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The Shadow

One of the problems with being stationed on the frontier is combating the infestation. A plague of Orokin origin, the oppressors lost control of it at some point, and it swept across the Origin System, consuming man and machine as it moved. At one point, your brothers and sisters joined with the Corpus in a rare moment of cooperation to beat back and torch the infestation, reclaiming some precious territory.

The halcyon days of such cooperation are long gone. With the Infestation more or less under control, you and the Corpus have gone back to being enemies and competitors, scrabbling for resources and scavenging the technology left behind by the oppressors.

Oh, and dealing with the Tenno who killed them.

Ancient warriors from times long past, their motivations are as mysterious as they are detrimental to Grineer superiority. You only need to read the casualty reports of their raids to understand that.

You grumble to yourself, eying the clock and knowing that you will soon be on shift. This posting is, in your opinion, a pointless one. The station has long since been stripped of any useful resources. The last time it was operational was before the Old War. But the damned Tenno occasionally raid the place and have drawn the interest of high command. So they stationed you and your regiment here.

Well, nothing for it. An abandoned and decrepit mining construct is certainly a better assignment than an active combat zone. Cloning indoctrination aside, you have no desire to throw yourself into the meat grinder just yet. There will be time enough for that later, once you have distinguished yourself enough to earn heavy assault armor.

You grab your Karak rifle, and make for the door. Time to head out on patrol.


Your platoon commander is in a foul mood, demanding to know where the shift you're relieving is. You recognize a ranking corporal from the other shift protesting his ignorance, along with a few comrades who look similarly confused.

A sergeant looks at the duty roster, and quickly determines that the missing troops were all assigned to one particular sector of the station.

The old infested section.

You eyeball your comrades, and tighten your grip on your weapon. Incidents like this have happened before. They usually resulted in a repopulation order after the previous unit ended up wiped out by the plague monsters.

The commander makes his decision, and announces it over the communication lines. The rest of the regiment will soon be on alert and making their way to the area. But you are heading in to scout it out.

Soon afterward, your platoon arrives on scene. Sure enough, the bodies of your comrades lay strewn across the area.

But something isn't right. No shell casings. No body fluids aside from small drops of blood. Nothing like the mottled twisted flesh of the infested monstrosities. You hear confusion in the sergeant's voice. Whatever killed these men wasn't the infested.

Instinctively you fan out, everyone silencing each other and looking around for signs of the threat. Minutes pass, and suddenly, you hear the dull thud of armor on the station floor paneling.

The platoon commander barks over the line, demanding to know what the source of the sound was. Seconds go by, and the sergeant does not respond. He can't.

Not with the impromptu tracheotomy he just had.

A few murmurs, and the formation tightens up as you still move across the area. Infested or no, something really is here.

Several shrieks of pain cut through the silence. You and others turn toward the sources. Some of your platoon members are bent over, bleeding and in pain. The squad medic reaches out and pulls one of the objects causing such distress. It is a metal star, immensely sharp with a hole in the center.

And it somehow managed to hit the trooper in question through the gaps in his body armor.

The medic comes to the same conclusion in the same instant as you. No Grineer or Corpus uses throwing stars as weapons. The only ones who do…

"Tenno sk-uagh!"

A shadow appears out of nowhere, spearing the medic in the throat with a dagger of some sort.

You are stunned. How did that thing get so far inside the formation?!

Those with faster reflexes than yourself turn and try to open fire. The shadow withdraws its dagger and drops something on the floor that explodes into smoke. The crossfire misses, and the smoke clears in seconds to show nothing except a dying medic.

The platoon commander snarls into his communicator from a room away, demanding to know the reason for the gunfire. Midway through his demand, a sharp gurgling sound announces his demise over the line. But there is no accompanying gunfire. It would seem that his squad died at roughly the same time he did.

You share a look with your wingman. How could one Tenno silently wipe out an entire squad?

Reddish shadows abruptly spring into existence behind some of your squad members. Each one grabs your comrades, pulls their heads back, and swipes a razor-sharp blade across their throats. You instinctively fire at the face of the shadow behind your wingman, knowing even then that it is far too late to save him.

But the gunfire passes through it, and the shadow disperses into smoke. You back up to a pillar and frantically reload your weapon before it dawns on your that you are the last man alive of your squad.

And you still haven't actually seen the Tenno that has been killing you off.

You go for your communicator, only to see another of those throwing stars embedded in the device. The horror of the situation sinks in. You are alone, with no backup and no way of requesting any reinforcements.

Seconds go by, and you twitch in every direction towards every odd noise, desperately searching for the enemy. There is a growing feeling on the back of your neck, and you finally can't resist it. You spin around, only to come face to face with the shadowy figure.

Your trigger finger contracts of its own accord, but it only responds with a single click. Dumbfounded, you spy another of those damned stars protruding from the action.

The Tenno stands there with its arms crossed, and flicks its wrist. Pain erupts from your throat, and a sharp piece of metal cuts through your gauntlets as you drop your weapon and instinctively reach for your trachea. Blood fountains from your neck and you find yourself rapidly losing consciousness. The darkness encroaching on your vision as blood drains from your brain shrouds the Tenno, hiding it from sight.

As if it needed help to disappear.

I imagined Ash being played out like Batman in the Arkham series stealth segments. Except he kills people.

Who's next? Volt, Mag, or Loki?