Surviving

It was cold. Mitchell D29 woke up suddenly, certain he was being watched. He looked around, but nothing seemed to have changed on his rocky summit. But he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. He sat up, checking his suit systems automatically. If the suit failed, he was dead. Period. Many places in the solar system had been terra formed to the point of easy survival. Phobos was not one of them. The pain in his left arm had faded and when he checked the readouts, it looked as if the regeneration systems had functioned He hoped so. Having a broken arm on top of everything else would not be good.

This place sucks. Mitchell D29 said to himself as he looked around. Ah, well… For now, it is home.

The basic rules of survival were fairly simple no matter the environment. Shelter, sustenance (in this case food and water supplies in his suit), defense… He paced around the fairly large area atop the pinnacle again and frowned as he stared down. There was no way off this pinnacle. No trail, no climbable areas that he could see, even if he would have been able to grip in his gloves and boots. Not likely. The anti-gravity system built into his suit attachments had fallen apart as soon as he had landed. He had disabled the locator beacons as well. If what Anne had said was true -and he had no reason to disbelieve her posthumous warning- then if the Corpus found him, he was dead. Then again, if the Grineer found him, he was dead. Funny that the sole being who didn't seem to want him dead was one of the feared Tenno.

Tenno. Mitchell D29 could not restrain a shiver as he recalled the utterly alien face that had scrutinized him the day before. He shook his head and pulled out his tiny personal assistant. He had some data on Tenno, but not a lot. Most of it was 'If seen, contact security' and other such useless drek. Why would he need to know how many joules a Volt warframe had been observed putting out? He had no idea. He could not find the type of warframe he had seen in his limited database and put his pad away with a sigh. He was stuck here. The only one who knew where he was… was a vicious ancient killing machine. He shook his head and started to take stock.

It didn't make sense. Tenno were machines. Remnants of the fabled Orokin, they were utterly unpredictable and insanely dangerous. He had lost count of the number of ships he had flown by with his squadron that hadn't had any life signs aboard due to Tenno incursions. Hundreds of lives, snuffed out by ancient relics that refused to stay dead. The good news was that they didn't limit their predations to the Corpus. Grineer and Infested also felt their wrath. He hadn't… until yesterday anyway, ever seen a Tenno. Seen briefings on them? Sure. Especially after the mess Alad V created with his Zanuka project. He had no idea why the higher ups called them 'Betrayers'. It… hadn't ever been germane to his role as a pilot. On a whim, he checked his PA again, but there was no information except that they had been servants of the Orokin. Or slaves? He wasn't sure and the language of the history was… odd. As a pilot he had become adept at reading between the lines of official reports, since the high command didn't usually tell anyone all of the information.

'Situation is now under control' usually mean that Tenno had come and gone, leaving bodies and a big mess in their wake. A 'minor Grineer incursion' was almost always a full scale invasion. A 'little Infestation' meant a hive that would take days and several battalions worth of ground troops to clear. 'Minor casualties'… He shivered. He was one of those 'minor' casualties by now he was sure. Abandoned and forgotten about.

The records that he had on his PA were…incomplete. He could tell that just from looking at them. Reports of atrocities, purportedly committed by Tenno, reports of battles fought against the Sentients. Then… a massacre of the Orokin Emperor and his entourage, again, purported slain by Tenno. But… It was incomplete. There were large chunks of information missing. He could tell just by looking at the history that the words had been edited severely. Once, he would have shrugged, nodded and assumed that high command knew what it was doing. Now? He wasn't so sure.

"I serve the Corpus and the Corpus serves me." Mitchell D29 said as he put his pad away and started working to…

A rumble was his only warning. He hit the dirt and stayed still as something massive overflew his small hideaway. A Grineer Slakat class assault transport. Heavily armored and armored for ground assaults, it could carry up to a platoon of Grineer. If they dropped troops here… He toggled his life support systems to their lowest possible settings, feeling the cold start to seep into his fingers and toes. He didn't jerk as one of the turrets on the ship spun his way and let loose a burst of projectile fire. He didn't move as the badly aimed burst tore up the ground near him. He waited for the gunner to correct his aim. Waited for Grineer to drop from the ship's hatches to either kill him or take him for long torments. But nothing happened. The ship just sat there in midair. Mitchell D29 couldn't feel his fingers or toes now and…

What the hell?

Mitchell stared as the Grineer ship suddenly rocked. Sounds came from it. Gunfire, shouts, screams. It slowly arced away from his rocky perch and he stared, wide eyed, as it slammed into another finger of rock and burst into flames. He saw figures jumping from hatches on the doomed ship and even though they were Grineer, he had to wince as he heard them hit the ground far below him. A few, very few started shooting, but the shooting didn't last long. The screams lasted a few moments longer. He stared as the ship –still on fire- aimed for a mountainside and accelerated. Was it his imagination that a tiny form hurtled from the ship just before it slammed into the mountainside and exploded? Had to be. Nothing human or Grineer for sure. Besides, he lost sight of it as soon as the ship exploded. He hadn't even thought to activate his helmet cam.

For a long moment, Mitchell D29 did not move. What the hell had just happened? Some kind of internal Grineer conflict? He had never heard of such a thing. A Tenno could do it, sure. But why? Yes, the Grineer hated the Tenno, but then again, they hated everybody. Infested…? He shivered. If Infested had gotten aboard somehow, then yes, it could have happened that way. But if so… He crawled to the edge of the peak and stared down at the cleared area. The ground writhed with agitated sand skates. One lone Grineer body was still visible and even as he watched, it was swallowed up by the mass of alien animals. He jerked back and stiffened as his hands hurt.

"Ow." Mitchell said and keyed his life support back to full. His suit was supposed to be proof even against the vacuum and temperature variations of space. Then again, he had been ejected from a destroyed fighter, fallen several thousand meters, impacted a Tenno spacecraft and then rolled across a rocky summit. No, his suit wasn't at it's best. The main batteries were still at 94 percent charge and he did have solar cells he could deploy to recharge. But…

If he did deploy the solar cells, they were very visible. Heck, the reflections could likely be seen from orbit. This wasn't Earth with a huge, thick atmosphere. If he didn't deploy them, he would freeze to death when his batteries ran out of power. He ran some quick calculations and sighed. Without the solar cells he had perhaps a week of life support barring any surprises. And he knew there would be more surprises. He suddenly had the watched feeling again and stared wildly around, but nothing was visible. Nothing at all.

"Jumpy." Mitchell D29 said with a sigh as he sat down. "Okay, best choice is to hide for as long as I can. Lots of exposure up here, but they would have to overfly me like the Grineer did to really see me. And if I dig…"

The surface of the pinnacle's summit was rock, but he could move some of it. He kicked with his boot and a rock flew off to fly towards the clearing below.

"And I cannot do stupid stuff like that." Mitchell D29 chided himself. "So… hide for a while, then find a way off this mountain. Then… I don't know." He said morosely. "I serve the Corpus. I need to find a way for them not to downsize me on sight." It felt slightly better to put it in pure merchant terms, but only slightly. Mitchell D29 wasn't an executive. He and his fellow pilot shad been dealt a slightly better hand than the rank and file, but as it turned out, that hadn't kept them from being used up and then discarded. Anger came and Mitchell D29 welcomed it. "I won't let them downsize me without a fight."

The Corpus pilot started moving rocks, trying to make some kind of windbreak. If he cut down on the power his suit needed to keep him warm, he might be able to extend his stay up atop the pinnacle greatly. If not? Well, it gave him something to do. Even since he could remember, he had been an active person. That was one of the things that had pushed him into flying. At least he could see the stars unaided and unfettered by a thick atmosphere. He had loved to stargaze…

He paused. That thought wasn't… It wasn't familiar. He saw the stars every day through his canopy! Or… he had. Now? He wasn't sure. He had dug a small hole in the rocky soil and lay down in it, staring up at the myriad tiny light that… didn't blink in the sky. It felt… right. It felt… good. Something was missing though. He had no idea what.

Mitchell D29 shook himself and focused on survival. For now, he was safe and secure, if uncomfortable. This peak was not accessible by the sand skates, so unles the Grineer came back he was okay. The Corpus wouldn't, he was sure of that. Not with such a Grineer presence in the area. If he had to get down, he could always jump…

He paused. Wait a sec… He looked at the specs for the solar panels and then smiled a bit under his visor. Lightweight. Rigid on deployment. Able to be deployed in any configuration. Two power cables for redundancy, both with five hundred kilo test strength. Now… Where did I see…?

Michael D29 pulled his PA from the pocket again and started searching his small database.

What was that ancient term? Parachute? No, no… Not parachute… Hang glider…

Unseen by anyone, he started to smile wider as he looked up something truly ancient. Unpowered flight.


She stood on a high peak, watching. She had expected the Corpus to come and get their wayward pilot, but they hadn't. Indeed… Her warframe systems hadn't detected any signals of any kind being broadcast from the lone Corpus survivor of the dogfight she had nearly flown right into. Which made no sense. This guy was good. Nine to one odds and the Corpus ship shot to pieces and he had done incredibly. Three Grineer ships destroyed, crashed into the mountainside, two with collision damage and another with deep scorch marks from a plasma cannon. Impressive.

She was curious. An… oddly familiar feeling. She didn't remember very much. Her cryo-nesia was worse than most Tenno. She hadn't even remembered her own name until the Lotus had told her it was 'Li'. She had woken and thrown herself into the fray. Her brothers and sisters needed her. But right now, she had time. And she was curious.

She had reacted without thought when she had seen the pilot plummeting to a gruesome death. Death was no stranger to Tenno. They saw it every day, but… She couldn't just sit back and watch that pilot fall into the mass of sand skates. She couldn't. Even when she was screaming at herself that she was being an idiot, she had deflected his landing so he landed someplace a bit safer. But then… She had no explanation for why she had confronted the human. None at all. But saluting him had felt right. Showing appreciation for skill, even in an enemy. But… was he?

The pilot wasn't acting like he expected rescue. It was almost as if he was fortifying his mountaintop perch. Not that he could do much. He obviously had nothing heavier than the Cestra pistol he had brandished at her when she had scrutinized him closely. Oh, it would hurt her, no question. But she had been oddly sure that he wasn't going to shoot. There was something about the pilot. Something so familiar that it hurt. But she could not figure out what it was. She wanted to and until she did, no one would harm this Corpus pilot if she had anything to say about it. As the Grineer had found out.

She had taken the Grineer by surprise, dropping into one of their hatches as they had been readying to deploy to kill the pilot. She wasn't sure why she had chosen to attack when the Grineer had strafed the still form on the mountaintop. She did hate the Grineer. But she also hated the Corpus. Was it because the man was obviously a skilled pilot? She knew –better than most anyway- what was involved in flying like a crazy person at extremely low level to attack or evade attacks. There were few things that called to Li as much as high speed flying. It was in her bones and blood. Everything she was, everything she aspired to be –that she remembered- was part and parcel to soaring through the air. Maybe that was it, she decided. The pilot had been a peer of sorts. Maybe not an equal, but a peer. Yes. She mused. She considered him a colleague. No question, he was a dang good pilot. Nine to one and take out three with natural terrain? Too good to be snuffed out casually by the Grineer. That felt right. There wasn't anything familiar about his face even when her warframe's visual enhancement virtually removed the obvious augmentation that lower level Corpus had a lot of. She was sure she didn't know him, so…

You are needed. The voice of the Lotus had her jerking from her stance, then looking back at the pilot. But she was more than two kilometers away. If he could see her -and maybe he could, who knew what visual enhancements the Corpus gave their pilots?- what could he do about her scrutiny? A Cestra pistol wasn't going to hit a darn thing at the range of two kilometers.

Mission? Li asked quietly.

The Corpus have landed a foothold. The Lotus replied. As appalling as it is, we must aid them or the Grineer will overwhelm them. We need to strike the staging areas of the Grineer who are massing to crush the invasion. I will send you with a strike team to destroy an outpost. Take out the reactor and the facility will either fail or self-destruct. Either way, there will be less Grineer who have expanded significantly since they took Gravidus. Li nodded reluctantly. That made sense. Besides, she liked killing Grineer. Do you accept this mission?

Understood. Mission accepted. One thing… This oddity is continuing, Lotus. Li said as she prepared to leave. It's like the Corpus pilot doesn't want to be rescued.

Which made no sense at all. This place was not conducive to long term survival. Even without the Grineer hunting around. At least the pilot was concealing his position. But… why? She shook herself. Mission first, questions later.

Odd indeed. The Lotus agreed. We will investigate.

Keep me informed please. Li asked as she checked her power levels and weapons. Seventy five percent power was more than enough to get her back to her ship. As for weapons? Some might scoff at her choice of a Latron, but she liked it and used it well. It was long ranged, did good damage and was reliable as hell. She had never had a problem with it. The Bolto pistol was for closer engagements and an all-around good weapon. She wasn't generally a melee fighter, although she could, and did occasionally. She wasn't a brawler though. She was all about precision. One cautious strike could usually turn the tide of any battle. The Pangolin Sword wasn't as flashy as some, as damaging as others and didn't have the range of a Glaive or a Kestrel, which was her usual alternate. But it was enough. Enough and more than enough, as the Grineer had discovered to their cost.

With one last look at the distant pilot, Li threw herself from the peak she had been kneeling on and took to the skies. Contrary to some people's beliefs, Zephyr warframes could not fly indefinitely. But they could undeniably fall with style. Enough that it didn't really matter to Li. Not free flying, but close enough. A quick boost from her power supply and her arcing fall became a long glide. Four kilometers to her ship and then a quick flight to her assigned target. One more day in the endless warfare that was life for Tenno. But… Li got to fly. To forget for just a few minutes the blood and death that was her true calling. A fair trade. As she glided, she gave mental voice to something that she remembered. She had no idea from where she remembered it, but the thrill it sent through her as she soared was undeniable.

Diamondbacks forever!