"L'dael?"
The female voice in his ear broke his concentration for a moment.
"Yes, Lotus?"
"You are aware that you will have an extraction window of approximately three minutes if you're compromised?"
"That's an if, Lotus, nothing's definite until it actually happens." He said, returning his focus to the scene before him. He was kneeling on a tree branch, a Vectis aiming toward a clearing several hundred meters away. The Cicero Crisis had presented a unique opportunity for the pair of them. The location of a grineer data archive that - apparently - had information pertaining to the interactions of a certain Tenno and a grineer named Vor had came to the attention of the Lotus, and thusly, it came to the attention of L'dael: One of her most favoured special operatives and the only one who was driven by a personal purpose, not out of blind loyalty.
L'dael had personal interest in the information that he would be retrieving today.
Surveying the outside of the hidden bunker with the rifle, he spotted approximately ten four man Lancer patrols sweeping back and forth, moving slowly and deliberately, scanning every square inch of their designated sectors with an almost robotic precision. Yup, they're elites for sure, probably anti tenno vets too he thought to himself as he shifted his aim slightly. Aaaand they have snipers in the trees...great...how the hell did they get up there?! Being a tenno, he could find a way to almost any elevated position, but the grineer? They were slow and lumbering brutes for the most part, so how could even a sniper, who was less lumbering and dumb than the rest of them, get up there?
"I can't get in through the front..." he muttered unconsciously to himself. "Lotus? Do the schematics indicate any other alternative entry routes?"
"Wait one" The lady replied immediately, a few seconds later the schematics for the facility filled half of his HUD. "Lets see..." the schematics started to shift around before him, jumping to different areas of the facility. "Ah!" The lotus announced, a hint of triumph in her elegant voice. The schematics shifted to show the area farthest from L'daels current position. "Here. On the south-east side of the facility, some sort of run off for the archives cooling system, you should be able to gain access directly to the mainframe terminal if you follow it."
"Thank you Lotus. Have an operative come and retrieve the Vectis, it will be less than ineffective where i'm going."
With that he lept from the branch. he plummeted ten meters in a low arc and landed into a roll which, in turn, transformed seamlessly into a sprint. Rushing through the jungle, picking out the path with the most avoidable twigs and other forest debris as to not make more of a sound than the soft whumping as he raced along.
"You're being unusually hasty" the Lotus remarked.
"This is the first solid lead you've given me in months, apologies if I seem more than a little eager to catch their scent again." He managed between pants.
L'dael had first started receiving missions from the Lotus shortly after the fall of his clan. He had made Lotus aware of exactly what had happened - in gruesome and bloody detail - aboard the Dojo. That is when she made an arrangement; L'dael would handle X class missions (missions deemed too hazardous for even a team of operatives) and in return she would assist him in hunting down those responsible for the fall. She saw it as two birds with one stone; eliminating threats from within and without in equal measure. L'dael had found those measures to be far from equal. While every mission he was tasked with did have some possible intelligence, it was mainly a trail of wiped datacores and suicidal grineer that would sooner pull the trigger than answer any of his questions.
He knew. Several missions ended with him stalking to the Maintenance Bay of the Dojo covered in waxy grineer grey-matter.
He splashed down into the run off ditch a little louder than he had hoped. He kept still for a few seconds. Crouched in the waist deep fluid, head slowly tracking from left to right and back again, the advanced audio receivers built into the helm scanned for the noise of approaching boots. A minute passed. Two. Sure that he had not been compromised he began to wade toward the grating that the coolant fluid trickled from.
"For a coolant system designed by the grineer there is incredibly low run off..." he said as he reached the opening and activated the laser cutter in his left gloves index finger and began to cut through the thick iron bars.
"I was thinking that too..." more images - text files - flicked into existence to the left of his HUD, replacing the facility schematics. "..yeah." The Lotus said after a moment. "L'dael, listen, the coolant system doesn't cool the mainframe at a steady rate. It's a dump-exchange system."
"Which means what exactly?" he asked impatiently as he pulled the cut bars from their places, opening a gap big enough for him to slip through.
"It means that it dumps out the coolant at predetermined intervals before cycling the fresh coolant in."
"Meaning?" He asked again. He was inside now, his knees and hands clanking and scraping along the corroded metal pipe.
"Meaning that in approximately three minutes, fluid so hot that your blood will literally boil you from the inside out will be pumped through the pipe at about three gallons a second."
"Ah.." He paused for a moment upon hearing this before redoubling his efforts to scramble along the pipe . "Y'know, that's the kind of thing it helps to lead with, Lotus."
Clunk Clunk Clunk Clunk. The noise vibrated through him as he crawled as fast as he could through the pipe. "Fifty meters." Lotus reported and then "Two minutes." Of all the ways to kick the bucket, being boiled alive by his own blood appealed to him the least.
"Right there, stop. You have thirty seconds L'dael, get to work." L'dael flipped onto his back and activated the laser cutter and slowly began to cut a hole big for him to slip through. "Some speed may be wise right now Tenno, twenty seconds."
"This isn't something you can rush Lotus." He knew she was starting to panic, she only ever called him Tenno when things were down to the wire. He was three quarters of the way through the cut when he noticed a distant rumbling from somewhere further along the pipe.
"Fifteen seconds." Lotus wasn't one to show her fear or panic, her voice never betrayed her that way, but over the years in her service L'dael had picked up on the Lotuses little tells so he knew that right about now her heart would be pounding. He finally completed the cut and started to push it up, it was heavy and needed a lot of effort to be pushed up and aside. "Tenno! Three seconds, get out now!" The heavy segment finally out of the way, L'dael leapt through the gap, the boiling coolant almost catching his heels. By the time his feet had hit the floor again his Lex was already up and skana drawn. The room before him lay dark and empty save for a single glowing terminal.
"There it is." L'dael murmured as he approached. He placed his hand atop the terminal when he reached it. "Ready for uplink." He told Lotus as nanotic tendrils spread out from his hand, securing it there.
"Copy that, stand by." Moments later, images and text files began to blaze across the terminals screen.
"Interesting..." was all the lotus said during the minute of silence that followed before something very bad happened very suddenly. The image on the terminal froze and Lotus gave a small gasp. "L'dael! They detected the breach, heavy grineer forces are inbound!" L'dael stayed silent, helm staring directly at the screen. "L'dael? Did you hear me?" Still he did not reply. He was too absorbed in his own tumultuous thoughts.
The image showed Captain vor with his back at an angle to the camera talking with a black and red Nyx.
got you...was what chimed through his mind. This one lead, this one simple infiltration had just yielded better results than all the op's of the last ten years combined.
"L'DAEL!" Torn from his trance and back to reality, he finally registered what the Lotus had told him.
"Did you get what we needed?" he asked as he withdrew his hand from the terminal
"Yes, I guess you saw that final image then?"
"Yep" he covered the door with his lex. "Now if you could find me an exit that doesn't involve cleaving through a horde of elite grineer in under three minutes, I would be very grateful."
"Got it, exit the room and head left, there should be a service elevator leading to the hangar a short way down the hall."
Not even giving an affirmative, L'dael sprinted from the room, he could already hear the shouts of the grineer behind him shortly followed by aimed grakka fire. L'dael dove left into an alcove as the hailstorm of lead thundered past. Peeking out of his cover he could see bug like grineer lancers advancing slowly, keeping their aim steady as the weapons in their hands pumped out lead. He had no time to waste. He leaned around his cover and took careful aim with his lex. A single shot of returned fire whistled toward the grineer. A shot that struck the left-most grineer in the hip, causing them to jerk to the left, stitching the lancer that stood there full of the small caliber ammunition. The other grineer dropped with little more than a clatter of armour, blood spilling out of the holes that covered almost the entire left hand side of his body. Without hesitation another grineer stepped over the body of his comrade and joined the front rank, another put a bullet in the head of the wounded Lancer before joining the front too. Using this slight lull in the gunfire to his advantage, L'dael sprinted down the corridor and found the service elevator.
"It's two floors above you." Lotus informed him as he hit the call button. L'dael cursed, two floors on a service elevator would take up a minute at least.
"Frak, short way it is" He grunted as he began to lever the door open with his skana, pausing once to shoot the leading grineer in the head as they closed in once more. He took a step back as he finished creating a big enough gap, returning the Skana to his back just as the rest of the grineer caught up to him. Firing a couple of cursory shots at them to buy him a second of breathing room, he dropped down the elevator shaft. his angle of descent meaning he had to slide down the wall on either side of the shaft multiple times before reaching the hangar. His luck held out, the service elevator arrived just as the grineer opened the outer doors fully, not giving them the opportunity to fire at the quickly descending Tenno.
Scraping down the final section of wall before he reached, he pushed off and shot through the opening for the hangar. Rolling as he landed, he turned and heard the whirring of the service elevator descending after him. Turning around, he saw the open end of the hangar a hundred meters ahead and began sprinting toward it.
"The extraction craft will meet you halfway down" The Lotus said with fifty meters left to go
"Great" He spat as more lancers appeared from between the shuttles to his right. Not even thinking, his Lex raised toward them on instinct alone. The Lex boomed three times and three bullets found their marks. One burrowed itself into the face of one lancer, shattering his faceplate and blowing most of it out the back of his head in a gory mess, covering some of the grineer behind him with skull fragments and grey matter which in turned caused one to wretch from the sight. the other two bullets found their marks close to each other in the chest of a gunner, stumbling him backward as his minigun span up, stitching yet more of his comrades full of bullets before toppling over. Ten meters to go, all L'dael heard behind him were the howls of those unlucky enough to get shot more than once and still be alive. Once more he leapt forth into the abyss, disappearing over the edge.
Freefall. He saw the treetops two hundred meters below him get closer every second.
"Lotus!" He yelled. He saw the extraction craft approaching from his left
"Grab on to it as it passes by." She instructed.
Great, one shot to grab a ship that'll probably dislocate my arm if not tear it off altogether was his thought as he stretched out his hand and said a silent prayer. Eyes screwed shit in his helm, he felt a sudden jolt and intense pain from his left shoulder. Strangling down a yell of pain, he knew he had somehow, with the sheerly stupid blind luck that was almost his trademark at this point, caught onto the craft. He clasped onto the winglet with his right hand, and began the painful shimmy along to the open portal in the side of the craft. Almost losing his grip several times, clattering to the floor of the craft, L'dael breathed out heavily before sitting up and removing his helmet. He twisted his head, causing the kinks in his neck to crunch out.
Run damage assessment. He told the neuro-sensors in his head, yet another advantage of having augments. Moments later the information appeared before his eyes in the form of a diagram of an average male body: The head, neck, torso, right arm and left leg showed all blue, meaning no injuries. However, There was a deep orange around the arm socket which lightened to yellow down the rest of the arm. He could guess what that meant.
Great, dislocated and extensive muscle tearing the voice in his head told him best not let Val catch you, or it'll be your turn to get strapped into bed. Scanning the rest of the body, he noticed a small area of red on the right calf. Looking down, he inspected the leg that had suddenly started to throb painfully. There was a hole straight through it. He groaned as the realization caused pain to flare uncontrollably throughout his lower leg. He Dragged himself over to the bench that ran the length of the craft. Pulling open one of the storage bins, he retrieved two Nanotics Orbs. Relaxing his mind and somehow every muscle despite his injuries, the outer armour of his excalibur frame gave small clicks and hisses as unseen locks disengaged. He pulled off the chest piece and breathed in deep, feeling less restricted in his already labored breath. He slowly set about removing his armour, each piece clattering against the floor as he dropped it. Next, he unzipped the undersuit and slowly pulled his left arm free, grimacing heavily, but before he could apply the nanotics he had to reinsert his arm. He turned so his left arm faced the bench and steady himself. He took a single huge breath of air before slamming his arm against the bench. He heard a pop as it slipped into it's socket, followed by enough pain to darken his vision. He felt himself begin to tip backwards but he held fast against the pain. Running low on energy and his pain threshold starting to cap, he slowly raised the first of the orbs to his shoulder using his right arm. the nanotics detected the presence of damaged tissue and spread down the length of his arm. Breathing became instantly easier as the nanotics soothed the pain in his arm. He allowed the nanotics to bend his arm so that it could properly heal the muscle damage before moving on to his leg. The undersuits worn by operators were one pieces, meaning to access his leg he would have to strip off much difficulty he peeled off the undersuit and threw it in a heap next to him, the right leg sticky with his residual blood. Reaching forward with the second nanotics orb, he grazed it across the open hole. He felt the nanotics enter the wound and tightened around the section of his lower leg. Strangling out a gasp as the nanotics caused a final flare of pain within his leg before that too began to feel cold and numb. Finally, he let out a sigh. He was stabilized. Slowly, he tipped onto his right arm. The cold floor soothing the pains of his muscles across his naked figure. He dragged his arm from beneath him and pulled his helmet closer.
"Lotus?" he asked the opening of the helmet
"L'dael." The now tinny sounding Lotus responded.
"Mission complete."
There was a moments silence. "good work tenno."
He could feel himself slipping toward unconsciousness so with the last of his waking energy he pulled the helmet closer.
"Do me a favour..." his eyes started to feel heavier and heavier "Tell Arkas to get Crane to meet my craft in the hangar.." and with that, the void claimed him. A void filled with the image of the black and red Nyx