Doan Tana was bored. Of course she was. Grineer aren't exactly ideal candidates for stimulating social interaction. Miss Tana herself being the exception that proves the rule. Whatever that means.
One would think she'd be a little more entertained on this occasion, however. There are, after all, a great many Grineer who are enthusiastic about Councilor Vay Hek's speeches.
"The relays are a blight on this system! HIVES of scum and TRAITORS! When our Fomorian arrives, THEIR HIVES WILL BURN!"
For whatever reason.
Doan was trying to find a comfortable way to stand. It was practically a pastime for her, since she couldn't very well turn to the lancer beside her and start up a conversation. He'd just grunt or yell at her, and that would be the end of that.
"BEHOLD! The Fomorian~ CORE!"
Doan was trying to see if there was an angle she could hold her foot at that would make the pinching in her hip stop, but she looked up for this.
The massive power generator trundled into the room on a track thicker than a bombard and probably twice as smart. It was Grineer tech, so it was grey-green, with orange lights and lots of piping. It turned the corner and swayed, ever so slowly, side to side as it entered the straightaway.
Doan smiled as she imagined the core zipping past like a racing kubrow. It was a good thing she was wearing her helmet, because Grineer tend to frown on smiling in general.
"With this, my mighty Fomorian will be complete, and we will END the TENNO MAGGOTS!"
The hundred Grineer lined up with Doan cheered, and Doan cheered with them, if a little less enthusiastically. Where others were chanting, "TENNO SCUM," and, "DESTROY THE TRAITORS," Doan preferred to just yell incoherently for a few seconds, then pretend for the next minute or two.
The last few months had been boring, too. Assigned to one mission after another, killing Corpus and Infested and a few traitors here and there. Always the same.
It wasn't that Doan wasn't good at her job. She was very good. After all, a clever Grineer tends to take people by surprise.
The problem was that there was nobody to take Doan by surprise. Other Grineer avoided her, Corpus ran away from her, Infested ran at her, it was all the same.
The Fomorian core trundled past, slow and loud, but not loud enough to drown out Vay Hek, to the surprise of nobody who's heard the dubious pleasure of hearing the Councilor speak.
Doan went back to fidgeting, even tapping on her thigh to see if she could knock something into place.
There was a clank, a thunk, an explosion, and screaming.
Doan Tana paused. Those first two sounds had been her armour. Those last two, though…
She looked up at where the core had just left the room.
There was another explosion, and yelling.
This was a foundry on Ceres, mind, and it wasn't as if the Grineer had many visitors, since they made terrible hosts. Most of them didn't even know what tea was!
-Still don't. Barbarians.-
-Yes, Miss Tana has come a long way. If only the same could be said of you.-
-I'm getting there! Stop interrupting.-
It didn't take Doan Tana much time to realize how few people could have arrived on Ceres, much less without the Grineer noticing, and coincidentally at the same time as they were transporting a Fomorian core.
Tenno.
Doan Tana ran in precisely the wrong direction, compared to any sensible person who's just realized Tenno are in the next room. Of course, there wasn't a single sensible person around, so they were all running in the same direction, anyway.
"TENNO!? TENNO! TENNO ARE HERE! THEY HAVE MY CORE! STOP THEM! STOP THEM AT ONCE!"
The Grineer hadn't even needed to be told once. That was just Vay Hek enjoying the sound of his own voice.
There was something calming about the clamour of armoured boots. It probably had something to do with the subconscious understanding that the most dangerous thing around - a veritable army of heavily armoured and angry soldiers - was accounted for. Or it could have something to do with utterly bizarre priorities in Grineer indoctrination.
Or maybe Doan was just weird. It wouldn't exactly surprise anyone.
In any case, by the time Doan Tana reached the doorway to the next room, she'd stopped fantasizing about sleek, lithe bodies with hard, firm synthetic muscles and lustrous metallic skin, moving with graceful, almost languid-
-What? Nothing. Where was I?-
Right. Doan Tana was ready to do her job, free of... distractions.
The Grineer roared into the room. Some just yelled. At least one squeaked. Grineer don't prioritize vocal cords when looking at things to patch up coming out of the tube. After all, if it can hold a gun and walk, it's a functional Grineer.
This makes it unsurprising that the first ten Grineer through the massive bunker doors diied screaming.
Doan decided to slow down a little, at least until she could figure out what was killing the rest of her platoon.
Tenno, obviously, but the specifics were important. Well, to Doan they were.
The screams weren't terribly helpful. They included such comments as, "Tenno scum," "oh, Queens, why," and, "bullets! My one weakness! How did they know?!"
After a few seconds of her comrades feeding themselves into the meat grinder, Doan decided the only way the only way to see everything would be to go and check personally, if carefully. She ran to the side of the doorway and peered around the corner to see three Tenno. Two of them stood beneath the core, ribbons of energy connecting them to it. The third stood high above, on the railing that carried the Fomorian core, and was probably shooting all the Grineer below, though Doan's eyesight wasn't good enough to be sure. She thought it might not be, because every time she heard the sound of a gunshot, it wasn't when the Tenno moved like its gun was kicking.
After a few shots, Doan noticed the sound always happened half a second after she thought the Tenno had fired.
It must be a very weird gun, she thought.
I take this moment to interject that Grineer educational standards can roughly be compared to their safety standards: anyone suggesting action on either front was usually "asked" to take a long trip out a small airlock.
The Tenno above moved, and suddenly Doan could feel the rifle pointed at her. Before she could move, though, the feeling was gone, then the sound of the gun firing reached her ears.
That Tenno had been about to shoot her, Doan was sure of it. But it hadn't. Why not?
It is a testament to her brilliance that Doan Tana survived the next moment. She-
-Well, I have to tell this part.-
-And it taught you a lesson, didn't it?0
-Alright, smart guy, tell me how I'm supposed to tell the story if I skip it. Go on, tell me how it would make sense.-
-That's what I thought.-
Doan Tana slammed her hand into the ground, sending out a shockwave powerful enough to knock down anyone around her, including invisible Tenno who liked sneaking up on people.
Now, it's important to note that, when Doan spun around to see her attacker, she saw nothing. Most invisibility isn't perfect, but Miss Tana's eyesight simply isn't good enough to see the shimmering of distorted light.
It was, however, good enough to see the thin trail of bodies that led straight to the spot she'd be if she were about to stab herself in the back.
Which is a sentence that makes sense, if you think about it.
She stepped forward and, right where she expected, her foot met the back of an invisible body. The body started to move, so Doan stomped hard. Then she pointed her Gorgon at the Tenno. Even Grineer engineering couldn't miss at that range.
Rather than shoot, Doan threw herself to the side. She stumbled her landing and tweaked her hip, but the bullet that would have hit her instead passed harmlessly through the prone Tenno and hit the metal flooring below.
As one might imagine, Doan's antics attracted little notice from the relatively few Grineer still running past at the three visible enemies and rapidly receding Fomorian core.
Doan scrambled back ot the fallen Tenno, grabbing for it. She missed her first grab because the Tenno was getting up, but her second grab caught the side of hi- its neck. Lifting the Tenno left-handed, she slammed it into the great metal doorframe and brought her Gorgon to bear, this time out of sight of the Tenno sniper.
She placed the Gorgon's barrel against her invisible enemy's side.
The Tenno's invisibility faded, revealing a lean body, grey and white with silver etchings. A Tenno with a horned head. A familiar-looking Tenno, though a bit more colourful than last time.
Doan blinked and leaned in closer, as if that would change what she was looking at.
"Secret," she said wonderingly.
"Tenno!"
"Tenno scum!"
That was when the other Grineer noticed.
Doan looked at the Grineer running towards the pair of them, then at the familiar Tenno with his shoulder against the wall.
Even if they killed him, he wouldn't die. She knew that. There would be a flash of light and he would be fine.
But that was a secret, and even if it wasn't, she didn't want to see him die again.
Metal scraped against metal as Doan dragged her captive along the wall, then threw him through the doorway.
-Of course you could have.-
-And, if you'd done that, Miss Tana wouldn't be around today.-
-Sh- shut up! How would you know? You're just a c- Ahem.-
The Tenno landed much better this time, even he could probably use a few more drops on the head.
-I am telling it from her point of view!-
-Fine.-
The Tenno landed much better this time, hitting the ground first with his hands, then rolling and springing to his feet.
There was a rallying cry of, "Tenno scum!" and every surrounding Grineer pointed their guns at the faded-coloured pon-… person.
The Tenno raised his hand.
He waved it.
The Grineer collectively pulled triggers and, just as collectively, let out noises of confusion and frustration when not a single bullet fired.
Doan Tanna, watching with her gun vaguely pointed in the right direction, would swear she could see the Tenno smiling if she squinted.
Then the Tenno disappeared. At the far end of the room, the other Tenno were opening the far door for the core to go through. The invisible Tenno would be going there, Doan decided.
Then Doan would just have to cut them of. To stop the core, obviously. That was her duty to the Queens. Even if the Queens weren't quite as impressive as the Tenno.
Doan rapped herself on the helmet for that thought, then turned towards a side door and ran. It was a small door, maybe a head taller than Doan and three times her shoulder width, so it was good for sneaking. This was good, because Doan was planning on doing that and, being Grineer, she needed all the help she could get.
Though, to her credit, even making the attempt was not something most Grineer were inclined towards.
I suppose it's very much along the same lines as keeping a secret, so it's not a surprising move on her part. Well, it was, but- sorry. Sidetracked.
In any case, Doan Tana snuck through the secret passage, past a few drudges hard at work, and soon came out in the next room. That is, the room into which the core would soon be coming, two rooms after the Tenno had commandeered it.
Oh, the details don't matter. The point is, the core was coming, and it was up to Doan to prepare to foil the Tenno's hijacking.
What did you expect? She was still a Grineer!
And, unlike the Grineer that were currently boosting Tenno kill counts in the other room, Doan Tana had a plan. Two plans, in fact. She was a very unusual Grineer.
Stories floated around Grineer bases, about the Queens, about famous Grineer, about the latest Rathuum match. The most popular stories, though, were about Grineer victories. Victories over the Corpus, or over the Infested, or, rarest but most popular, victories over the Tenno. Some of those stories were less glorious than others. For example, it was well-known that most hijackings by Tenno had one solution: scorched earth. Destroy the core.
The amount of bullets it would take to destroy a Fomorian core could just as effectively be used as a barricade to stop the thing coming through the door. There was, however, a method that had worked several times, and would give Doan the time to enact her second plan, even if the first one failed.
Doan looked at the control panel she'd been planning to use.
She stared at the buttons, then looked up at the transport rail overhead, then back at the buttons on the control panel.
Then she turned around, walked back into the tunnel, and grabbed the first drudge she saw.
"Wha-" The drudge, who we will call Bob for simplicity's sake,scraped along the floor with a nonplussed look, catching a metal heel on a rivet periodically before Doan pulled a little harder and dislodged him.
When they reached the control panel, Doan spun Bob around and plopped him in front of the panel. His spine compressed a little, and his head bobbed once.
Bob stared at the buttons, then looked up at Doan overhead, then back at the buttons on the control panel.
He raised his plasma torch.
Doan smacked it out of his hand and pointed up at the railing. "Electricity," she said. "Lots, on the railing."
Here we see the usefulness of the unquestioning obedience most Grineer display, as Bob immediately set to work overloading the rail's power lines and, at Doan's continued urging, overrode the overrides. Soon, the rail was sparking with visible electricity.
The next part of the plan involved things that were way more impressive than sparks.
To stop the core, Doan only needed to break the railing. That would need an explosion. If she wanted to, Doan could run and find the nearest Bombard, but if she did that, she might not see the Tenno again. That would be… bad wasn't the right word, but something like having that twinge in her hip, except in her head.
Sad was the word she was looking for, if you were wondering.
Whatever the case, Doan was determined to get another look at the Tenno before foiling their mission, which meant finding something in the room to do the job.
If there is one nice thing that can be said about Grineer engineering, it is that one never lacks for pipes waiting to explode.
Which counts as a nice thing if one likes explosions.
Doan didn't need Bob for this part. She snatched his plasma torch from where it had fallen to the ground, dropped the Gorgon she'd only been holding out of habit, and started climbing the closest wall.
It wasn't a graceful thing. The first handhold Doan put her hand on was a pitted, decrepit thing that left rust stains on her hand. The next one came off in her hand and sprayed her helmet with coolant fluid. The plasma torch made gripping with her right hand awkward, and she ended up switching hands so she could make up for her right leg not being able to lift very high. Eventually, though, she made it as high as she needed.
Doan leaned back and tried to turn. When the pipes she was holding started wobbling, she switched her grip to hugging one of the larger pipes, then turned as much as she could to get a good view of the railing.
And the door.
It was opening. The core was coming through.
The Tenno had arrived. Over the sound of hissing steam and creaking metal, Doan could hear Grineer yelling and gunfire.
Not enough gunfire. Whatever distraction the other Grineer were providing, it wouldn't last long. In fact, the amount of yelling dropped noticeably while Doan was considering this fact, though only after peaking momentarily.
Doan Tana turned back, got a firm grip on a relatively intact pipe, then jammed the plasma torch into a between three pipes. With another piece of spare piping, she forced the device on, pointed directly at one of the largest pipes in the room. Then she started down as quickly as possible.
Either too quickly or not quickly enough, depending on one's opinion. Doan hadn't made it two meters before a line of holes were punched into the pipes around her. She lost her grip, scrabbled for another pipe, missed, and fell. Rather than fall the next five meters to the ground, though, her legs caught between a pipe and the wall. Unfortunately, the rest of her body didn't take the cue to stop.
This is how Doan Tana found herself upside down, trapped, staring at the horned Tenno landing on the platform below her. In fairness, it might have been funny if it hadn't been both terrifying and excruciating. There was one Tenno that was a few steps away from taking her head off, with the others scrambling around the room in an attempt to redirect the power on the rail before the core overloaded. As for the excruciating aspect, well, unbeknownst to the young Grineer, her hips had just been forced into a proper alignment for the first time in her life. Considering they hadn't actually grown in such a way that was normally possible, she was in quite a bit of pain.
As a matter of fact, she was having trouble appreciating the grace with which he drew his sword, and couldn't tell what colour it was through the black spots forming in her vision.
The Tenno pointed his sword, took a step forward… then hesitated. He looked right at Doan's eyes for just a second. A long second. Then his sword came up-
The pipes above exploded. I'm told it was grand. Blew a hole in the wall, snapped the rail in half, shattered a dozen pipes on either side of the wall that caused more minor reactions and resulted in at least seventeen different pigments and hues drifting through the air in the aftermath.
Of course, nobody ever takes me along on missions, so I don't get to see that kind of thing.
One of the other results of the explosion was that the pipe holding Doan captive shattered, releasing her legs and dropping her unceremoniously to the ground.
In most cases, a Grineer landing on her head is, at worst, amusing and, at best, a chance for percussive engineering to do what genetic engineering has failed at. In Doan's case, one can only hope that nothing was knocked loose in the landing.
Obviously, the hole in the wall was on fire, the Tenno were running around in a panic, Bob was very dead, and our most important Tenno was standing over Doan's crumpled form. Being as tall as she was, there was rather a lot of form, and it took her a few seconds to uncrumple and get a proper look at the Tenno who's plan she'd just foiled.
Or, rather, a proper look at his sword.
-You know, you really made the whole "getting to know you" phase rather difficult, wouldn't you say?-
-Well, only if you consider explosions unfriendly.-
-No, no thank you. Maybe later? And outside the Orbiter, if possible?-
Doan, who was mostly untangled but whose hip was killing her almost as much as the Tenno was clearly about to, stared at the sword point, a little cross-eyed.
She was unarmed, alone, on her back in front of one Tenno who had his cell nearby in the same room.
"Hello," said Doan Tana.
The Tenno's sword sagged, and he shook his head in disbelief.
Another Tenno landed beside him, this one female, blue with hints of gold and white, and with a funny-looking shoulder-plate on her left arm and helmet that swept back like a fan.
The new Tenno raised her pistol, but the first stopped her. After barely a gesture or two, the female Tenno shrugged and left, leaping towards the Fomorian core.
When Doan was finished craning her neck to watch the female Tenno leave, she saw the male Tenno still standing there, but now he had one hand up in a familiar gesture.
Doan copied it, lifting one hand and putting a single finger in front of her mouth.
The Tenno shook his head again, then reached down and took Doan's hand. He pulled her up like she weighed as little as a rifle. It actually hurt quite a bit. Not because he was rough, but because the weight on her hips was harsh after her ordeal with the pipes.
Doan cried out and nearly collapsed again, but the Tenno reached out a hand and grabbed her shoulder, taking most of her weight in his grip. With the support, she tried to move her leg in a way that would feel better, but nothing seemed to work.
After a few seconds of pain that weren't quite agony, the Tenno reached out his other hand and held it over Doan's hip.
Then there was a rumbling behind him, and Doan watched as something bizarre happened. The female Tenno - she was pretty sure it was the same one, even at this distance - had her hands on the Fomorian core. The core was shaking so badly that the ground around it seemed to quake. Yet, even with the great shaking, there was no sound. The core seemed to slowly tear itself apart, and even as the pieces fell and crashed into the metal floor, no sound reached Doan's ears.
It was so distracting that Doan almost didn't notice the other unusual thing happening: the pain in her hip was fading. At the last moment, she looked down and saw a green smoke splashing off and seeping into her armour. It didn't even occur to her to be worried before the smoke stopped and the Tenno withdrew his hand from her hip.
Doan dropped her foot to the ground, then slowly put weight on it. She took a step in place with one foot, then the other. It was awkward; her legs didn't seem to be lined up the way the normally would be. Still, it felt right. It didn't hurt at all.
The Tenno let go of her shoulder and brought his hand once more to his faceplate.
One finger where his mouth would be.
Doan looked from his finger to her hip, then tested it one more time and looked back at him. She nodded.
"Secret," she said.
The Tenno nodded.
"Hello," she said.
He tilted his head, then nodded. Then he turned and leapt from the platform, following the other Tenno past the wreckage of the Fomorian core.
In moments, they were gone, leaving Doan still testing her legs in fascinated silence. When she'd finally come to the conclusion that her hip wouldn't suddenly give out on her and the ever-present ache wasn't coming back, she looked up again.
The wall was on fire. The Fomorian core littered the ground. The door to the exit had been jammed open. There were Grineer bodies absolutely everywhere. Off in the distance, there was a sparkle in the night sky. Maybe lightning, maybe one of those Tenno ships.
"Goodbye, Secret," whispered Doan Tana.