A/N: sorry for the large gap between chapters, had some real world concerns to deal with, coursework, Family stuff, all that jazz, so this has been in the works whenever i've had the time, but anyway, i hope you enjoy!
My sleep was troubled, what with the Cryosickness this morning, Ash, The wound, I didn't sleep well, I darted awake at 2:25 AM Earth time, nearly 8 hours early for the mission, giving up on sleep, I clambered out of bed, seeing frost sleeping peacefully across the room in the dim light of the room, I decided to go for a walk, walking over to the pod containing my warframe, I repeated the instruction from yesterday, I donned most of my warframe, getting used to the feel of my Warframe again, I tried to get out as quietly as I could as not to disturb frost, I wanted to go for a walk around the Tenno only section of the relay, walking past the door to Oasis I saw the door to one of the Meditation Gardens, I entered and saw a massive garden, at least 25 meters by 25 meters, mostly water with stones forming a pathway to islands filled with vegetation scattered in the pools, I saw Banshee meditating as I entered, she twitched as the door opened, opening her eyes and looking at me, she had her headset off, she scrabbled to put it on as I entered, I waited, as to be polite, I didn't want to hurt her hearing, she stood up after replacing her headset and walked over to me,
"Mesa? Why're you up so early, how come?" Banshee asked sounding concerned
"Can't sleep, thought I'd have a walk, I could say the same for you." I replied,
"I always have trouble sleeping, I usually have a wander around if I can't sleep." She replied quietly,
"Oh, I see, well, you picked a nice enough place to come and sit, it's really nice here." I said calmingly
"Yeah, I like it at night because it's quiet, I can take my headset off, or if I do keep it on it can just take in normal noise and it doesn't have to focus, it's nice." Banshee said
"I'll bet, you got a mission today?" I asked Banshee
"Yeah, Corpus spy, Europa" Banshee replied
"Well, I suppose that frees up tomorrow for meeting up for the day." I replied
"Yeah, I suppose it does, and tonight."
"Fair point, and now to be fair, but nothing's open really." I said
"Yeah. Besides here." Banshee, replied,
"We could just hang around here for a while, if you want?" I questioned
"Yeah, that'd be nice." She replied quietly
"Alright, what island should we go to?" I asked,
"I like that one over there, with the Bamboo on the edge." Banshee replied, pointing to an island on the edge of the room, mostly obscured by Bamboo, we walked across the stone walkways to the island, stepping onto the soil island, vegetation covering most of it, it had a small, bronze Chinese dragon on the edge of it, by the Bamboo and a small incense burner on the other side near the water, emitting a soothing fragrance that blocked out the sterile air of the Relay, banshee and I sat down on this little chunk of land, backs resting against the garden wall
"How long has this clan been in the relay? I recall Chroma saying about how you used to have a Dojo." I asked Banshee,
"I. don't really want to talk about it." Banshee replied
"Sorry." I said slowly, I felt bad for making her upset,
"It's ok. You didn't know." Banshee replied quietly,
"If it'd make you feel better, do you want to hear my heartbeat, its quiet enough here, right?" I asked
"If you don't mind, that'd be nice." Banshee replied,
"It's not a problem, although, could you rest your hand on my shoulder or something when you're headset is turned up, so I don't talk and deafen you." I said
"Well, if you whisper then that'd just sound like talking I think." Banshee replied
"Alright, sure, do what you need to do Banshee." I said
Thank you." Banshee replied,
Banshee edged closer to me, leaning against my shoulder slumped lower slightly, her headset glowed brighter, and I could see the bars on her headset reacting to my heartbeat and all the other internal sounds,
"How's it sound banshee?" I whispered in the quietest voice I could muster
"Really nice, kind of fast though." Banshee replied
I smiled, I tried to think of ways to slow my heartbeat, I began taking deeper breaths, and I felt my heart slow,
"Are you trying to slow it down?" Banshee asked
"Yeah, didn't think you liked it." I replied
"No, I do, everyone's sounds different, yours is just a little fast, that's all, don't try to slow it down." Banshee said quickly,
"Oh sorry, didn't know, I've never heard anyone's heartbeat before." I replied quietly,
"Not many people have, it's a really nice sound, and do you want to hear mine? You can if you want." Banshee replied
"Maybe another time, just listen for now." I said quietly,
"Hey I have an idea. Do you know what the Simulacrum is?"
"No?" I replied
"The simulacrum is a computer program made by cephalon Simaris, that tenno can enter to fight scanned enemies, I'm good friends with the Cephalon so I have a unique Simulacrum that can summon an infinite number of enemies for endless combat with no exhaustion to the tenno bodies, so we can go on the mission after, may as well get some training in, no?" Banshee said,
"Sounds fun, let me go get my guns." I said
"No need, simaris can generate them in there." Banshee said
"Alright, shall we?" I replied,
I saw the bars on the screens on banshee's headset return to normal, she got up and nodded, I was up too and we set off, it was on the top flow, we entered to find the orange cephalon staring at us
"Ah, Banshee, it is good to see you again." The large AI said in a booming voice
"You too simaris, do you think you can load both of us into my simulacrum?" Banshee asked
"Not a problem." The AI replied
The console for the simulacrum flickered to an ornate green shape, banshee and I approached and were loaded in.
The simulacrum was large, and empty, we walked to the console activating it and preparing to summon a corpus onslaught.
I loaded my Tigris as Banshee readied her Afuris, the corpus came from all sides, simulated crewmen, MOA and Ospreys all came at us, I fired my tigris into the crowd, snapping the barrel open and loading in fresh shells, snapping it shut again I unleashed the next two rounds of fury, ripping crewmen in half and leaving them dismembered on the floor due to the slash damage in the Tigris, I fired both shells into a tech, it ripped his arms off and tore his torso in two, leaving his eviscerated lower body at my feet, I reloaded, jumped over a pack of MOA that Banshee gunned down with her Furis, I dived at a Crewman, Kronen in hand, swinging them as I landed, shearing him in two like he was cut by a pair of scissors, I spun with the tonfa extended, gracefully slicing through flesh and robotics, I heard a bang and saw banshee activating sonic boom, showering the area in green sparks afterwards, I activated ballistic battery, drawing my Lex I fired into a pack of moa, killing 7 of them with it then activating ballistic battery again now it was charged blowing a Tech's head off his shoulders I then dived into the middle of the Simulacrum where Banshee was firing her Paris Prime into the crowds of corpus, I activated peacemaker, wielding the Regulators properly, i pointed from side to side, gunning down corpus left and right, the fight continued for several hours until the clones stopped coming
"Simaris?" Banshee asked
"Someone has asked to speak with you." Simaris replied
"Mesa?" Frost's voice boomed out.
"Frost, why are you up this early?" I asked
"Its 5:30 Earth time, 3 hours until we depart, might want to get something to eat, I still need to see someone, and I'll meet you in the mess hall." Frost replied
"Damn that went by fast, you wanna get food?" I asked Banshee
"Yeah, sure." Banshee replied
We exited the simulacrum, Banshee's stomach gave a low growl
"Guess it was a good idea to get food. I'm really hungry." Banshee sighed
"I can tell, didn't need a fancy headset to figure that out." I giggled, Banshee let out a small chuckle as we made our way to the Mess hall, the best food was served here, recreating older dishes as well as ones from Corpus and Grineer mess halls, all cooked to the finest quality for the Tenno, personally I preferred older dishes, particularly in the mornings, a country on old earth had a well-known meal eaten in the mornings, most people called it a cooked breakfast, or a Full English breakfast, no matter what it was called I was really fond of it, besides the mushrooms, I ordered that whereas Banshee ordered a Breakfast muffin, I was rather concerned, the other tenno was unnaturally tiny for a tenno anyway
"Banshee, are you sure that's enough, I mean, we tenno need a lot of energy, I'm not trinity but I don't know if it's enough." I said, taking a slice from my bacon
"I'm sure it's fine." Banshee said, taking tiny bites from her muffin, I saw trinity enter, spot me and walk over to me
"Hey, How's the wound doing?" She asked
"Little painful still, not too bad though." I replied, running my hand over the ragged wound,
"Good, here, if it hurts more use the syringe in this box around the area of the wound, it should dull the pain." Trinity said, I nodded in thanks before turning back to banshee, she had slowed down on eating her muffin, she hadn't even finished half of it before I finished my larger meal, sipping at the coffee that came with it, I waited for Banshee, not wanting to leave her alone,
"Are you sure that muffin is enough." I asked again
"Yeah." She said having finally finished it 25 minutes after I had, we sat in the mess hall, sipping at coffee and talking until it came time to leave, I made a mental note to talk to trinity about my observations in terms of Banshee's diet and unusually thin stature, the PA system rang out loudly
"Hijack team to the briefing room please."
"I have to go, see you Banshee." I say, waving as I left, I grabbed my gear and entered the briefing room to see, Frost, Hydroid and Zephyr kitted out, the briefing AI came on to inform us of mission changes
"Tenno. The corpus are using a Rover without automatic control, meaning on top of shield power, the rover will need someone inside it to manipulate the controls, I would recommend whoever is powering the Rover to also Drive it, on top of this there is currently a large blizzard over the mission site, in confined areas can be used to avoid the effect of the blizzard but most of the rover route is not confined and has access for the blizzard to shower the area in snow, this will reduce visibility and shields, furthermore the ice holding some cliffs up is unstable, so be ready to halt the rover if the ice seems likely to collapse on you." The AI explained.
"Right, to the hangar people." Frost ordered,
We began to the hangar, seeing other tenno cells about to go and attack the planet too, I saw Banshee's spy squad, Her, a tenno I assumed to be titania, Mirage and a hooded figure holding a bow, Rhino, Saryn, Valkyr and the Tenno in a top hat made another cell, and Equinox, Ember, Chroma and a Tenno who looked like an ancient Earth Mummy from a strange desert people made the final cell, a single large transport shuttle was hovering above the dock, a large ladder hanging from it, we all entered the large liset and the ladder was retracted and the shuttle roared to life, taking a seat with my cell, I felt the shuttle rattle as we flew, it was a wordless 10 minutes, a tense silence filled the shuttle until the familiar roar of atmosphere re-entry filled the shuttle, Banshee's cell was first, a red light appeared above them and the door opened, the blizzard flowing in, Banshee's cell unstrrapped from their seats and sprinted to the exit, weapons ready and leapt out, the door closed and the shuttle roared to life again, it was 30 seconds before the next drop, it was Chroma's cell, he nodded at me as he approached the exit, leaping out with his cell as the cold winds blew in, I grew anxious, I had injected the medicine before leaving so it wasn't the wound, probably just because it was my first mission since awakening, Rhino's cell was next, I then knew I would be last, the shuttle rattled to a halt, the door opened, my light came on, I got up, pulled out my lex and jumped, I landed, bending my knees, I landed on unstable ice and snow, slipping, I fell down the small, wreckage covered hill smacking into it a few times, landing on my side in the snow, resting against the ice, I scrabbled to my feet, Zephyr made the same mistake, landing with a lighter thump due to her oxium suit, hydroid slid down on a metal panel and Frost slid down the hill, I got to my feet quickly, lex pointed into the snowy wind, zephyr was to her feet in no time too, we walked toward the point our map was leading us, ready to fire, we saw the smashed ship corridor and entered, picking up the pace now we were in the torn metal, with the snow no longer blocking our view frost dived forward, catching a Detron crewman unawares and cleaving him in two with the reaper prime, hydroid threw his sklya dagger into the neck of another crewman then used his Nami to slice the crewman's head off, zephyr used the Glaive like a buzzsaw ripping apart the neck of an elite crewman, unfortunately a MOA spotted us and started making mechanical chirps and whistles to inform the rest of the corpus that we were around, Frost fired first, silencing the MOA with his latron, I activated ballistic battery and began to charge it with my Lex, hydroid and zephyr used their burst rifles to gun down crewmen, Hydroid with his Sybaris, Zephyr with her Tiberon, ripping apart crewmen, after fighting through the ice tunnels beneath the ship we entered the rover hangar,
"Hydroid, get the rover ready, Zephyr, get ready to open the door, Mesa, ready at the door!" Frost bellowed, hydroid entered the rover, I was at the door, frost joined me, I readied ballistic battery's shot into my Tigris,
A klaxon sounded
The shutter rose
A bursa was waiting, it grappled me with its harpoon and dragged me to the side as the rover exited, the blizzard still battering us, I got free of the line and the bursa slammed, kicking my charged tigris away, I drew my lex and emptied the magazine into the bursa, it hit the shield and did nothing to the massive machine, finally I drew my kronen, front flipping over the bursa, driving the tonfa into the back of the machine, sparks flew and the machine stopped flailing, sprinting back into the hangar I recovered my tigris, still glowing with the charged shot, I sprinted after the rover to find it being slowed by the constant barrage of wind, Zephyr and frost were perched on top of the rover, I joined them, my legs hanging over the edge, I didn't see what was so hard about these missions,
"Corpus can't come out, suits aren't insulated enough." Frost said
I grinned, this mission was going to be easy besides the crippling cold, we sat on the rover for about 5 minutes, entering an area of crashed ship, corpus were waiting, they opened fire, we returned fire quickly, riddling the corpus with bullets, this continued until we went back to the blizzard,
"Hey, Navigation on this thing says that's the last corpus, no more wreckage the rest of the way, come inside, stay out of the cold, get in here." Hydroid said with the door now open, we all entered I went to the drivers window with hydroid as frost and Zephyr closed the door, the rover trundled through the blizzard to the end of the track and exited the rover as the shuttle flew and then hovered adjacent to the landing pad, opening the door we all entered as the tractor beam attracted the rover, we took our seats as the shuttle engines bellowed into life, I saw banshee's cell across from me, banshee was slumped over in her seat, the hooded figure had her quiver in her hands, counting intact arrows and tossing broken ones onto the floor, mirage grabbed two syringes from the wall, injecting one into a gash on her right leg, handing the other to Titania who slowly administered it to Banshee
"What happened?" I asked the hooded figure
"Raptor, we're being redirected on an assassination mission, they're mixing the cells, me, you, Chroma and Saryn are being deployed for a mission to destroy the Raptor plant here, they've been popping up all over, the missions, it was a setup, name's Ivara by the way." Ivara explained
We settled at the next pickup point, Rhino's squad hobbled in, Valkyr and Rhino were battered,
"Why did you do that Valkyr, look at you!" Saryn said, Valkyr was battered, burnt, part of her helmet had been blown off, the eyepiece on her helmet was damaged too,
"It would've hurt you more than me, believe me." Valkyr chuckled, clutching her abdomen,
Rhino and Valkyr were placed in their seats and harnessed in before Saryn and Limbo sat down next to them, we moved on and collected the next cell, the mummy tenno was assisting equinox who had the weaponised end of a broken lecta embedded in her leg, Plasma fire came into the craft, Me and Saryn got up to hold them off as the rest of the squad entered, Chroma was carrying Ember, she was in a bad way, unconscious, faceplate of the helmet blown away, blood splatters across her torso and deep gashes and burn marks across her small frame, chroma was covered in dried blood, both his own and ember's blood, the shuttle roared to life early as ember was placed in her seat, harnessed in while me and chroma stayed standing, Ivara and Saryn with us
"Say, I never got your name Rookie." Ivara said as we approached the door,
"It's Mesa" I replied, loading my lex
"Right, Raptor, blast the units, drop the cores down the gravity lifts, simple as, and we know they're here this time, this factory is producing raptor RX and RV units, prepare for barrages and laser storms." Chroma explained as the shuttle cruised to the location,
"This is the closest I can get you, bit of a drop, then there's a service door that leads to the side corridor of the gravity lift area, good luck tenno" the pilot radioed us,
"Copy, see you on the other side." Chroma said as we leapt out, approaching the door
"Locked, Ivara, try the console." Chroma ordered
"You got it." Ivara replied, the console buzzed in response to her hack attempts,
"Nah, thing's fried, power cut to the door, we need brute force, and some leverage." Ivara said jamming her Karyst dagger into the slot between the two halves of the door, prying it a bit,
"All you chroma." Ivara said as chroma grabbed the top half of the service door, beginning to pull it open, Saryn and I grabbed it too, forcing the door open, clambering through as it slammed behind us when we dropped it.
"All good, lets go." I said, we darted into the room, raptor RX turned to face us, a barrage of explosives hit the deck,
"Back In the corridor!" I yelled as we retreated, the blasts ripped the walkway at our door off the wall
Leaping onto the factory floor with saryn we began to fire at the wings of the giant osprey, plasma bolts rained from its gun, we backflipped out of the way and continued firing, me with the lex, Saryn with the Tysis, one of it's engines cut out and it fell to the floor, chattering mechanically as RT deployed too, I grabbed the downed raptor, using my kronen to shut the other engine down, heaved it to a lift and blasted the core out with my tigris, kicking the core and wreck into the lift then taking cover as the blast sent shrapnel and wreckage in all directions, alarms sounded and fire licked at the edges of the destroyed lift, Raptor RT hit me with its barrage of lasers that scattered to all of us, my shield took the brunt of it but I soon found myself caught unawares by a Drover Bursa, slamming me back into the firing line, Chroma leapt onto RT before it could fire a barrage, bashing it with the magistar as I wrestled with the Bursa, my lex locked between its armour plates, activating shatter shield to block the plasma, I frontflipped over the bursa, landing two hits on its console, it staggered and I slid over to it, throwing it from its feet and firing the rest of my magazine into the console, it shut down and I saw a faded figure hack it, I recognised it as Ivara,
"Like the trick then Newbie? I'll have to teach you how to hack." Ivara chuckled down the radio
"Little help!?" Chroma yelled down the radio as the raptor span wildly to get him off, he dropped his Magistar, it hit me square on the head, it knocked me off balance, I got to my feet, grabbing the heavy mace and bullet jumping to the Raptor, slamming the mace Into the head of the raptor, passing the mace handle to Chroma before drawing Kronen and slashing the raptor's face, it screeched and backed away, Chrome landed the final blow with the magistar and tossed the core into the second lift, it detonated before we could get away, showering us in red hot shrapnel, I felt a stab in my leg, followed by a slash then another stab into my arm, I ignored it as a corpus transport cruised in carrying a larger than normal container, it dropped it and fled, the door was soon bashed out and a huge quadraped crawled out.
"That is a razorback, we were not prepared for this. Tenno. Fall back, run!" Lotus ordered, we ran away, back to the maintenance corridor, Raptor RX's explosives had damaged the door, making it easier to pull open, we crawled through and contacted the pilot,
"Pilot, we need extraction at the same point we were deployed to the raptor facility, ASAP." I called down the radio
The shuttle came in, carrying the Rover still, we bullet jumped to the door to get in, taking our seats amongst our battered comrades,
"What the hell just happened!?" Rhino yelled, bleeding still
"They didn't know we were coming, did they?" I asked
"They couldn't have known!" Ivara called,
"They clearly must've known, they wouldn't have deployed raptors everywhere otherwise" Titania yelled
"STOP!" Frost yelled, freeze hitting the shuttle floor
"I don't know if they did or didn't what matters is that we all made it off the planet." Frost spoke more calmly,
"He has a point." I added
"Yeah, but me, Rhino, Ember and Banshee are all in a bad way, what if we didn't make it?" Valkyr added
"Don't think about what if, point is we all made it and our mission is complete, spy team got the vaults didn't they?" Frost said
"Yep." Ivara said, holding up a drive
"Excavation team got the cryotic yes?" Frost asked?
"Yep." The mummy said
"Sabotage team get the reactor?" frost asked
"Yeah, but." Valkyr started
"Then the mission was a success, so stop thinking we lost and focus on the victory, now, we're approaching the Relay, Mesa, go call Trin." Frost said
I nodded and got up, going to the radio to call trinity, pressing the button I held the microphone as we approached, staying near the speakers,
"Trinity here." I heard the chirpy reply
"This is the Europa team, approaching the relay need medical assistance for 5 tenno, 3 severe explosive and puncture trauma, 2 unconcious, 2 severe leg injuries, assistance is required on the dock." I spoke clearly and calmly
"Affirmative, I will need two uninjured tenno to assist with transport on the docks." Trinity replied
I placed the radio down, Saryn nodded to show she wanted to help, I nodded in agreement as the shuttle docked, Frost, Chroma, titania, Hydroid, Zephyr, the mummy, ivara and limbo exited the shuttle as Trinity and Oberon approached, we stepped back to let them in, a hovering stretcher was brought in one at a time, with the previous exiting before the next one entered, removing, Ember, Rhino, Valkyr and Equinox from the craft with me and Saryn helping Mirage to the Medbay, upon entering about 30 seconds after Trinity and oberon with the hover stretchers we found the tenno on them being removed from machines with their warframes now being sent for repairs,
"Trinity." I called
"Get mirage over to that cubicle at the end, I'll see to her soon." Trinity said as she worked to stabilise Valkyr's wounds while Oberon worked on Rhino, Trinity soon had Valkyr stabilised seeing as Medicine and Medical training were almost instinctive, she moved to Banshee and connected an IV line to her arm, then moved over to me,
"She can go back to her Dorm tonight, it's just stress and lack of food intake, for the better part of a week, it's not good for tenno biology, when she wakes up, I want you and Titania to remind her of this." Trinity explained, giving me the Hover Stretcher, I pushed it back to her dorm and knocked, a drained Titania opened the door, I brought the stretcher and IV in Titania helped me lift her onto the bed, she sighed
"Trinity said it was because she was stressed, and hadn't eaten properly for a week, she wants you to tell her to change it."
"Alright, thank you mesa." Titania replied, I nodded and left, I saw Ivara jogging over to me, without her helmet this time, long red hair a frazzled mess, covering one of er blue eyes, as I left Titania's room
"Hey Mesa, Clan Warlord wants to meet you." She spoke
"The warlord? As in the leader of the Clan?" I asked
"Yep, don't worry, she's cool, she'll be joining us next mission, in a few days whilst the rest of the squad recovers, I need something from a corpus ship to make an Anti-Razorback computer virus, the data however is on an infested Corpus ship's Data vaults, so we'll be going to get it when Ember recovers." Ivara said
"suppose, Ember melts infested, anyway, would you mind coming with when I meet the Warlord, I don't want to meet her alone." I asked
"Yeah, sure, she's in mission control, getting Technicians on the repairs with Vauban, Chief engineer and Armoury manager, you met him already, since you have gear." Ivara said as we walked
"Yeah, didn't talk much, seems alright." I replied
"Yeah, doesn't talk much in the armoury, you get to know him a lot more when he's working or in the bar." Ivara replied
We arrived at mission control, the place was crawling with Technicians, I saw Vauban working near the back window,
"Ugh, we need fuses, I cant keep using Teslas as replacements, we need proper ones, I need a good corpus ship to scavenge." A german voice rang out from Vauban
"Ah, you must be the recruit." A british female voice spoke, I saw a woman approaching me, particles of Gold antimatter circled her, a purple and gold Nsaru syandana flowed like a ribbon from her back, gold trims covered the warframe, especially the neck, and antimatter vents on her back glowed purple, a pale face, purple hair and bright blue eyes greeted me.
"Are you the Warlord?" I asked
"Indeed, Warlord Nova Prime, pleased to make your acquaintance" she said as we shook hands
"Mesa, nice to meet you as well." I replied
"Now, I'm going to get to the point here, I'm sorry about your introduction to some of your Clanmates, I assure you that most are not like Ash, and I apologise for that mission, I shouldn't have sent you there, particularly for your first mission, however it was a success and that's all that matters now, the others will recover quickly, Trinity works at her own pace, but that pace is fast, so I have no doubt in my mind they'll all be fighting fit in a few days, for now, take some time to rest, you've earned it, if you need me I'll be in my office with the Twins." Nova Prime explained
"The Twins?" I asked
"Nyx and Excalibur Prime, siblings and my second in commands, Come meet them." Nova said, gesturing to follow, I did, waving goodbye to Ivara who wanted to help Vauban,
"I'm going to say it now, Times have been hard since the Dojo was lost, with the Volume of tenno using this relay, repairs are difficult for Vauban, food stocks have fallen low too many times to count and the grineer have launched 4 separate sieges against us, I don't know how long we'll be able to keep our heads above water, these victories are great, yes, but we're still falling, to make matters worse, I need your help on a special assignment, talk to Vauban about it later, all you need to know is you'll need an archwing." Nova said as we approached a door, guilded like those you'd find in the Void, the door opened to reveal an orokin-esque office, 2 warframes sat at opposite sides working with a large desk at the back,
"Hey, guys, this is mesa, our recruit." Nova called to the twins
"No offense to them, but we're kind of busy tracking something here, maybe later, but not now, we need focus." The male frame spoke
"Sorry Mesa, maybe another time, go talk to Vauban about operation Overdrive. He'll fill you in, mission is soon so, get ready." Nova explained, I wlaked back to the mission control room where technicians were pouring out.
"Hey Vauban, Nova asked me to speak to you." I called to the large german man across the room,
"Oh, Greetings Mesa, what was it she wanted you to ask me about?" Vauban asked
"Operation Overdrive." I replied
"I see." Vauban said, accessing a console, locking the door and activating a hologram of a Famorian ship
"Operation Overdrive is a radical plan to hopefully stop an attack from a Balor Famorian class ship using a core stolen from a grineer shipyard, follow me." Vauban spoke slowly, turning 2 of the navigation booths red, we stepped into them and were warped to a different floor of the hangar, a famorian core hung from chains, with a frame around it, a cockpit type structure was formed at the top.
"We need a pilot, was considering Zephyr, but I feel that someone with beter reflexes would be more suited to the job, you'll be driving the core right at the ship, overloading it then detaching and fleeing the blast radius before the core ruptures, hopefully taking the Famorian with it, the frame will be equipped with 2 high power famorian disruption devices to obliterate the shield, if all goes well, the detonating core will cause a chain reaction, though we can guarantee, the main cannon will be annihilated during this attack, and hopefully the main frontal plate too, leaving the core cavity exposed, that's when we'd deploy a backup core I have stored, if you look on the back on the raised platform, there are 2 modified ramparts, that will be manned by 2 tenno operatives which will give you covering fire, you have 2 rampart guns on the front too just in case, we're leaving soon, Go get Zephyr and Titania, they're your gunners, 4 archwing operatives including myself will be acting as a fighter escort, me, chroma, Saryn and Limbo are your escorts. We leave in an hour, I want to be in transit in 30 minutes." Vauban spoke
"Titania is occupied, banshee is out of action and Titania is busy looking after her." I replied
"I see, we'll need a new gunner, Now, any suggestions?" Vauban asked
"Ivara maybe?" I suggested
"An excellent idea, go find her, she'll likely be working in the tech lab, first floor, next to Nova's office." Vauban replied, going to the edge of the hangar, donning an Elytron archwing and flying to assist in finishing the bomber rig I was going to pilot
I returned to the portals, seeing Chroma, Saryn, Limbo and Zephyr enter to don their archwings, I returned to the lift, ascending to the first floor, then going to the tech lab, it looked a mess, screens hung almost haphazardly from the walls, cables connecting them to a grineer-orokin-corpus hybrid computer that ivara was working on
"Ivara, we need your help for operation overdrive, I need a gunner" I called to ivara, who was working on the hybrid computer
"that's the famorian mission, right?" she replied
"Yeah, we need to go, now." I informed her
"What, it's now? We're leaving now? Right, let's go." Ivara turned to me, then back to the computer, pausing the task then moving to me, we made for the hangar, entering to find the platform ready, arms now gripping the core, a large generator hung on one of them to perform a controlled core overload when it was ready to deploy, Vauban used his archwing to fly down to us,
"ready?" he asked
We nodded, then used a gravity lift next to the core to board the platform, it was about 10 meters square and curcular, with the pilot cabin on a raised platform with an air shield to provide breathable oxygen, the rampart gunners had oxygen units to breathe
"Archwing operatives, ready up, core team, prepare to power transport platform." Vauban spoke over the radio, I looked behind me, Ivara and Zephyr attached the oxygen units, I strapped into the seat, 3 robotic arms rose from the floor, two had control sticks on them, one a control panel, the two starter buttons were on the sticks, one to alter pitch and the direction I was facing, one to control the thrust direction
"Core pilot, power up, activate frontal shielding, Archwing team, split up, 2 go ahead to distract the cannons, let's go!" Vauban ordered, I felt the core platform rise as I activated the engines, manipulating the controls to exit the hangar and prepare the shielding, I saw a point flare up on my hud, indicating the famorian, I powered slowly toward it, it was still out of both visual and firing range of the relay, it took around 20 minutes of flying to arrive there, the gigantic vessel floated ominously silent, a raging battle between chroma and saryn and the grineer space attackers raged around it but the famorian didn't fire
"this doesn't feel right, it's not firing" I spoke into the radio,
"the shielding would deflect it, it'd be a waste." Vauban replied
"Incoming!" Ivara called, opening fire at a pair of dargyn fighters divebombing us, attacking the ramparts, zephyr joined her, a silent cacophony of gunshots flared out behind me, but I was focussed on navigating the battle to deploy the payload
"Limbo, with me, give mesa cover to deploy the payload!" Vauban called over radio as I sped up,
A pair of ogma tried to block my path, I used the pilot guns to push them aside then Vauban and limbo finished them off, I looked at the edges of the front, two black pylons rose and charged a red energy, I saw on my hud a percentage, 'Famorian disruptor charge' increasing at about 5% a second
"Disruptor charging, 20 seconds until full!" I called over radio
Affirmative, ETA at famorian 30 seconds, once you deploy the disruptor we have 30 seconds to charge the core and deploy it then 10 seconds to reach minimum safe distance, it's doable, but only just, keep rear shielding up, just in case." Vauban ordered as the battle continued
The percentage quickly reached 100%, I charged at the famorian
"Detonating disruptor!" I called over radio
Pulling the trigger a red pulse erupted from the midpoint between the pylons, annihilating famorian shielding, I charged closer and prepared to deploy
"Damn! Rampart destroyed!" ivara called over the radio, the rampart shield was buckled, as were the guns by the impact of a crashing temporal dreg, ivara climbed off the gun, moved to the dreg and pulled the wrecked robot off then propelled herself to my air shield, entering and removing her oxygen pack, clinging to my chair, I arrived at the deployment site, pulled a lever to overload the core then pulled the triggers, turned tail and ran, as the core was released, activating rear shielding and disengaging front shields,
"Move! 10 seconds until detonation, minimum safe distance 1km!" Vauban yelled, I saw coloured trails as afterburners on archwings activated, I pressed the pedals down and activated the platform afterburners, the platform accelerating quickly, I saw the distance meter on the bottom of the HUD, the core detonated when I was at 950m, 50m from minimum distance, alarms blared for the rear shield, but the craft survived the detonation, I shut off the shield and turned to face the famorian, now blasted to hell, front cannons obliterated and a clear view of the core inside, damaged and leaking liquid residue into space
"That's not going anywhere" I spoke over radio, looking at the ship,
"Never hurts to be sure." Spoke Vauban as he, limbo, saryn and zephyr lined up next to my cabin and unloaded their weapons, a velocitus, pair of dual decurions, imperiator and fluctus at the damaged core, seeing detonations ripple across the surface before another fireball engulfed the crippled vessel
"Mission complete, let's go home." Vauban spoke, as we turned back to the relay
"Well., that was a thing." Ivara chuckled
"indeed, at least we won" I replied
After the long flight back to the relay I docked the craft at the bay we left from, where it rotated and a new core was attached
"What, I thought we dealt with the famorian!" I called over radio,
"Ready for the next one, there will be another, I'll call you if you're needed, go get some rest, you're going to need it." Vauban spoke
"Alright, happy to help." i spoke calmly as i walked back to my room
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this, if you have any ideas that you think could work in the story just let me know in a review or a private message or something of the sort, might end up in the next chapter, who knows? Thanks for reading and for all the reviews!