"There are many things that please an Ostron, Surah. Credits are one. Good company to spend them with are another. But most of all?
The Hunt. Always The Hunt."
- Parson-Luk of Cetus, on life's simple pleasures.
Telin and Kelpo fell screaming in the dark. The floor of the dark pit below rushed toward them. Telin squeezed his eyes shut. Braced himself.
Telin felt a hand grip the furred hem of his suit with unnatural strength.
A gale force wind blasted them sideways, hurling them to one side. The grip on his suit released.
They landed in a side tunnel feeding the lower echelons of the main ice shaft; hitting the ground with bone jolting force, tumbling end over end.
Telin took in a terror stricken breath in as he rolled onto his back, patting himself, wiggling his toes.
He had been deposited; no, thrown some ten feet down the side passage. He could feel every bump and bruise and ache and sore, but mercifully, he was alive; mercifully, unparalysed. Kelpo sprawled a few metres down, groaning but alive.
It was a miracle. Or perhaps not.
The boy stood tall in the gloom, looking down at them. His wide eyes glowied with an ethereal blue fire. It was the only light source in the dim chamber. The very air around him seemed to shimmer and warp.
Telin shrank back in terror.
"Void Demon!" he gibbered.
As suddenly as it appeared, the maelstrom enveloping the boy evaporated. His eyes rolling back in his head as he flopped to the floor, shivering.
Stillness reigned. The boy lay there, limp and still and very much the young man he physically appeared to be; scarcely into his teens.
The two scavengers kept their distance.
Void touched.
It was a forbidden thing.
You heard the stories as a child. Strange realms beyond the furthest stretches of the Solar Rail; where time and space and the natural order no longer applied. A twilight realm of eldritch power; where men lost their minds and eyeless horrors reached out from the chittering dark; to pluck children from their beds.
It was a nonsense to Telin. An old wives tale; used to scare traders and their corpus into being good little workers. A fantasy.
And yet it rang true. By every metric it was true.
Telin and Kelpo looked at the unconscious boy. He seemed a pitiful thing now, broken and small.
But for their ragged breathing and the echoing whisper of the tunnels around them, there was no sound.
"What do we do?" Telin asked eventually.
"Can't leave him here." Kelpo rasped. "Not like this."
"Boy is cursed." Telin hated the superstitious quiver in his voice. "We're in way over our heads here."
"Cursed or not; he saved our skins." Kelpo countered, coughing. His face had become unusually drawn and pale as he looked at Telin. "I can't carry him alone."
"You okay?"
"Been worse." Kelpo grimaced.
"That's a lie."
"Oh absolutely." Kelpo coughed. "But whinging about it isn't gonna help."
"You rest up. I'll carry him."
Telin approached the kid gingerly, placing a hand on the boy's forehead. Despite the environment, the boy's forehead proved warm to the touch; even through Telin's insulated glove.
He carefully started picking the boy up, groaning. Kid or not, the boy wasn't exactly tiny either.
"Void Demons, angry mercs; pit falls..." Telin seethed as he shrugged the boy over his shoulder. "Our fee just went up."
Brakarr pulled the line hand over mechanical hand; hauling a tangled knot of abandoned harnesses into the light beaming down from the spot-lamps set into his war rig. The empty harness twirled in the wind. He cast the line aside with a snarl as Parson-Luk chuckled.
"Good Utz," the Ostron chuckled, admiring their prey's tenacity and the Grineer's frustration in equal measure. "Only worthy prey chews from the snare."
Vern keyed his com bead.
"Isolde. Status?"
"They live." The girl replied. Vern was thankful she had the courtesy to use the com rather than answering in his head. "But the Sleeper's Dream begins to fade."
"Translation?" Vern's voice was impatient.
Isolde studied the central column of the ruined star ship. The recovery techs were in the process of stripping the melted biomass from the wreck; peeling its layers and steadily revealing the true outline of the war machine beneath.
"Ladahr and Bycek will need to be quick."
Ladahr Morval, Master of Moa, leaned into the wind, squinting past the visual artefacts the atmospherics inflicted on his visor. His charges swept wide in a hunting pattern; scanners flitting over the ice and rock. He would need to keep a close eye on their handling in such extreme conditions.
They had all but completed a 5 kilometre radius around the insertion point; making good time in spite of the harsh terrain. The Moa were agile bipeds, with birdlike intelligence. Each were heavily customised; carrying a variety of onboard weaponry suited for multi-purpose force deployment. This granted Ladahr tactical flexibility, but the units themselves could prove squirrelly because of it.
Particularly in these conditions. Surface temp was as cold as it got on Venus. Most of the planet was burning hot; vast swatches of molten rock swathed in drifts of imported coolant. The coolant mines formed a major part of Venus' local economy. The Orokin had seeded certain areas with ancient technology; arcane engines embedded deep within the planet's surface which permitted the altogether more primitive efforts the Corpus employed. The majority of the planet formed an unusual tableau of extreme contrast: as floating glaciers drifted over the barren landscape, slamming down into the ground and rendering the planet habitable.
The arcane engines that powered these unique phenomenon led to rare pockets of microclimates; such as the Frozen Zone they hunted in now. The snow itself was primitive coolant, that had long since morphed into its own unique property.
Drone 4 was experiencing sensor fluctuations. The hunter let it slide initially, but now they were affecting field performance beyond acceptable efficiency thresholds. Enough. Ladahr brought his scouting mech to a halt, hopping down and keying a series of instructions into a control slate. The affected Drone chirped and trotted over obediently.
Torr Bycek dismounted from the rear cage as well, glad to be stretching his legs. He trudged uphill towards an overlook point, his trademark beam cannon in his hands.
The two often worked together in the field; rifleman and outrider. Sniper and spotter.
Bycek seldom spoke. That suited Ladahr. He was better with machines than people.
Ladahr busied himself with the repairs; popping open the offending ocular lens on the drone and humming tunelessly as he worked; the sound all but lost in the storm around him. An old habit, it helped him tune everything out. All distractions.
Ladahr was still humming when Bycek tapped him on the shoulder.
"Over here." It was a veritable speech by Bycek's standards. "Found something."
The two hurried to the top of the outcrop.
The vista below was all but snatch-stolen by the churning gusts of snow. But between Bycek's advanced scope and Ladahr's scouting optics, there was something there. Hidden at the base of the valley, by an old tunnel. Ladahr tapped a series of commands into his belt.
The Moa took positions on all sides of the valley, training their viewfinders at the base of the tunnel. Ladahr saw what they saw through the visor. Multiple angles, full spectrum analysis.
A camo tent, scrappily erected around a small, two man skimmer. A low budget model by all accounts. A rental, Ladahr sneered. The netting was mag-shielded, designed to hide a parked ship from unwelcome attention. The snow rendered it all but invisible in the howling storm.
"Good eyes, Torr." Ladahr hissed, clapping him on the back.
Bycek grunted. He was already settling into a firing position.
Ladahr hurried back to his walker, snatching up the bulky field set from the dashboard.
"Vern, this is Ladahr." The Master of Moa sent. "Piping coordinates to your position."
Another flurry of commands marshalled his drones. The Moa slunk forward, settling into the snowy hills overlooking the tunnel entrance. All but invisible but for the tips of their spy lenses.
"We have them."