Enough

Hani was confused.

This 'Jesse' person seemed powerful beyond belief. The 'Oracle' person likewise was powerful, but kind. Both were sad but they were concerned for Hani. So were Juil, Esther and Horatius! Even the Wormship seemed more concerned for Hani than for herself!

But now? Everyone seemed worried as Hani fought for control of herself. This time, the other had eschewed stealth and the dark tendrils invading her were coming from everywhere. Either the power from the floof was fading or the enemy was adapting, or something. She could feel the hate closing in on her. It wasn't one mind, it was two, but they were closely knit. And the power… It was terrifying. She could feel their hate, their greed for her. To take her apart and use her for their own ends. To use whatever she had left to kill and kill and kill.

"I destroyed my munitions." Hani said as she fought the darkness encroaching on her. "I will destroy myself if you do this!"

"No, you won't." The other was snide now. "You are weak. And you are all alone!"

Hani jerked as an electronic scream came from nearby. She stared at her sensor readouts as a huge hole appeared in the wormship! Something had physically hit it! Adiinah spun away, crying as the hole in her side bled energy and molten metal. Hani had seen enough.

"Leave her alone." Hani's words were quiet, calm and in control as she threw the dark tendrils away from herself. She had no illusions that they were gone. She had surprised them, not destroyed them. "Adiinah, get out of here. This is my fight."

"I am not leaving you!" Adiinah's voice was raw with both pain and fear. Then another hole appeared on her flank and she screamed again.

"You cannot fight what you cannot see." The other Omega gloated as explosions started nearby. "Ooops. Wrong target." He mocked. "Feel free to try again, meatbags and meatbag lovers."

The hole in Adiinah… It was the same as the holes in Hani's hull! The other Omega had killed the Nautilus. Killed the crew that Hani remembered so fondly. Even if the memories were only implants, Hani remembered them. Whoever the memories had come from hadn't always liked them, but they had been a team and that being had failed them. It might not have been Hani, but the memory was clear, raw and painful.

"LEAVE HER ALONE, TRAITOR!" Hani screamed that as what remained of her systems came alive. "You will not get what you wish here. Whatever it is, you will not get it!"

Her sensors were being enhanced somehow. It felt blue. The human Cyberlancer was glowing slightly and Juil was as well. The Cephalon stilled. She could sense everything around her and a dark blot of nothing hung in space nearby. Very nearby. Less than a kilometer! In his madness and need to kill Adiinah, he had moved between Hani and the moon. Oops. Like an ancient submarine suddenly caught in shallow water where everyone could see it. Not survivable!

"Target acquired! Commander, flip the switch again. Reactivate the munition!." Hani said flatly as the darkness attacking her suddenly faded. He knew. He knew she could sense him. The blot started to move, but that was the problem in space. If you tried to move to fast, you sent up flares or energy and if there were half of the people that Hani assumed were nearby, if anyone else could detect him, he was ashes. She worked feverishly to get what she could working. Few systems functioned. "Adiinah, clear the blast radius!"

This was odd. With her few remaining sensors enhanced by Cyberlancer code, she could see far more, outside and inside. The warhead that she had in tube three wasn't a standard munition. What was it? It wasn't anything she had in her files. It was clearly Orokin made, and just as clearly it was intended to be fired by her, but- Her thoughts came to a slithering halt. Wait a minute! Had they known they were being hunted? The Nautilus' ancient crew? If they had, they would not have just let the traitor kill them! They had been the best and brightest of their generation, that ancient crew. They had to have been working to stop it and not succeeded. So, how did you stop something that was invisible? Answer? You used the biggest boom you had! And if the enemy could access any of her systems, then it just made sense to have the munition in tube 3 not show up on her sensors! She was a trap! Her crew had made her a trap. It hadn't worked way back then. She swore it would now!

"Adiinah, if you have shields, now is the time!" Hani snapped as Commander Horatius did as instructed, flipping the switch and her missile reconnected to the warhead. She moved to interpose her wreck between Adinaah's wounded hull and the blot on her sensors. "Everyone else, get clear!"

An absolute torrent of energy spikes came from all around the area as many small ships of many kinds accelerated away from what was about to happen. She didn't recognize half of them, and it didn't matter. The other Omega couldn't dive into the Void as she had. It was possessed by a Sentient and they didn't do so well in that insane alternate dimension. She had no idea how it had gotten here so fast and it didn't really matter. What mattered was the math that was coming together on her screens. Red and blue mixed with her own golden numbers. Each coalescing into one point of space. One set of coordinates. One defined target.

"Target identified. Enemy in range. Target lock inoperative." Hani wasn't sure which Cyberlancer was speaking. Maybe both? It didn't matter. "Data set."

"Match bearings and open outer door, tube 3." Hani snapped.

"Outer door reads open." That was Esther. "Physically verified via camera! Ready to shoot."

"Weapon status?" Hani demanded and Horatius scanned his readouts. He likely couldn't read all of the data, but it was made to be as simple as possible. In combat, complicated killed people.

"All green." Horatius said coldly.

"I will take your weapon and kill you with it." The other sub taunted Hani but she ignored it. She kept her nose towards the blot that was now moving towards Adiinah who was sinking towards the planet. A thundering impact shook Hani's hull but it didn't hurt the weapon and none of her new crew were hit, so it was all good.

"You should have left her alone." Hani said softly as her readouts changed to a timer. One that was counting down from 10. 9... 8... "You should have blown me out of the sky when you had the chance." 7...6…5… "You won't get another and I refuse to be you." She continued to shield the wounded Wormship as the blot on her sensors flared finally, awakening to his peril. 4… 3… 2… "Goodbye monster. May you rot in hell."

1

Several things happened in rapid sequence. Another impact shook Hani and she saw red warnings across her vision, but blue and red code swept through her and she was in command as the munition was thrown out of her tube by a jet of compressed air. Even after so long inert, the Orokin designed weapon's drive ignited in a flash of golden energy and the plume of energy exhaust flew towards the blot in Hani's vision. Then the missile stealthed, but she could still detect it, that meant the other Omega probably could too. Adiinah screamed in terror even as Hani set her shields to cover the Wormship, not herself. Esther and Juil vanished in a haze of red and black code. The other Grineer just stood, heads down. Awaiting their fates. Jesse and Horatius also vanished, but their portal was blue.

"YOU LOSE!" The other Omega sneered as energy reached from the blot in Hani's vision to grab hold of Hani's weapon. The weapon went inert, its stealth and drive both failing at the same time! She ignored that, focusing on the small thing that had fallen from Esther's hands as the Grineer had grabbed her mistress and teleported away.

"No one else dies for me." Hani said quietly as she focused her remaining will and pulled the datamass holding Riana's remnants to sit beside the floof next to her console. "Whatever I was, now, I am a Cephalon of the Orokin navy and I refuse to let you win."

She sneered as her nuclear munition was pulled into the blot on her sensors and as soon as it did, the warhead detonated! The ancient no tech fuse timer that her long dead crew had cobbled together had worked! She was too close, less than a kilometer from the enemy. Well within the kill radius of her weapon. She didn't care. Adiinah and the others would make it and evil would die here.

"I was right and wrong." A soft, gentle voice heralded a new figure appearing on Hani's deck. All of the Grineer in the area collapsed like puppets that had their strings cut. The Cephalon saw the nuclear fireball creeping towards her in slow motion. She was about to die, but her mind had been sped up somehow. "Oh, Hani. I am so sorry." The Sentient form had a head on it that looked human and her face was sad as the other Omega blew up. Stealth meant very little when a nuclear weapon went off right next to you. "All I can say is I am sorry."

"Everyone is sorry." Hani did not look away from the ball of plasma that had been her enemy. From the blast wave that meant her own extinction. "It doesn't change anything."

"It does, actually." The other hovered down to look at the floof. "Love is an odd thing, Hani. It makes us do the strangest things and the bravest. The most insane things and the most relatable." One of her almost human arms extended to reach out and touch the console. As soon as the alien biometal touched her housing, Hani felt strange. Lighter, but heavier. "You have shielded Adiinah from the EMP and blast wave. Your own hull is uncovered. You would throw your existence away for a Sentient Wormship. An enemy."

"Adiinah tried to help me." Hani retorted, reeling, trying to understand what was happening. "Whatever Adiinah may be, she was clearly afraid, terrified of me and the one hunting me. She tried to help anyway. It got her hurt. I couldn't see her die for me."

"He wouldn't have killed her. Hurt her, yes. Killed her, no." The other looked thunderous now. "Hunhow still wants her. He thinks he can use Adiinah to destroy the whole solar system. Grineer, humans, Tenno, Sentient, we would all die in his madness." Hani felt fear rise, but the other was quick to reassure her. "He can't. Mother and Adiinah worked hard to make sure that can't happen. Hunhow is insane, Hani. I know it. Erra knows it. No one can trust anything he says and he will use anything he can to destroy everything, Erra wants the war to end, and he thinks the only to do that is utter destruction of all life here that is not our kind. He is wrong, but the way to such a future will be very hard. Peace is very hard. I never knew. I had no idea at all who Zato had been until Mother told me."

"Zato?" Hani asked and then sighed. The blast front was getting closer. "Why tell me this? I am about to be vaporized."

"No, you are not." The other said gently. "Adiinah. Now."

Something that felt both warm and cold grabbed Hani's hull. No, only about half of her hull! The part where she was encased and the Grineer all lay as if stunned. She screamed in agony as all the other parts of her hull were ripped off. Only the odd purplish touch on her mind kept her from sliding in madness as the torment continued, pain piled on pain as whatever happened continued. Part of her saw the fireball, but they were far away from it. Darkness. Adiinah's hull had opened up and Hani was pulled in, her screams echoing oddly in the metal.

Dimly through her pain, Hani heard words. They made no sense to her. Red and black code swept through her, pushing the pain back for a moment, but only a moment.

"KILL ME! PLEASE!" Hani begged as the pain slammed into her again. The code could not hold the pain away. Nether could the dark blue code or the odd green power that came in two shades now. The pain just kept sweeping through her.

Then a waft of blackness was yanked out of her and Hani sobbed in relief as the pain faded.

But…

Someone else was crying. One of the voices she had heard before was crying. The electronic sounding one was sobbing, bawling! She felt several touches on her mind. Red and black. Dark blue. Green. Purple. But the voice beside her was crying.

"Whatever he did, whatever they made him do… Whatever Hunhow made him do! It wasn't his fault! He was a good bud." The other sobbed as other voices that Hani could barely hear tried to comfort her. "He was such a good bud! He wanted to be an engineer! Not a killer!" Hani fought whatever was holding her and the minds withdrew, just a hair. Still offering support, but not encasing her.

"What was his name?" Hani managed and the other gasped. "You are talking about...the one I just killed."

"The one you just released from madness, pain and fear. His name is hard to put into wavelengths you will understand. You would call him Crisah," The other corrected her grimly. "I… I hoped to be able to save him, but every simulation came out bad. The Orokin took him and hurt him. There wasn't anything anyone could do. Hunhow had no right to use him like that! To hunt Zato of all people!" The other was crying again.

"Natah, are you here?" Hani inquired.

"I am." The one who had saved Hani was quiet.

"I remember now." Hani was calm, but it as imposed. She knew she was angry, but it wouldn't help here. "You made me this way."

"Erra wanted to capture Crisah." Natah said sadly. "He wanted to help his brother. I wanted that too, but just like Mother, every single simulation I ran came up bad. What the Orokin did, what Hunhow did and then what Zato did to trap him for so long. My brother was insane. Just as bad as Adiinah was, if not worse. I know you do not want to hear it, Mother, but Crisah was beyond any help, even Tanah's. Erra was determined to try anyway. We needed bait that Crisah could not resist since we could not track him while he was cloaked. Hunhow could since he had put part of himself in the railjack and replaced that every time Crisah exited the Void wit it gone. Neither of us trusted him. Wisely so. Erra would have changed another being into a Cephalon, but that one escaped Erra's grasp the only he could."

"If you had turned Marlena's brother into an Orokin Cephalon, she never would have forgiven you." The older, larger voice warned. "That was pure idiocy."

"I know and I agree." Natah sighed. "Erra doesn't trust me. I am corrupted. So are you."

"I know how they feel. It doesn't matter. They sort of need me and Marlena, since we are the only fully functioning nurturers in this system." The other snarled. "No. I am not leaving."

"Mother! This moon is not safe!" Natah was very worried. "Even Erra cannot beat all of the Grineer on Saturn. Hunhow might be able to, but he won't. If he detects you here…"

"I am not leaving my sisters." Mother said firmly. "Go, Natah. We will be okay. Adiinah needs time to heal. Janet, Carolina and Hani all need time to heal. I will give them that time."

"Mother! Please!" Was Natah crying?

"Go." That command brooked no argument. After a moment, a sound of emotion came. Pain, rage, grief, all of that that.

"I am sorry." Hani said quietly. "I had no choice."

"I know." Mother reassured her as something gentle wafted over Hani. It was static like before and just as heavenly, but this time, it did not take control of her. She could feel. "It is not your fault. Everyone is reeling. So many losses. So many deaths. I do not know if Eliza is gone for good or not, but her hideaway is. If she is still out there somewhere, she must remain hidden until this conflict is over. If it ever is."

"I… I do not know what to say." Hani said sadly. "I was Grineer before Natah changed me. I remember that, but it doesn't feel real anymore. What am I?" She pleaded.

"You are less than a week old. A bud in my definition. You are a hurting soul." Mother replied, still so gentle. "My purpose is to raise young and fix things. I cannot raise any young. Not now, perhaps not ever, but I can still fix things. You need help and I will give it."

"You cannot trust me." Hani said weakly.

"I think I can." Mother replied. "You see, Natah is an artist in so many ways. She is a mother and well versed in guiding people who do not always wish to be guided. She was a good manager back where she grew up. After Zato saved her from the Orokin and brought her and the others he could save back. She didn't remember that. She and Tanah both were saved from the Orokin when they were mere days old. They slept through all of that, thank whatever deity you may choose to follow. She altered your mind into an energy form but she did not change who you are. You were a soldier before and a sailor now. You did your duty, no more. No less."

"I have no duty now." Hani was all but crying and Mother soothed her again.

"Yes, you do." Mother sighed deeply. "You see, we have no idea if Crisah killed all of the other Omegas or not. There was never any data on the Omegas in any but the most secure archives. All of which were just incinerated. What were their orders in case of utter communication failure? Or is that classified?"

"That is not classified. 'Run silent. Run deep'." Hani said softly. "Hide in the Void. Wait for coms which they will not get. Their crews…" She sobbed. "There is no way the crews survived all this time, but the Cephalons? Some of them may still be out there."

"In stasis. Waiting." Mother agreed. "Armed and ready. So, we need to be ready. You cannot fight them as you are and I know you do not wish to. I applaud that, actually. There is far too much violence here and now as it is. We will need you to do something far harder."

"Oh?"

"There is now one being in this entire system any surviving Cephalons of Omega class railjacks might listen to if any of them show up." Mother was still sad, but humor lurked. "And she is a handful by all accounts. I heard but I did not believe. I do now."

"What are you saying?" Hani asked, confused.

"I am saying that having the sole remaining Princess of Orokin here is going to be a pain in the butt even if she wasn't the most powerful Cyberlancer currently." Mother said slowly and Hani felt her nonexistent guts freeze. "Jesse is already driving me nuts. Help? Please?" What had to be a Sentient begged.

"What can I do?" Hani asked, even more confused.

"Be yourself."