"Clear the logs. Everything. I want it wiped. Gone, you understand?

There was no colony. There was no uprising. There is nothing there other than what the scavvers will stumble across, years from now. A wreck. A wasted scrapyard.

A cinder, if needs be."

- Nef Anyo, addressing field logs received from the Dominant Position

Volt twisted the machete as he wrenched the blade free; letting the crewman's corpse tumble down and join so many others below. Kael looked back up the slope.

More and more drones piled over the top of the ziggurat. Filling the horizon. Burrowing clean through its corridors and emerging through the other side.

The Tenno had abandoned the channelling confines of the corridors to save Isolde. Instinctually it was natural. Estranged or not, she was one of their own.

Tactically it was an error.

For all their killing power the Moa swamped them; feet lashing; emitters spitting.

They tried to dam the flood. Atlas had built a bulwark across the face of the ziggurat; warping its smooth lines with ridged masses of ruptured stone. Kael had done the rest; hemming their flanks in with a line of shimmering shields that, while effective at absorbing the sheets of plasma fire, would not hold forever,

Isolde's Repeaters felled the Corpus in droves. Gone was the laughter now. She sweated as Mesa snapped from one target to the next. Still ever more came, eager to crush the Tenno against the side of the slope.

Moa leapt forth over the top of their improvised wall. Atlas and Mirage awaited them, tearing them off their feet. Stabbing and chopping and stamping. Ammunition had long run out; their plasma weapons overheating to the point of melting. Now it was blade work and bruising hand to hand.

Still more came. An endless tide of shrieking metal.

"All hands, stand by."

Stren's throaty voice echoed over the com line. Both crews stood ready. The weapons crews shivered at their posts; wrapped against the freezing air as the barges droned toward the conflict. Respirators and environment masks were mandatory. Not enough holes in the hull had been plugged. The wind whistled freely through the hold; tugging at sleeves and buffeting any loose strapping.

"Firing solutions piping to your stations… now."

The scavengers rustled into action; cranking manual winches and sighting the cruder cannon by eye. Turret batteries swivelled on their axis. Targets were pre-sighted. Final adjustments were made.

"Stand by." There was an electronic squelch as the com-line cut out momentarily. All they could hear was their own nervous breathing; harsh and loud in the confines of their masks.

The ziggurat drifted into view below. A surging storm of plasma bolts, electricity and eldritch power that raged across its surface.

"Mines check." Stren's voice buzz-clicked.

In the belly hold of the Severance Package, Chief Engineer Lorna Rone and a fellow crewman took positions at either end of the release ramp. Between them were stacks of old power cores; improvised explosives and unexploded munitions. Anything that could be conceivably gathered, piled and weaponised clogged the cargo hold. Even the old shield core had been rigged; tied to a transmitter that would trigger the wider detonation sequence. They flashed each-other a thumbs up.

"Mines… standby."

The scavver-tech lacked polish or sophistication. It was a frontier craft, built for frontier work. Manual levers were hooked into latches securing the release ramp. Lorna braced herself for the order, shoulder pressed to the lever.

"Now!"

Both levers were hauled.

There was a metallic chunk as the release locks snapped open.

It was only in a momentary snatch-glimpse through the melee that Kael spied the Severance Package rumbling in overhead. The cascade of tumbling objects that rained from its belly like silent hail.

"Down!" Kael roared.

The Tenno threw their Frames flat against the stone bulwark. At the last second Kael used the last of his power to throw up one final shield. He held it over his head. Braced himself.

Nothing happened.

There was no explosion. Not at first. The Severance's minelayer was an archaic wreck. Mines and scrap refuse fused with IED's rained down; bouncing noisily off the stonework and crushing drones beneath with the sheer weight of the descending impact. They dribbled freely across the far side of the ziggurat.

Or perhaps not. Kael looked up once more. The dispersal was not random at all. Far from it; the Severance made a complicated series of micro-adjustments in its course; pivoting just so. The ziggurat was being seeded with careful deliberation.

The drones possessed limited intelligence; they squawked as they hopped to and fro, unsettled by the metallic downpour; proximity sensors overloaded; the Tenno temporarily forgotten in the face of the unusual distraction.

Telin frowned. They could feel the Severance palpably lighten.

"What's happening?!"

Stren had no words. He was stabbing the trigger sequence; openly sweating. Either the transmitter to the munitions was malfunctioning, or the cores were failing to erupt from the concussive impact as they bounced off the ziggurat. The hold was almost empty.

Pohld spared a glance back at him, shrilling:

"Stren, for fug's sake man! You had one job!"

The Tenno stayed pressed flat against the network. The noise of chunking debris was maddening. But there was no explosion, no dramatic kick-off. After a moment they looked at each other, hesitant; still pressed flat against the deck. Even the encroaching Corpus seemed perplexed, staring up at the curious vomiting barge.

Sara alone rose to her feet. Mirage cocked her head to one side, fists planted on her hips.

"Huh, is that it?"

They were all yelling at him now.

Stren was roaring blind curses, spitting at his console in abject frustration.

He brought his fist down on the console, once.

The faulty transmitter connected with a cheerful ping.

There was a shockwave.

Fully half of Watch Control disappeared in a mushroom cloud of blinding light.

The far side of the ziggurat simply vanished. Then more explosions, as the isolated duds triggered in a rippling, trembling chain reaction. The Boardroom at the summit was obliterated instantly. The detonation was all but visible from orbit. The shockwave flattened the Tenno; all save Atlas, who fell to his knees, such was the staggering force of the blast. Transference Static threatened to rip them from their Frames entirely.

Then the sound caught up with the fury of the violence. It hit them with a slap. A deafening roar. The Frames spasmed; systems overwhelmed by a fury that tested even their ab-human endurance.

The slope trembled. Entire sections of the façade simply shucked its surface coating; a descending tide of sifting rubble that passed either side of the Tenno's makeshift shelter. Drones were washed away by the surging tide of toppling rockwork. EMP did the rest. Drones clattered to the floor in spreading wave of flopping artifices.

Watch Control had been reduced to a blackened cinder; a cross-section of exposed rooms and twisted rubble; robbed of all shape or form. The Tenno blinked. Only their side of the ziggurat remained relatively intact, and even then it was a scorched mess.

"What the hell was that?!" Sara croaked, as Isolde's Frame hauled Mirage upright. Their shields sparked fitfully as they reasserted themselves.

Kael clambered to his feet, swiping charred pieces of drones from his shoulder plating. Each of the Tenno were caked in sooty grime. Charred flakes flitted down over them in an ashen blizzard.

"Reinforcements." Kael chuckled, as Volt dusted itself down.

Sara was livid, all but deafened by the explosion. Mirage stomped her foot; channelling her Operator's indignation.

"Reinforcements?! They damn nearly killed us!"

The scopes were awash with smoke. Visibility was gone.

"Void's Teeth…" Kelpo blinked through the scope. "You think we over did it?"

There was the briefest of breaks in the oily fog. Large parts of the Citadel were simply gone. Broken drones layered its surface; their instrumentation pulverised by the shockwave.

Stren was still wheezing, tears rolling down his face.

"Solid hit!" He cackled. "Always hated that place!"

There was no time to celebrate. Corpus manufacturing was cut-price, but not without in-built redundancies. The stricken army began to recover; the surviving drone horde slowly rebooting and groggily finding its feet once more. Many limped lamely or simply fell back over, giving out. But for all the numbing violence, it was clear that the Board's army would not so easily be defeated.

It was now or never.

"Light 'em up!" Telin cried. "Hit 'em with everything we've got!"

Stren picked up the com-horn.

"All hands, weapons free!"

Turrets chattered to life, steaming into the Corpus army freely. Fire licked freely from the barrels of rotary cannons, as they raked churning beams in criss-crossing patterns across the dazed army.

In the distance, the Forward Transaction deployed its mine layer; carpet bombing the beleaguered Corpus invasion force as they stumbled through the hell-smoke. A lightshow of Corpus munitions struck out, venting into the Board's forces with ruthless intent.

Return fire was sporadic, scattered. Those crewmen still alive on the ground were entirely shell-shocked, stumbling through the haze in a stupor; ears bleeding. Senior crewmen went hoarse trying to marshal them. Hauling their fellows upright, bawling orders that conflicted from one second to the next. Their unit to unit communications were shot. Drone coordination was fried.

All was confusion. The only light sources were the rig-lights of the crewmen, and the probing searchlights coming from the marauding barges above. That and the downpour of tracer fire, which blazed like hellfire through curtaining black smoke. The Corpus officers slowly began rallying their fellow crewmen.

Shapes flitted through the mire toward them. Too fast to track; elusive, fleeting.

The Tenno cut them down; blades biting. Whispering nightmares that emerged, struck; and then vanished again.

Telin sat forward in his chair, staring at the charred slag that had once been the ziggurat. It was as though some terrible god had taken a scoop to the side of the Temple, and dug at the Upper Tier with thinly disguised greed. They had definitely overdone it.

The scavenger shook himself, snapping out of his stunned silence.

"Take us in." He ordered. "We're on a clock here."

Pohld licked his lips, tipping the control yolk. The Severance dipped into a steep dive.

There was a lurching sensation as the Severance swept in low over the charred blast radius. Turrets droned and rattled, steaming drones off their feet. The crew slammed open firing ports; squeezing off shots into the horde with small arms fire. There was little aiming required, such was the density of targets available.

Impulse drives pulsed and wobbled as the barge slew to a halt, its belly all but tickling the ruined surface. The hull began to shudder from the multitude of impacts impacting the outer shield. It was their backup system; one ill-suited to for prolonged abuse. The Forward Transaction rove overhead; turrets describing a pulsing tide of spearing light as it lay down cover fire.

Direct coms were still soup; awash with static. Fortunately the Severance had been designed with more primitive redundancies of its own; a by-product of its looted heritage. Telin scooped up the old fashioned com-horn, broadcasting on the ship's PA.

"Kael if you can hear me haul ass!"

He waited, the com-horn in one hand.

There was a series of thumps as heavy objects landed on the roof of the barge from improbable angles. The plating banged twice.

Telin frowned, looked up.

"That you, kid?"

Another confirmation thump, more insistent.

"Works for me." Telin shrugged. He nodded at Pohld. "Get us out of here Pohld."

Pohld was sweating. The shield system was taking a pummelling.

"Gladly."

The Severance Package's engines blasted as it took off at maximum speed; bound for the horizon.

Kelpo pulled a switch. Volt and the other Warframes tumbled in from the top hatch at the rear of the bridge, landing in a clattering heap. The Warframes were scorched and blackened; filthy with soot.

Kael was the first to emerge from his Frame in a flash of light, his clothing remarkably pristine in contrast with the Frame behind him. His face was sheened with sweat, as Kelpo helped him up.

"We never asked for a rescue." he breathed, "But thank you."

"A rescue?" Telin arched an eyebrow and feigned surprise as he twisted about in his command chair. "Hear that Stren? You missed."

They laughed; as the Severance and its sister ship gunned for the horizon with all speed.

In the depths of the Lower Tier, a great and terrible force took a hold of the Central Elevator and shook it. The lights went out. The massive elevator ground to a jolting halt, throwing them off their feet. Murmured cries of alarm filled the air. The only light was from the startled faces of the mechanised; as they blinked blue confusion in the dark. They groped about in the dark, blind with panic.

Something had struck the colony, hard. It was not an orbital strike. The Board wouldn't risk their investment, not unless the situation was beyond repair. But Neera had no intention of sitting around waiting for things to deteriorate further.

Neera was on her feet before most of them. Orbital bombardment or not, there was no way she was sitting in this death trap any longer. She raised her voice above the chaos.

"C'mon! We have to move. Everybody off!"

They clambered for the small emergency egress tunnels that lined the edge of the elevator shaft. Neera found herself directing the evacuation, helping the more addled survivors collect themselves as they clambered in one by one.

She looked over at Sparks, at the back of the procession. The burly welder seemed distraught as he looked around.

"The trader." The Solaris rebel shook his head ruefully. "He's gone."

Aboard the Dominant Position, Captain Theo Plun watched in sullen silence as fully a third of his forces vanished from the tactical display. The initial explosion had decimated the assault force. EMP had rendered many of the surviving units combat ineffective. That left him a combat force hovering around fifty percent efficiency, give or take. The dropships had largely been recalled; one of the few saving graces in this entire debacle.

Captain Plun considered the disposition of his forces. Still more than enough to take the colony, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, protocol was clear.

"Prepare a second wave." The Captain instructed Lieutenant Sel, crossing to the viewport. "Full production cycle. Drone units; the more you can give me the better."

Plun clasped his hands at the small of his back. He thought of the Tenno. The blast should have killed them. Must have killed them. Even so, he was an investor, not a gambler.

Risk would be mitigated. The Void demanded as much.

"Send word to the Board. Requesting contingency approval for planetary bombardment. Standard containment spread."

"Is that a bit extreme, Sir?" Sel asked hesitantly. "Our orders were to secure the colony, not destroy it."

"There are Tenno in our deployment zone." Captain Plun replied sternly. "Nothing is too extreme."

Plun's eyes narrowed, as he mused to himself.

"By the Void, we will take this colony, or bury them in its ashes."