Fear was a weapon. Ash realized this as the Banshee let out her shrill cry. He didn't just hear it; he felt it, shaking the walls and rattling the metalwork.
There was no blade, no weapon that could possibly match to the touch of fear. The very air shook slightly as the Banshee screamed, making the glass holographic monitors shatter onto the floor and the lights explode in a shower of sparks, cascading the room into darkness. Even with the noise cancellation of the warframe's helmet, the cry still sent an unwelcome shiver down Ash's spine.
He felt a small pang of pity for the crew ease into his conscience. A Banshee's cry was a terrible weapon, powerful enough to still the hearts of lesser beings and destroy the senses of anything unfortunate to survive.
The screaming ended as abruptly as it had begun. Ash's ears still whined a little afterward, and shook his head rapidly to try and ease the annoying sound. The air still shook slightly, disturbed.
"Do you think that did it?" The Volt asked.
"We'll see." The Banshee answered flatly, "Kill the power, Volt."
"The lights go out in three...two...one."
The light seeping from under the doorway flashed violently and a crack shot through the air.
"Volt, how exactly did you disable the power?"
"Not exactly the most orthodox way, I'm sure."
"What in the name of the Old Earth is that supposed to mean?"
"I can't exactly read Grineer, Banshee. However, overloading the system with enough energy to melt ferrite seems to do the trick."
Ash smirked at that last remark.
"Very clever, Volt. Kill the power, and also anyone standing near a power source." He said with a chuckle.
"I'm a bloody genius, aren't I? Didn't expect the thanks to come out of you though, Ash."
"Hmm." Was that an insult?
"Tenno, visibility among the Grineer has been reduced to almost nil. Use the main decks for your advance, you will encounter next to no resistance." The Lotus' robotic voice interrupted their conversation unexpectedly, snapping Ash out of his rare, talkative mood.
"The captive's room and the engine room have backup generators, but there is minimal security around these areas. However, due to the failure of the artificial oxygen generator, the ship will make not planetfall before the oxygen runs out."
"The oxygen! Volt, you bastard, how could you be so stupid?!" Saryn exclaimed angrily over the voice-link. "The prisoner will die! This will all have been for nothing!"
"Keep your temper, Prelate. Time is not a luxury anymore, Tenno. We move, quickly and without hesitation. Volt, take the lead."
He complied, his warframe surging with electricity as he ran. The others followed soon after, rather too eagerly, deserting Ash and leaving him with only bodies to talk to
He didn't waste time catching up. What he saw on the main decks was something out of a twisted nightmare. His built-in heat lenses made the stumbling bodies in front of him look like deformed monsters. Weeping and desperate sobbing filled his ears, sending chills across his body. He sprinted along the scaffolding and beams across the top of the pitch-black hangars, wanting to be as far away from the chaos that was taking place on the ground level. He marveled at the sight.
A company of Grineer soldiers was stationed here, but it only took a few minutes to bring them down to nothing more than deaf, blind and weeping masses.
He ran along the last beam before jumping down onto a wavy path of bronze pipes. He spotted his brother and sisters ahead of him, appearing a moment later next to them in a small cloud of smoke. They stopped at a room with chemical lights strewn across the cold metal floor. These lights dimly lit up two Marines sat propped up against the wall, whispering in hushed breaths. Upon closer inspection, Ash realized the full horror of why the soldiers had been weeping. Their helmets were painted with a terrible display of blood streaming down the front. The glass had shattered from the Banshee's scream, sending glass shards from the helmet lenses into their eyes and shredding the optical nerves inside. Last breaths rasped from their deformed throats, as if their very souls were trying to claw their way out of their mortal bodies that caused them so much pain.
Ash felt that same feeling of pity creep up inside him again. He drew his Nikana and slowly walked past his fellow Tenno who stood, frozen.
"Ash, what are you-" The Saryn began to protest as he advanced, but…
Ash had already answered for her, making two quick, clean thrusts into the skulls of the marines. Their deaths were instant. Silence hung over the four Tenno, like the very presence of death that covered the ship in its midnight shroud.
The Nikana was returned to its sheath, locking in place with a small click. Ash stole a glance at the Tenno behind him. He found nothing.
Typical.
Ash jumped up and pushed himself into the air passage, leaving a shaken squad behind him. He peered over the sharp vertical bend, finding nothing but blackness. He turned on his warframe's flashlight, which barely managed to penetrate the blackness. He turned up the brightness to its maximum, giving him a slight glimmer of metal at the bottom of the drop.
"It looks like a pretty steep drop to me, so we'll go down one at a time. Allow me a few seconds to move out of the way, alright?"
"Understood." The voice of the Volt had lost its usual sparky nature.
Ash sighed once again and dropped down. He extended his wrist blades into the steel plating of the tunnel to slow his descent, wincing as the metal screeched into his ears. His feet touched down delicately on the metallic bottom, like those of a cat's, making no sound. He quickly moved along the pipe to allow the rest of the group to
join him. He barely heard the Saryn and the Banshee, but the Volt came down with a rather ungraceful thud. Shaking his head, he turned round and covered his eyes with his hand to ease the piercing white light shining through. After the flash grenade suppressants in his helmet kicked in, Ash turned off his night vision and walked towards the holding chamber.
The room itself was suspended on thick cables which stretched out to the sides of the room. Four floodlights, one in each corner, shone harsh, white light on the center of the nano-fibre glass cell. Inside were two bodyguards in thick armor that coated their entire bodies. In their hands they held huge Gorgon-pattern light machineguns. Ash was particularly nervous when it came to fighting against such weapons; they were rumored to shred apart Warframe adamite scales in seconds. In between the two giants was a frail human in comparison. His Corpus helmet and uniform had been stripped and replaced with a thin bodysuit that offered no protection whatsoever.
The Banshee behind him had obviously seen this as well; a nervous breath exhaled in the voice link.
"Saryn, your poisonous attacks can eat through their armor. We will breach through the top, you will weaken them while Volt and I will try and cut them open once you're done. Ash, it is your job to grab him and get him somewhere out of the way."
The rest of the squad nodded in acknowledgement.
"Let's go." She ordered.
The Banshee spun up the three-bladed disk in her hand. It's black, sinewy limbs extended out and spun rapidly, making a small saw in the Banshee's hand. She jumped down and landed with a soft thud onto the top of the glass. She spun the Glaive faster, until the limbs became a blur of deadly blades. She cut through the grate on top of the cell, letting it clatter in front of the guards. They reacted instantly, spooling up their roaring Gorgons. The Volt jumped down after her and let loose a bolt of lightning from his fingertips. It struck the first guard with ungodly force, striking a huge, white-hot hole in his armour before leaping to the guard next to him and the unfortunate hostage in between them. The captive spasmed uncontrollably on the floor, teeth clenched and sweat dripping down his bald head. Saryn dropped in next, spewing acidic darts from her customized Tysis at the guards.
It was truly a horrific weapon indeed. The darts themselves were living, and burrowed into armor like little worms. They then pierced the skin of the enemy and injected their poison, or they could be wired to detonate. Either way was a terrible fate to die by, one just less conspicuous. She had wired the darts to inject the botulinium toxin, the most powerful neurotoxin known to the people of the Old Earth. A teaspoonful could kill over a million people, and this dart had just injected two. The guard's pained screams were cut short as his body gave way to violent spasms and his eyes began to fill with blood.
He banged his head against the steel floor, as if trying to stop the wracking pain that tore through his body. After a few moments, he stilled, as did his partner. Ash had already taken the unconscious captive and dragged him down to the door of the cell. Ash shook the captive's head with his hand before smacking him across the cheek. The captive's eyes fluttered open to see the featureless front of Ash's helmet staring him in the face. He whimpered and reached his hand for the alarm by the door. His attempt to call for help was immediately hindered by a Kunai that imbedded his hand into the wall. The captive screamed in pain and looked round to face his captive with wide, round eyes stricken with terror.
"Who ar-... Wait. I know who you are. Y-You're the Tenno, aren't you?" The captive raised his remaining hand to point at Ash's face.
"Yes." He batted the hand away. "And I know who you are. You are not important. Who you do know, however, is important."
"Who are you talking about?"
This question was met with a fist to the face.
"Don't play around with me. Tell me the name and location of the Grineer general who you found."
"I don't know anything; I've told you this already!"
Ash's fist was up in a moment, but stopped by delicate fingers that closed round his wrist with a soft grip.
"Let me handle this." Saryn said impatiently.
Strange.
"Very well." He replied blankly.
He stood up and walked over to the two bodies, where Volt was searching around for spare ammunition and the odd transmitter. Saryn took his place, sitting down with her legs spread open on the captive's lap, leaning forward. She disengaged the helmet locks, allowing air to hiss out of the helmet and her wavy blonde hair to fall loose. She shook her hair out as a pale yellow gas escape from her collar. Ash made sure to engage the gas filters on his helmet to prevent any of the new horrors Saryn had created to go anywhere near him.
"Now..." she smiled deviously, "Where were we? Ah, yes, the Grineer general. See, I'm not a bad guy like that scary man over there." She nodded with a soppy, patronizing voice at Ash, who turned his head away with gritted teeth.
"I'm going to ask nicely, and if you tell me, I won't put a knife through your skull." She said with a playful smile and a wink. Ash chuckled to himself.
You freak.
"Now," she asked warmly, like the softest silk. "Who is this General?"
"His name is Councilor Vay Hek. He is due to be at a troop inspection at Everest in two days."
"Any other things we should know about?"
"Atlas-class defense turrets are stationed there, as well as eight Eximi. Otherwise, standard Grineer deployment."
"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" She stole a quick, angry glance at Ash again. "Now, I'm going to put you to sleep." She said softly as she snapped his neck.