AN: [Insert flimsy excuse for delayed update here]. As always - thank you for reading, if you do. And hopefully you find it enjoyable.
Ozrahkan stood motionless, his thoughts running over scenarios, calculating the various possibilities, and different outcomes of the possible actions.
He could have the squadron simply open fire into the tunnel opening, frying and flaying the four children of the Dragon. But another squadron from the secondary stasis complex was arriving right behind them. It would be unfavorable to cause damage to his own troops over just 4 intruders. Besides, this would most likely destroy them all.
Alternatively he might wait for them and trap them in a circle with both the standing force and the approaching detachment and then take them out with a concentrated Gauss barrage. They would fire back, and maybe put up a fight, but would succumb eventually. Then he could simply pluck a survivor and take him back to Szarethot.
However this could also destroy them all, as the Gauss flayer wasn't exactly known for maintained pinpoint accuracy. This also, all in all, wasn't an ideal solution. It would then be difficult, or, knowing the capabilities of the Dragon, downright impossible to extract any solid information from the shredded remains.
After some more pondering, the Phaeron finally decided on a course of action. And just in time, as he could make out four silhouettes moving in the depths of the tunnel.
He sent a silent order for the troops to move out in an arc around the entrance, as well as one for the legion in the tunnels to keep a cautionary distance from the 4 intruders, but remain close enough that their presence would be unmistakable and slightly threatening.
All what was left was for the trap to be sprung.
The four Tenno, moving forwards, noticed that the marching steps kept pace with them, staying at a constant distance away from them.
"Vaan… what. Do. We. Do?" Dala sounded just about ready to turn around and fling herself at the enemy in a blind kamikaze run.
Vaan kept silent, and in his ponderings he remembered about the scanner he had. He stopped and pulled it out. The marching behind them ceased as well.
"Scanners out guys…" He simply said after a while of silence and his voice was flat and featureless.
The trio produced their own scanners and looked through them. It took a moment for the tech to identify anything based on motion, and composition.
The first lit up the orange silhouettes of hunched over humanoid figures, marching in perfect unison away from the group till they passed out of the active scan range. However they were not the only ones, as based on the data gathered from a surface scan, new targets lit up.
A row of single-file soldiers stood about 40 meters from the group, however they were obscured by the mix of darkness and the soft green glow from ahead. In front of them were 3 similar, yet bulkier figures, and ahead of those, another one, that seemed more imposing the others.
What none of the Tenno expected was for the figure to raise his hand, and obviously hail the four warframes.
"I'd say we've walked into quite the hornet's nest… and seems like the nest is well aware of our presence." Vaan stated, taking a step forward, before Dala grabbed his arm and berated the Frost.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" with incredulity in her voice. "Are you really just gonna go out there like that? We'd do best to scatter and try and make our way back. Now it's beyond clear that we can't do anything."
"I could try and sneak up on the group and see if I can find an alternate way around. There seems to be a cavern further on." Zeifer proposed an idea. Vaan looked at the Loki for a while, the silence weighing heavily on the group.
"Ok… ok… just - don't be too reckless. We'd do best to prolong this strange ceasefire." Vaan concluded. His voice was laden heavy with shame. He understood that they will most likely have to abandon their frames, and desync back to their orbiters, and that it was mostly due to him insisting on delving deeper… But it wasn't completely hopeless. The strange masters of the subterranean crypt seemed in no hurry to attack them. The cryomancer leaned against the tunnel wall, sinking in though, while staring in back from the way they came. It almost seemed like countless green eyes were soullessly peering at him.
Meanwhile Zeifer had gone invisible and crept forth, as the two female warframes engaged in aimless banter, to dilute the anxiety.
"You've been awfully quiet almost all this time, Shera. What's the matter?" Dala asked, regularly casting frantic glances at the entrance of the tunnel. Her Ignis flamethrower twitched in her hands, and the Ember was visibly on edge. And no one could blame her.
"Been thinking… It doesn't all add up…" Shera said, running a repeated inspection of the strange weapon she'd snagged. Now that they were in some form of stalemate, she had time to go over it again.
"This gun… It's like if we took Amprex and amplified it by a factor of ten. And it requires no ammo as far as I can tell. There isn't a single opening for a power cord, a battery pack, or a microreactor." she went over her observations, handing the gun to Dala, so she could take a closer look at it. "This sort of technology, seemingly given to low rank and file soldiers and even left with their effigies… IF whoever dwells here can afford to throw away such technology, they definitely have something even more impossible in their arsenal."
"Ok, and I can attest that no one… not a single Tenno in the Origin system has seen something like this…" Dala held the gun, and realised that it emanated a barely perceptible buzz of stored energy. None of her personal acquaintances or the largest clans had ever spoken about anything similar to this weapon.
"Exactly. Yet it seems like it was treated as a basic… I dunno… Braton…" Shera commented further. "So how come a faction with such firepower has never laid claim on the Origin system, or even just kept an active presence over Phobos?"
It didn't seem logical for someone of this technological prowess to be locked away deep underground. A singular entity or a reclusive group of five-ten such masters could be understandable, but not a seemingly vast army, with sentries and an active militia in place.
"Shit…" A crackling exclamation came through the comms channels, as the three Tenno in the tunnel swiftly looked towards where Zeifer was supposed to be.
Zeifer let a surge of Void energy through his Warframe, making it invisible in the majority of the light spectrum. The only giveaway were ripples of his suit's energy shifting across the surface of it. However as far as it had been tested and observed, only other Warframes could track this energy, so he was not worried. His specific suit modifications allowed for over half a minute of sustained invisibility. Sometimes it was more than enough, but the Loki wasn't all too sure about it today. He closed the gap, counting seconds.
Five down, thirty to go.
The Loki observed their welcoming party. The shock of what he saw was like being struck by Lech Kril's hammer.
The "people" were identical to the statues they saw in the tunnels above. The singular difference was that these skeletal figures had green glowing eyes. And, of course, they were not in an upright mortuary pose. The trickster took note that four of them were significantly more ornate than the rest, standing behind them. He also noted the utter stillness of these people. A shudder ran over his back.
Twenty to go.
Zeifer shook off the surprise, looking around himself, and trying to find a valid way through. There was a ledge that he could switch teleport with his decoy, and in reverse, bring others up the same way. But that would only be possible if there was no possibly hostile squad of metallic skeletons five steps from him.
Fifteen to go.
He turned around to head back, and almost ran into a Wraith, that had silently appeared behind him. He cursed under his breath, and moved to the side, to pass around it, but the Wraith seemed to perceive the Loki. He silently cursed again.
Ten to go. And here he lost count.
"Stranger… Child of Dragon… I may not be able to see you, but my servant informs me of your presence." A monotone voice behind the Loki said. It was mechanical, yet carried a tone of authority, that seemed uncanny to the mechanical appearance of the inhabitants of this place.
Zeifer looked up at the optics of the Wraith, and realised that they were moving ever so subtly along with his own every move. He swallowed hard, and turned around, facing the speaker. It was the richly adorned individual, he had noticed before.
The invisibility ran out, and Loki cursed:"Shit…"
The speaker turned his head slightly, and nodded. "Intentional or not, that is much better. I prefer to have whoever I am speaking with, to inhabit the same light spectrum as I am."
"Would you please call over your siblings?" The figure did a sweeping motion, his emerald green gaze locked on the Loki.
However, the invitation was unneeded, as the trio burst forth from the tunnel, weapons raised.