Chapter 7: 'Aggressive' Negotiations

So far so good everything was set. Done some ironing on the plan with Alad V and made it…acceptable for Ruk's standart. Today is the first offical assault of Grineer on Mars.

Also my first time going in front of the Corpus Board.

I mean this was eventually going to happen, me being with Alad V and all but I hoped I will be you know…his 'secret' source of information.

Appereantly not.

At least he gave me a smaller Corpus Tech suit and helmet to cover myself.

Six small holographic screens popped out to life around me and Alad V. Each one has showing one person's head till shoulders. I recognized Frod Bek and Nef Anyo pretty quick with their easily seen physical appereances. But the rest of the four is foreign to me. Three of them are men with two of them looking very similar and dressed in dark purple crewman suits, the other man is wearing a gas mask and from the small puff of white gas coming out of his mask's back I can say he needs it and the last person is a woman with slightly long black hair and wearing half of a sunglass which I think is some kind of lense.

"Alad V!" said the woman loudly as she looked at him accusingly "What is the meaning of this?! Violating our contracts with Grineer than droving them into war?! Have you finally gone mad?!".

The voice of her reminded of my mom's when she scolds me. Ahhh home…but it is not the time to think like that.

"I can assure you Chairman Ico Quadz. My sanity is still intact" said Alad V without breaking the professional tone in his voice "In fact I think we should question yours for berating me for taking advantage of this great opportunity".

"I highly doubt that" said a mechanical voice which I think is coming from the gas mask guy because other peoples lips didn't moved when then voice came "Violating a contract and stealing is hardly to be a 'great opportunity'".

"I have to agree with Chairman Vox on that one" said one of the dark purple crewman suit wearing chairman "It is more of a scretch than a opportunity".

"I think we are going off topic here" said Nef Anyo as he decided to join "The Grineer is declaring war on us on Mars, not to mention it also effects other relations on other planets".

"Which brings the question everbody wants to know" said Frod Bek in a tone that promises danger.

I started to move my fingers from the stress, a bad habit of mine.

"Why would you do this?!" said Frod Bek as he leaned a bit closer "We have numerious projects going on and you put a war in our hands!".

While Frod Bek was pointing out how bad this idea is I cannot help but lose interest and look at Alad V. He is focused on Frod Bek and seeming to analyze everything the man put out to him. Makes sense since being in the Corpus Board must require a good attention span.

Also I am a bit jealous because I cannot focus on things I don't like that much.

"Very good points you have shined our Grand Chairman Frod Bek" said Alad V "However, they seem to be shrinking when the value of hundereds of cryo-pods are to take for ourselves ".

"That sounds greedy" said the other chairman in dark purple suit.

Really?! Greedy?! Have you guys looked at the mirror?

"Profiteering is what Corpus excels at" said Alad V as a small screen popped up showing crewman are extracting numerious cryo-pods which takes the attention of all the board "And right now we can have the biggest profit opportunity of our lives. And all we need to do is to keep dogs at bay for some time".

Then there were some murmurs between the other board members. They seem to be talking eachother. I cannot help but notice the purple suit wearing chairman's are acting more…sensitive to the woman chairman.

"This is enough" said Frod Bek as he put his authority "Chairman Alad V, we will finance your war efforts but make no mistake. This must succeed otherwise you will pay…literally".

Then after saying their respective farewells all of them disconnected. Then Alad V turned to me with an emotionless expression.

"Now with this out of way I hope you are ready because we are going to execute the 'first step' of your plan" said Alad V while walking to door and I am following him.

The first step: Aggravating the Grineer.

It is simple really, making Mars look like disrespecting Grineer and capturing their focus from other planets so nobody will suspect Corpus movement on other planets. Creating a war on Mars and securing other planets resources. Sounds easy on paper…

More easier on reality.

Numerious commanders in charge of Mars excavation operations are openly broadcasting insults and how Corpus can put these cryo-pods to better use because Grineer is too dumb to understand Warframes.

Now I know this is not entirely true. Despite genetically defective due to excessive cloning, Grineer actually posses some of the greatest minds in the solar system. Although where they have brainpower they lack morals…

Not that it matters now.

As we both walking in the newly built super-secure building surrounded by bunkers, I can't help but notice the unusually low amount of Crewman on the corridoors. While everywhere I went with Alad V(Not like I can go anywhere otherwise) was full of Crewman but here it isn't.

We came in front of a large hangar door. Alad V took out something which looks like a Razorback cypher but it is orange with white lines.

"Now what are you going to see is a work on progress so I advise to keep your mouth shut about it" said Alad V and I quickly gave him a nod. Its not like I can say no.

The hangar door opened but I didn't saw ships like I thought. In fact the place is too small to be a hangar and appereantly the only entrance here is the door we came from. There are a lot of operating tables in the room but all of them are empty except…

"Impressive isn't it?" said Alad V with a grin as he looked where I just looked .

One of the operating tables are not empty but occupying a feminine figure that has blue like armor with some places lacking them. The places where she doesn't have blue has orange color and fleshy looking wires and other components seem to be sticking from it. Metal straps and various tubes attached to the figure. The tubes connect to various liquids and some large devices which it is safe to say is medical devices monitoring hearthbeat and other things but what shocked me was well…

It was Gersemi.

I mean it is Valkyr. Since I know Alad V isn't the type of person who waits after finds a Tenno it is pretty evident he started immidiately working on her.

And I did nothing to change that.

"I take it you didn't liked it" said Alad V in a dissapointed tone as he looked at me again.

"Dissecting living beings alive wasn't considered humane in my time" I said as I stared at the sleeping form warframe.

"Well those times are passed now. You are in the bright future" said Alad V as he walked closer to the Warframe "Very bright future".

This is unrevving. I am kind of like this when it came to technology (Especially robots) but this sickened me.

"What are you aiming to achieve here anyway?" I asked as I walked next to him.

"What every Corpus wants to achieve of course" said Alad V "Profit".

"No I mean how you are going to achieve profit with…this" I said. I couldn't bring myself saying her.

"Have you ever wondered why we Corpus who uses science and technology is usually losing ground against genetically defective dogs who only knows violence?" asked Alad V as he turned to look at me.

I shook my head as no.

"They are overwhelming us with their sheer numbers, throwing clone after clone and although they are the ones with more casulties they still remain victorious because in the end unless a genetically superior Grineer dies they replace everything they lost in mere days. We on the other hand…" started Alad V as a quiet beeping sound came from the weird hearthbeat sensor. The voice got louder in short notice and isn't stopping soon.

Oh no.

The crewman who is working on Valkyr seemed to be panicked a bit because of them because two of them are collided with eachother and one dropped a needle which rolled to my feet. He turned to walk to me but…

Valkyr's hand grabbed punctured his side.

Somehow(Although I highly doubt the restraints are high quality) Valkyr's right arm is free and currently pulling the crewman to her.

The crewman immidiately responded by drawing either their guns or getting away from her grabbing proximity.

I got scared shipless and looked at Alad V so he could…do something I don't know but what I saw aıa didn't liked it a bit.

He is smiling.

He is smiling at a murder machine on the loose!

After 'handling' the crewman's side and definitely some organs she threw him away and proceeded to remove the left restraint.

The crewman on the ground looked at the syringe in front of my feet than to me. It took a minute to figure it out what that meant.

The crewman with guns aimed at Valkyr once she removed her left arm restraint and tried to undo the ankle straps but Alad V yelled them 'No guns'.

Are you serious?

I grabbed the syringe and ran to the struggling warframe as the crewman held her arms apart from eachother.

She managed to threw three crewman holding her left arm and proceeded to claw away the other four as I came. I quickly jabbed her neck with it…which resulted in me getting a mean left hook right on my jaw.

I skidded on the floor a bit untill I see Alad V's plastic shoewear.

"I want a raise" I said then the lights are gone.