"War teaches in startling contrast. Heroism and cowardice. Our capacity for courage, against odds insurmountable. Of cruelty, meted out without the merest hesitation.
It teaches you friendship. Of ties that bond.
And when those same bonds are severed; pain..."
- Trainer, addressing the Tenno of The House Eternal.
A stray plasma round finally struck Doric from the sky. The starboard engine of his Archwing gave out; chugging smoke. Sending him into a wild corkscrewing tailspin straight into the deck.
Mirage twisted about, watching as the twisting shape descended into the midst of the Corpus army.
"Doric!" Sara cried.
The Archwing did not explode when it impacted. Instead, it punched clean through the skin of the Upper Tier, burying itself like a meteor. Corpus forces rushed over the cooling impact site; a churning sea of Moa, interspersed with the occasional Hyena hunter and scrambling crewman.
Something burst forth from the crater. A tumbling boulder. It ploughed through the swarm, flattening all in its path. Moas shrieked moments before they were buried beneath the descending wall of rock. The crowds backed away, self-preservation protocols kicking in and sending the Moa skidding in all directions, shrilling and bleating. All too late.
Atlas arose from the smoking ruins: proud and tall; streaming pieces of the Elytron harness as it fell away in ragged smoking chunks. A Hyena shrieked and pounced. Atlas turned its shimmering gaze upon it. The air warped and vibrated with arcane energy.
The Hyena froze in place; shivering as the lustre of its metallic sheen hardened and crackled; condensing to frozen rock.
Doric-as-Atlas shattered it with a single upper-cut. It burst in a thousand cascading pebbles.
Doric strode toward the ziggurat amidst the confusion. He paused. The Warframe was a lumbering titan, its mighty shoulders all but swallowing its neck. The Frame raised a single fist in the air. A salute to cherished comrades. A command all of its own.
A giant arose from the twisting dun smoke behind him. A single monstrous rock golem; a towering behemoth that quivered with primal rage. Parts of the shattered drones were infused in the rock. It was a ghastly, towering thing. It dwarfed even Atlas.
Atlas glanced back at it. It rumbled obediently.
Doric simply pointed at the ziggurat.
The golem brayed a challenge; surging forth into the Corpus army. Drones and bodies were smashed aside; tossed like ragdolls and broken articula as it charged headlong for the temple.
Atlas followed; crushing anyone who had the temerity to stand in his way.
Kael and Sara pounced; ripping towards their comrade with thinly disguised impatience. Blades sang and blood flew.
Caught on both sides, the Corpus on the ziggurat panicked; between a literal rock and a hard place.
Vern slapped a new mag home, dropping to one knee and snapping off shot after shot at the relentless Dax. Eythan advanced steadily; blade flashing. The gap between them shrank once more. Vern had no intention of getting cornered again.
Vern flicked a puck-shaped charge out behind him. It mag-locked to the wall; cheeping twice. Then it erupted with a flash; bringing the wall down in a chunking avalanche of descending masonry. The fire suppression system shivered to life; hosing them in a fine hissing mist.
Vern melted away into the twisting smoke, methodically reloading.
The Dax surged out of the fog before him; lighting quick. The Lex was slapped aside. A golden hand encased his throat once more. Lifted him clean off his feet.
Eythan Dax studied him coldly. His armour was scorched and pitted from where Vern's rounds had found their mark; embedded in the golden armour. Water dribbled freely down his sneering face.
"Impressive, for a mercenary." The golden warrior tilted his head with an avian curiosity. " A different era, you might have even made a worthy Dax..."
The squeeze on Vern's neck tightened.
"…such a pity."
"Gold's not my colour." Vern spat. He snatched at something on his belt.
The flashbang was not intended as a melee weapon. Even with all his enhancements, it deafened Vern as he slammed it into the side of the Dax's head. The two men separated; the golden warrior staggering; gauntleted hands clamped to his visor.
Vern's cybernetic eyes recovered far faster. Disorientated, eardrums bleeding; Vern saw his window. He took it.
The mercenary grabbed the nearest object to hand; a remote extinguisher canister. He swung it as a club. Metal met metal with a resounding hollow clang that pealed like a cathedral bell. Once, twice; a third time. The entire unit broke apart; spraying them both with foam. A chunk of the Dax's wide-brimmed helmet was fully dented inward. Miraculously, the Dax stayed on his feet.
Vern didn't hesitate. Discipline was everything. The takedown was an essential skill for any hand to hand practitioner. This was a man; a preternaturally strong and agile man; but a man nonetheless. The twisting throw put the golden warrior neatly over Vern's shoulder; slamming him into the ground. Then Vern was on him; his fists pulverising the Dax's face; again and again.
A golden hand clamped Vern's fist in place. There was a lance of searing, crushing pain as the wiring approximating a nervous system overloaded, then crumbled altogether. A numbness took over. Vern snarled and flashed in the elbow of his other arm. Eythan's nose broke with an audible crunch. The grip released. Vern continued striking with both hands. Anything to inflict damage. Vern would rip the man's damned throat out with his teeth if he had to.
Eythan Dax was not lacking in grappling skill. His legs locked around Vern's midsection; locking tightly. With a rolling twist the Dax muscled Vern aside. The two rolled apart; both blooded, both gasping for breath.
The Dax pointed his blade at Terrenus Vern. Blood coursed from the ruin of the Dax's nose. His cheek had burst, and a spiderweb of cracks coursed their way across the surface of his gilded visor. There were no lofty threats or grandiose statements, not anymore.
Only ruthless intent; simmering rage.
Vern had little left than a humble combat knife. He settled low into a knife-fighters stance; the blade pointed downward. Unflinching, ever the patient hunter.
His broken hand drifted to the small of his back; to the last remaining tool in his arsenal. Ruined fingers twitched feebly as they closed around it.
A single grenade; small and potent.
Kelpo walked the Severance Package, making his rounds with Stren. He had stepped into the role of XO by dint of his association with the Tenno, but word of his commitment during the boarding action had spread quickly. The men and women of the Severance nodded at him as he passed, looking up from their welding kits and firing ports. Stren explained the nuances as they went; pointing out structural weaknesses and firing arcs of the various weapons; and their various crews. Making introductions where needed. Should anything happen to him, Stren wanted the lad briefed on how the ship worked.
Blood coated the walls where various munitions had pierced the outer hull; fully vaporising those unfortunate enough to be caught beyond. The crew had done their best, patching the hull as best they could; washing the decks down with soapy water, but these wounds were deep. They would scar, or else damn the barge entirely.
Loading crews bustled to and fro, lumping heavy panniers of munitions for the Grineer-based weaponry. Cells were locked down; activated with a keening hum. Even the boarding javelins were reloaded; their securing winches cinched tight and locked down.
Engineering managed to bring the shield system back online within something approaching normal levels, but even then it was painfully fragile; a jury-rigged fix that would either save the ship from external fire or else blow it up entirely.
Battered, scarred and bruised; the Severance Package made ready with its sister ship; poised on the edge of the Upper Tier.
In the distance, the war for the ziggurat raged on, oblivious to the two ragged ships on the horizon.
The elevator droned ever downward. The Mid-Tier was choked with bodies. The Low Tier was all but abandoned, as they descended deeper into the colony. The Watch had been severely outnumbered and surprised, but they had beam weapons and tight firing channels. The price paid to subdue them had been savagely high.
It was perhaps merciful that the Solaris' view was often blocked by the vast infrastructure that supported the central elevator.
Prospect 141 was in a state of open anarchy. The rebellion had came and went. Now the downtrodden freely looted the streets; ravenously picking over the salubrious areas the Watch had so sternly denied them all these years.
The only place left alone was the Upper Tier. Those few that dared to venture there saw the fire and flames on the horizon, and retreated; knowing there were some chances not worth taking. Some places no mortal could hope to witness, and survive. Stories of the fires on the horizon; of the endless screams and raging lighting would live on, in whispered stories passed on from generation to generation.
The surviving Solaris bore witness to a colony surely damned by their actions. The Board would not suffer such impudence lightly. Nef Anyo in particular would deem the rebellion a personal insult. Examples would be made.
Neera looked at the brawny cutter, Sparks. He showed no emotion to speak of (and had no means of expressing it, even if he wanted to). But he could sense the despair radiating from her. The brutish welder rested a hand on her shoulder, gave it a supportive squeeze.
"It's alright, lovey." Sparks' face lit up in time with his words, "The Board won't scrap the colony. Too much investment in the site. Frozen Sector's lucrative, too lucrative even for a second rate colony like this. It'll be tough on these people, but they'll survive. As they've always done."
Neera studied him, her face set. Her eyes were red rimmed, but clear. She had a job to do.
"You're sure?" she asked.
"Course they will. Board need the labour pool, don't they?" Sparks nodded at the Data Mass clutched in her hands. "Important thing is we get that thing there clear. Into safe hands. Make it all worthwhile, eh?"
The lights above shivered once more. More dust sifted down the lift shaft. The Solaris looked up as one.
Sparks chuckled darkly as they descended deeper and deeper into the bowels of the colony.
"Still, all things considered; reckon the Board 'ave their hands full right about now."
The halls beneath the Northern Landing Pad lay in ruin. A great and terrible battle had taken place here; waged between two men hell bent on killing each other. No quarter had been sought, and none was given. There were no witnesses to it, and long after the Battle for Prospect 141 ended, it would be forgotten; just another destructive curiosity to be picked over by the salvage teams that would surely follow.
Its aftermath would stay with Isolde for the rest of her days.
She followed the trail of shell casings, broken furniture and dents in the walls that marked the path of Vern and Eythan's duel. She paused by a slick of blood on the wall. A hand print.
Bullet holes coated the walls. She paused. A Hikou throwing star was wedged in the wall at head height. She stepped carefully past it; through yet another hole in the wall. She found one Lex; discarded, smashed into component pieces. Then another; top slide locked back; snapped empty. There were starbursts of shrapnel and burn marks that scorched unlikely places on the ceiling.
A trail of emptied shelves and discarded fall back weapons; secreted and improvised, that spoke of a struggle fought to the most bitter inch.
It was not one sided. More than once she saw gold flecks on the wall; where a body had been thrown or battered into a wall. The sprinkler systems sluiced down from above; soaking her. A hundred small fires competed with the emergency lighting; rendering the machine shop beyond a bitter crimson.
Isolde gasped. She floated forwards on numb feet.
Vern sprawled in the middle of the floor. Pinned in his chest was the golden nikana; buried to the hilt.
There was no sign of the Dax. It was a message.
Yet another challenge, taunting her. Goading her.
Isolde tore her hooded cloak free as her knees splashed to the floor beside him. She did her best to stem the bleeding; swabbing with the cloak. She had no idea where to start. Vern was more cybernetic than flesh, and even then he was a bloodied wreck.
His hand was little more than a mechanical stump; ground to pieces from where Vern had all but demolished it against his opponent's face. Splinters of golden armour were embedded in Vern's ruined fist.
Vern groaned a chuckle when he sensed Isolde was there.
"He bled. Oh I promise you, he bled."
Vern's goggles were missing. He groped about with his one remaining hand, which trembled with a palsied quake as he felt her burning cheek. With a start, she realised he was blind.
"EMP Grenade. One of my own." Vern turned his head to one side, as blood pulsed out of his mouth freely. He coughed, spat. "Was out of options."
He stirred, went to move. He hissed; pinned in place. His webbing, normally festooned with throwing knives and explosives, was entirely barren. Her hood was soaked in blood now.
"Don't move…" Isolde despised how weak she sounded, the helplessness in her voice, "I'll get help…"
Terrenus Vern chuckled at that.
"Don't get soft on me now, girl." He felt up toward her face, wiping her burning cheek, chuckling. "This was always gonna happen, sooner or later. Part of the job description. Profitable lives, not long ones."
Isolde was shaking now. Not in fear, or sorrow. Something more primal; dormant since the Old War. She swiped her cheeks, unable to stop the streaming tears.
"I'll bury him." Isolde swore, her voice low and venomous. "By the Void and all that's holy I'll bury him."
Vern smiled slightly at that.
"That's my girl."
Then he settled his head back, eyes closed. His voice was little more than a rasp.
"A thousand contracts. Endless hunts. Creatures and beasts. Good men, evil men."
Vern's face was set, at peace. He shuddered, swallowing heavily.
"Never once fought for myself, though. Felt different. Felt right."
Terrenus Vern coughed, once. His good hand wiped at Isolde's streaming face affectionately.
"Be seeing you, kid."
Then his hand fell limp.
Eventually, Isolde rose to her feet; still clutching the bloodied rags in her hands. She drew the nikana from Vern's body cleanly; cleansing it with a measured swipe of the blade.
She tilted her head back, eyes closed. Felt the stream of the sprinklers wash over her; a cleansing wave that did little to quench the rising inferno within.
With singular will, the Tenno reached out with the Void, to where a silent ship lay in orbit; long forgotten.
And broke an ancient promise to herself.