"But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never again come into being" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
One faction must win the war, but that faction will have to destroy all of the others, and as Sun Tzu points out; once the other factions have been destroyed... they won't be back soon, if ever...
Now which faction does the system need the most, and which can it live without? Does it need the Corpus, the traders that unite the majority of the fractured colonies, the faction that helps the common people the most... Or does the system need the Grineer? They may be brutal, but their cloning deficiencies can be cured, and they would be able to rapidly rebuild after the war... If their culture could be changed they have the potential to make a stable system... Or perhaps the Tenno themselves? They may be misled by the Lotus for now... But cut the head off the snake... And the Tenno wipe out any and all who may be responsible in an act of vengeance. They would have a just rule, but they would never accept the truth... Or perhaps the infested? Alad V promised a peace under his mutalist empire... No, the infested would not suffice, they are mindless abominations, not capable of rebuilding a system... Alad V was delusional.
Recovery
"…he should be feel… better now… oon be out of the bed…"
"Thank you doctor. Do you have any idea how he shut off our pain receptors?"
"No. I'm afraid I didn't get a read… Do you have any idea how he di…"
BETA!
Ah, you're awake. How you feeling?
My hearing's gone funny. And I can't see anything.
That's because your eye is shut.
What?
Open your eye, numbnuts.
I search my memory and finally find the memory of my awakening. I search for the feeling I got just before I saw myself from over my shoulder for the first time and mimic it. The light is almost blinding but my strange form of vision adjusts almost instantly. Man, I had almost gotten used to this, but now it feels weird again… how can I even see myself over my shoulder? What did Beta mean by open my eye? Do I only have one eye?
Beta? Does this body only have one eye?
No. This body has no physical eyes, you're using the 'third eye' it sees you from behind you. It's a psionic trick that comes in very handy. It allows you to do stuff like 'no brain' and look around corners without showing your head.
No brain?
Yea. Defence technique. I'll teach you sometime. Now pay attention.
"Alpha? Can you hear me?" The doctor is looking a me mildly concerned, I realise I've sat up.
"I hear you doctor. What happened?"
"I don't know the details, but your mission was a success. Ordis decided to teleport you into the relay's medbay. Unfortunately, being a somewhat degraded cephalon, he forgot to ask where it was safe to teleport you. So you were suddenly occupying the same area of space as a tray of scalpels. Due to the atomic overlap, both sets of atoms repelled each other and your body was almost cut in half by the ensuing rupture. We've repaired all of your injuries since."
"So I can go?"
"We'd prefer if you stayed for some more scans, but your duty calls, there are still many Red Veil agents in captivity…"
"Thank you doctor"
I get up and walk out of the medbay, the door seems to only be locked one-way. The doctor has done an amazingly good job. I can tell where the tray of scalpels and I shared space due to a minor itch, but I can't even feel where the supra's plasmas had gone through me. I jog out to the landing platform and step into the airlock. It doesn't open.
"Ordis, let me in. I don't have time to play games!" I snap at the ship cephalon mentally.
No reply.
"Ordis. Let. Me. In. NOW."
Still no reply, but then I hear something. Is that cephalon laughing at me? I'm about to really vent on the cephalon when I realise that actually the chuckling is coming from behind me, and it is amused chuckling not spiteful.
"Alpha, that's my ship. Please don't break the door down." Isaac's mirth-filled voice comes from somewhere behind me. Clearly he thinks it's quite amusing that I've been talking to a ship that won't recognise me. It kinda is, but still…
"Apologies, Isaac. If this is your ship though, where is my ship?"
"Ordis is just getting repairs, he managed to get a hull full of plasma getting you out of there. He should be back within minutes."
"Oh. Thank you, and sorry again. I honestly thought this was my ship, it has the same colour scheme and everything…"
"Aye. Not a problem. It's an easy mistake to make, best way to deal with it is to recolour your ship to something you like and recognise."
"You can do that?"
"Of course. Get Ordis to show you how, here he comes."
Sure enough, my identical Liset is making its way towards us through the docking bay. It stabilises vertically and docks, but before I can even move, the airlock rotates and a Tenno steps out! A third Tenno?
"Greetings Brother Isaac, Brother Alpha." The third Tenno says with a bow. "I am Antonio; I owe you my life Brother Isaac."
"Greetings Brother Antonio" We both intone formally.
"Is there any way I can assist you guys?" Antonio asks, dropping formality completely.
"If you feel up to it, you are welcome to join us on a rescue mission." Isaac says
"A rescue mission? I thought you didn't do rescue missions, Isaac?"
"Not a 'rescue' classification mission, I mean a mission to rescue a fellow brother or sister. The Lotus refers to them as 'defence' missions, since we have to defend the cryopod until an extraction team can get there. That is how Antonio was awakened, I secured the cryopod containing him for the extraction team and then he was awakened and briefed by the Lotus."
"Ah, I understand. And he is welcome to join 'us', I wasn't aware I was delegated to run defence missions?"
"You are now," Isaac chuckles "Come one, I need your help with another Tenno cryopod. It will likely come under heavy attack, and I can only cover so many places at once."
"I think I will join you," Antonio announces "Just give me a few minutes to chat up Cephalon Suda and see what information I can extract."
We all set off, Isaac and I head to our Lisets - Ordis having finally shown up, late – and Antonio heads into the relay. As we enter our separate ships I experiment and try to telepath Isaac in his ship. It works.
"Isaac, what are our target's coordinates?"
"I've had my cephalon send them to your ship's nav computer."
"Thank you. And who is Cephalon Suda?"
"Oh, Cephalon Suda is another of these information obsessed cephalons, the Lotus found her somewhere or something, and she's been allowed to take up residence in one of the halls of the relays."
"If the Lotus has only just found her, how does Antonio know her?"
"She was around before the collapse, unless I'm mistaken… best to ask Antonio though. He should catch up soon enough."
Both ships accelerate to ridiculous speeds as we home in on our target. Somewhere in the desolate forests of old Earth.
We're busy finishing off the third wave of attackers – mindless Grineer soldiers – when Antonio drops in. His Volt warframe is painted in yellows and blacks, and it actually looks quite good. His weapon of choice however, does not. It appears to be some form of infested weapon? It looks almost alive, and it is certainly biological in origin. The weapon fires short arcs of electricity, that seem to be ridiculously powerful. Regardless of how awful the weapon itself looks, it is undeniably effective. Between the three of us the 'third wave' basically dissolves, the alarm sounds, and the 'fourth wave' begins their suicidal attack on us…
I'm currently wielding the heat sword the Lotus send me the blueprint for, alongside a set of kunai that I've modded for corrosive damage (not that they need it) and my new Braton – I upgraded from the MK1 and while the two rifles are similar in performance, I think I am liking the standard Braton more. Isaac seems to favour heavier weapons, he is flourishing a machete – similar to the one's Grineer scorpions use – along with a Lex and a Boar full-auto shotgun.
As the fighting dies down I mentally connect to Antonio:
"Antonio, did you say you know Cephalon Suda?"
"Yup, course I do, Im the one who got 'her' to become a 'her'."
"Come again?" I duck as a flurry of bullets whistles by.
"Cephalons are genderless, comprende?"
"Yea." I fire a burst into a clump of soldiers, and admire my marksmanship as all of them fall.
"Well, Cephalon Suda appears as a female to some people, and uses a female voice for everyone."
"And you persuaded it, her, to do this?"
"Yea."
"How?" I step out of cover and absent-mindedly bat a grenade back to the lancer who threw it with my heat sword.
"Easy. Suda lusts after information. I told her people would be more inclined to talk to a woman."
"Riiight, and so what is the significance of this?"
"Easy. She tried it, and while she got a bit more information from people, it still wasn't enough. So I was feeling a bit stupid, and on a dare I told her why she wasn't getting as much information as she had hoped."
"I'm still not seeing the point…" I fling two kunai simultaneously at the pair of butchers who attempted to charge the pod. Both die.
"The point, is that I told her that the best way of getting information was to seduce people. It's common knowledge that men talk a lot after certain activities." I can almost see Antonio's grin through his faceplate. This guy is no less insane than we are...
"You're telling me; that you persuaded a cephalon, to take on the shape of a human female, and seduce Tenno soldiers to gain information?!" My mental voice probably sounds as incredulous as I feel!
"Not quite. It never worked, but Suda still uses a female voice. And sometimes she changes her projection to a cute chick just to humour me. We have a fair bit of history."
"Sometimes, I really do wonder where all the sane people are…"
"Eh, lighten up, it was just a bit of misplaced humour."
"Indeed it was, but what would've happened if you succeeded?" Isaac interjects in a more serious tone.
"Ehh, I guess… The Lotus would've probably put me on guard duty for a century or something if it'd worked…" Antonio admits, obviously still not regretting it.
"Tenno, the extraction team is coming in to land, is the pod clear?" The Lotus' voice echoes through all our heads."
Speak of the devil and she shall appear
"The pod is clear Lotus" I reply on the same channel. I turn and check the pod just to be sure.
One of the older, more angular Lisets - like the one that Vor shot down - appears through a gap in the forest canopy and picks up the cryopod with some sort of beam. It raises the pod all the way up and into an old fashioned airlock on the bottom of its hull. Once the airlock is sealed the old ship moves up, and upon clearing the canopy it accelerates off into the distance. We head to extraction, all glad that nothing went wrong – for a change.
None of us noticed the strange warframe perched on a tree branch some distance away. Watching, waiting.
End of Part 6