre sight leading a melancholic tone to the technicians' reports.
When the Tenno entered the atrium, all prior subtlety had been lost. They burst through an airlock, covered in an iridescent blue sheen as their shields compensated for the vacuum. They danced across the platform in a silent whirlwind of blades and gunfire. With a ruthless efficiency and astonishing speed, they moved through the cluster of defenders, a brutal elegance evident in their maelstrom of destruction. In short order, they traversed the station and reached the final inhabited platform, a trail of mangled corpses and ruined machines marking their path. As they came to a halt before the sealed airlock preventing their access to the carriage, one of them – tall and robed, with a halo-like protrusion above its head – raised its hand nonchalantly. Around the Tenno appeared a glassy dome, in which swirled a yellow snowstorm. The continued fire of the crewmen thudded into the dome, stopping short of the targets. Another Tenno, shorter and animalistic, walked up to the doorside console and began to fidget.
"They're attempting to hack the door controls," announced a technician; "If the airlock holds for just a few seconds longer, we'll be able to detach and remove the carriage."
The opening of the airlock coincided almost exactly with the sudden jolt of movement as the carriage pulled away from the platform. The door was open, a result of the forced departure and ill-timed hack. It mattered little, however, as it moved along the monorail and out of their reach.
The Tenno, unfortunately, were not that easily stopped: a third creature, plain and feminine, pointed at the open doorway and snapped its fingers. A blood red rectangle appeared before it, connected to the carriage by a crimson chain. All four Tenno ran into the strange aperture, vanishing from the platform. An alarm wailed as a camera detected the sudden appearance of four entities aboard the carriage.
"Is there anything we can do to stop them?" Azef asked, already somewhat resigned.
"Not perfectly, Chairman Dalo. Not with software this old. The best we can do is bring them to a halt at the next station and then disable to rail entirely," a tech responded.
Azef brought up a map of the ship on the desk projector, displacing the camera feeds. The next stop on the line was wing 010001-F: the primary personnel wing. In many ways, it was an ideal stroke of luck: the wing would be mostly empty, with the majority of the personnel on duty elsewhere, and the valuable cargo and equipment stored therein was minimal. There was just one issue: the boardroom in which he sat was located in the selfsame wing. Clutching his Detron tightly, acutely aware of just how small the sidearm was, he steeled himself and issued the order.
"Do it."
The Tenno sprang from the carriage the instant it ground to a halt. They moved into the sector and out of the sight of cameras with the same speed and purpose that they had displayed at the station. Even more nervous than before, Azef decided to make an attempt at reaching an escape shuttle. Leaving the relative safety of the boardroom, he rushed to the nearest armoury and slipped one of the experimental nullification field generators onto his back. His helmet's visual feed went black for a moment as his suit's power source adjusted to the suddenly-heavier demand placed upon it, but was restored presently. The nullification field expanded around him with a crackle, forming its characteristic dome. As uneasy a feeling as being within the field always begot, the body restricted by reverse-engineered Orokin technology, it would prove a definite boon if the Tenno located him: designed to suppress the Infested by rendering the Technocyte spores semi-inactive, it would also rob the Tenno of their unnatural abilities and, more importantly, intercept a fair few projectiles. Finally, picking up a set of spare clips for his Detron, he began his run towards the shuttle bay.
It was in a narrow corridor joining a pair of mess halls that the Tenno finally found Azef. To his relief, it was only one of the four: a bulky beast, covered in a shimmering golden coat. Seeing him, it roared, charging towards him with what appeared to be a Grineer rocket hammer in its hands. It slammed into the nullification field and snarled, advancing towards Azef with a swing of its hammer. As it passed into the field, the golden plating disappeared, revealing a stocky, red-brown creature with a nondescript bronze plate for a face. Trying his best to ignore its howls and focus, Azef raised his Detron and pulled the trigger five times, as quickly as he could. With the last attack having passed centimetres from his head, the radioactive bursts did not have much room to spread. They struck the Tenno cleanly, the third burst taking down its shields. Ducking backwards as he hurriedly reloaded, Azef narrowly avoided another swing of the hammer; the Tenno howled as its attack swung over the top of his helmet. Taking aim once more, he emptied the clip into the creature; it fell to the ground with a whimper, dropping its hammer and pulling out a hand cannon of some description as it lay prone. Not willing to risk discovering what form of vicious rounds it was using, Azef ran once again towards the shuttle bay, trusting the nullification field and his personal shield to protect him from the Tenno's last ditch attack.
"Any security personnel currently stationed in the 010001-F sector, please report," he barked into the combat channel; "This is Chairman Dalo; I've encountered a Tenno. I want everyone on full alert and a squadron of MOA at my location to secure the body."
In short order, Azef was surrounded by a small guard of crewmen, dutifully surrounding their employer, if only to take cover in the nullification field. The fallen Tenno lay still, surrounded by clucking MOA, its last, desperate efforts exhausted.
"We're heading for the shuttle bay," Azef told his entourage. "If all of the directors can evacuate – and I should be the last – then the Tenno will have no reason to remain. We'll even leave them with easy access to an exit. However, first we must get to the bay."
He raised his helmet momentarily, displaying a grim expression. "This will not be easy, but anyone who survives will have a substantial raise. In the name of Profit, let's go."
They had almost reached the shuttle bay and were proceeding through an adjacent Osprey hangar when the Tenno attacked again. As if seeking vengeance for their fallen comrade, they suddenly appeared behind the group, a crimson chain behind them disappearing into the rafters. Seeing the group in close proximity for the first time, Azef was somewhat amazed at the diversity between the creatures: none bore any resemblance to the one that had attacked him earlier. One was tall, with a barbed halo above its head, one was feminine, with a stream of what looked like radiation emanating from the back of its skull and the final one, which he had not yet seen, was lean, with a set of forward-pointing horns matching the venomous-looking daggers it held in each hand.
"Open fire," ordered Azef, "and stay inside the field."
Seemingly unfazed by the rain of Dera lasers, two of the Tenno simply returned fire, each projectile causing the nullification field to shrink as it absorbed the impact. The third simply vanished – Azef surmised that it must have moved too swiftly to be visible even to his helmet's sensors. Slowly backing towards the hangar, he took a cautious shot at the remaining Tenno whenever it seemed prudent. After emptying a clip, he decided to be a little more cautious and simply directed the efforts of his vanguard. Their efforts were not entirely without success: the feminine Tenno was forced to take cover, while the other raised its hand as it had at the station and once again summoned a seemingly-impervious dome around itself. For the first time, the Tenno seemed to be on the defensive, even if their continued barrage was diminishing the disruption field significantly, leaving more and more of the remaining crewman exposed.
"Chairman! Behind you!" called a crewman, a hint of desperation in his voice. Too late, Azef heard a hissing exhalation in his ear and turned to see the final Tenno, its inhuman face as impassive as ever, but seemingly grinning. With a cackle, it began to swing its twin blades, striking him neatly in the torso. Even though his shields were still intact, the pain was immense: despite the blades glancing off his suit in a shower of blue sparks, some toxin had permeated his life support systems and made every breath an excruciating effort. Struggling to remain sensate, Azef, almost closing his eyes in panic, pointed his Detron and pulled the trigger, again and again, exhausting the ammunition in the first second but still pulling, as though the act would help. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as shot after shot crept from the barrel: one burst hit the face, exhausting the shield. The second hit a shoulder, severing the arm and leaving a glowing stump. The third left a smoking crater in the chestplate and was followed quickly by the fourth, which broke the thin layer of armour entirely, releasing what seemed to be Technocyte spores, a seething orange mass swarming around the wound. The fifth ripped through the exposed torso, leaving a gaping hole in the chest of the creature, from which more and more Technocyte appeared. As the broken corpse fell to the ground, Azef broke into a sprint, praying that what remained of his guard would follow. With every breath drawn a herculean task due to the toxin, he set his suit to administer a combat stim to dull the pain and jammed another clip into the Detron. Feeling some of the pain lift as the drugs took effect gave him a final burst of energy, with which he propelled himself into the shuttle bay and activated the lockdown procedure.
Azef watched with great apprehension as the bay doors closed, but no Tenno seemed to be approaching; he sighed with relief as the doors clicked shut and his nullification field, extending only a few centimetres beyond his body, began to expand once more. As dictated by regulations and request, there was a shuttle awaiting him, the boarding ramp extended. With a sigh of relief and beginning to feel the exhaustion even with the cocktail of combat drugs keeping him alert, he walked toward his escape.
As his nullification field passed over the boarding ramp, there was a hiss and a crackle. Before him, standing on the ramp, was the horned Tenno. The hole in its chest was still there, filled with the buzzing swarm. Its arm, too, was held in place only by the efforts of the Technocyte infection. Realising that it had been seen, it hissed viciously, its face still utterly expressionless despite the gaping wounds in its body. Azef took a shot at it, but it sidestepped the burst elegantly, its hiss becoming a sibilant laugh. Again, he took aim and fired and again it dodged, turning once more to face him with a dagger in each hand. Frustrated, Azef emptied the remaining three charges, cursing as each missed. He ejected the clip, hearing it clatter to the ground as the Tenno watched impassively. Finally, as he reached for a replacement, as if growing bored by his ineptitude it pounced, bearing down upon him with an inhuman screech and both weapons poised to strike. Knowing that he could not defeat it if it closed the distance, armed as he was with only an unloaded sidearm, Azef silently apologised to his firearm instructors and dropped the replacement clip to the ground before bringing down his foot upon it as hard as he could. The Detron used highly unstable ammunition, the only way to pack such an effective punch into a such a small weapon, but with the constant risk that it might breach. Azef was fairly certain that his personal shield would be able to absorb the sudden burst of intense radiation that the clip would emit as it destabilised, but the Tenno appeared to have some kind of vulnerability to the wavelengths used. The creature was still in air, bearing down upon him and about to strike, as the clip detonated and his helmet's optical feed turned to static.
Quickly raising his helmet, Azef saw that the Tenno seemed disorientated, no longer covered by the shimmer of a shield. Limply, he shoved it to the ground, aware that it would rise the instant it regained its senses, and leaped onto the boarding ramp, swearing so loudly he was certain the other Tenno could hear him from outside the shuttle bay. Activating the magnetic attachments in his boots to adhere himself to the ramp, he closed his helmet again, screaming a command to depart into his barely-functional comms. The entrance ramp closed with him still desperately clinging to it, leaving him lying, forlorn and exhausted, on the dull metal floor of the shuttle as it shuddered into life and lurched through the atmospheric retention field and into the inky blackness of space.
"We're out, sir," the pilot informed him.
Shakily pulling himself to his feet before collapsing once more onto one of the upholstered benches lining the cabin, Azef turned to the view screen just in time to see three tiny craft, reminiscent of the some of the aquatic creatures that hunted on Europa, swoop into the hangar bay he had just left. Their elegance and almost-organic appearance, along with the lotus insignia they bore, marked them as Tenno technology. A moment later, they departed once more and slipped away from him, vanishing into the Void with a shimmer and a hum.
"They're gone," Azef stumbled across the general crew frequency, exhaustion overtaking him. "This is Chairman Azef Dalo, reporting that the Tenno have left the CSV-0110F. I repeat, the attack is over. Everyone return to your positions. I want all the damage assessed before the end of the week."
The danger of keeping a dead – or possibly just dormant Tenno – aboard, tempting its fellows into a rescue mission, occurred to him, but he didn't have the energy to deal with it himself quite yet.
"Someone, send a message to Alad Electronics stating that we have a valuable item on sale. Direct all inquiries to the Partners as a whole. For now, however, the I need to sleep."
