Apologies for the delay. School during the day, work in the afternoon, five hours of sleep, that's my schedule. I only have time during the weekend to work on this.

The Sound

There's something to be said for the sounds of machinery. Any engineer or maintenance worker will tell you that the worst sound of all aboard a ship is silence. That is a telltale sign that something has gone horribly wrong. Perhaps a bearing seized, or a pump froze, or another critical system has been otherwise brought to a sudden stop because of component failure.

In space, everything is subject to the mercy of machines, and those who maintain them. Even the most arrogant of the ground troops in the Grineer Empire know to respect the maintenance crew of their ships. Many are those who have fallen prey to the wrath of an engineer.

Where others have sought the thrill of ground combat, you have had more long-reaching aspirations. Possessed of greater intellect and foresight than your batch brethren, you saw no future in being a member of the Grineer infantry. Oh certainly, you have been made to participate in training, but you aimed for a more cushy assignment as a life-support technician aboard a Formorian dreadnought.

Your post onboard the fearsome dreadnought means you are at a far lower risk of dying than even other naval crews. The worst threat to your life and livelihood is drawing the notice of your commander, who reports directly to Councilor Vay Hek.

But your commander is firmly aware of your value, and is not given to the same sadism and corruption as the infamous councilor. So your days mostly consist of routine tedium as you organize periodic maintenance with your subordinates to keep the ship in operation.

Today, however, there is a disturbance in the routine. Something has assaulted the ship. The intrusion was discovered by one of your roving repair crews, who were investigating an atmospheric pressure drop in one section of the dreadnought.

The fact that someone managed to get close enough to cut a hole in the hull and invade is concerning enough, but more important is the implication. Someone who considered themselves well-equipped enough to assault a Formorian Dreadnought is loose inside the ship, and hasn't been noticed up until now.

You report this to your commander, who swears something vile over the line before cutting off communication. A few seconds later, as you are about to give new instructions to your men, the commander announces the presence of intruders over the general alert system.

The response is immediate. The internal defense force surges through the doors of your central area, spreading out to defend the most critical of ship systems: the core generator. Your men accompany them, setting up temporary covers and barricades before rigging certain non-critical systems to act as surface booby-traps for any intruders that come this way.

Meanwhile, in your position as chief engineer, you are paying attention to shipboard communications. There is little excitement, except for the fact that every five minutes, another section leader of the dreadnought fails to respond to roll-call.

Somehow, the enemy that is attacking the ship is wiping out the troops guarding each section before they can raise any sort of alarm. Your blood chills. What kind of assault force could operate with that effectiveness against alerted troops?

It takes a moment before you suddenly realize that the machines have fallen silent. You blink in surprise before instinctively checking the engineering readouts at your station. No, critical systems are still operating properly. So why have the sounds faded away? Why has that most soothing music to an engineer disappeared?

Through the window, you notice confusion among your visible subordinates, and they too have taken notice. One of them keys his communicator. But though you should hear static and a transmission from the man, there is silence. You take off your headset and eye it. The lights signaling operation are still on, but you hear nothing from the device.

You key it and try to speak into the microphone, to tell the man below that he cannot be heard, but you are stopped by the absence of your own voice. You can't even hear yourself speak.

What is this?! What kind of phenomenon could stop sound itself? In empty space, no sound can be heard, but there is still atmosphere. Even waving your hand around in your face generates a small breeze as proof.

The doors to the left of the control booth open up, and humanoid figures enter. Only you notice, out of the corner of your eye, as the figures raise what are unmistakably firearms and begin shooting.

Grineer armor is nothing to sneer at. Ferrite alloy is one of the most effective forms of ballistic protection in existence. But the newly appeared enemies fired single rounds into their targets, and the armor shatters like glass. You have seen crumpled, flattened, cracked and dented Ferrite, but never have you witnessed it obliterated like this. Moreover, the enemies, whom you now recognize as Red Veil operatives, are not thrown back with recoil. Those pistols do not have the kind of ludicrous kinetic energy to achieve this feat on their own. Something else is responsible for this.

Because there is no sound, the other soldiers have no warning. The four Red Veil operatives fan out and precisely target every Grineer in the room, no matter how well concealed they are. Such precise workmanship suggests that they were already well aware of the location of each soldier, which should be utterly impossible. But then the door opens yet again, and a new figure emerges.

This one towers above the Red Veil operatives, and instills a far greater terror within you than the former. While the Red Veil are feared for the brutality and randomness of their attacks, a Tenno is a far greater threat.

And this one is a Tenno. Of that there can be no mistake. It appears almost waifish, with incredibly thin and delicate-looking limbs. It has an unusual golden mask, shaped almost like a trident, with four thin hair-like energy extensions. And it's carrying a golden colored pistol with a considerable amount of smoke drifting from the muzzle, indicating strenuous use.

The Tenno lazily regards the massive ship core while the Red Veil regroup around it, and then it holsters the pistol, raises both hands, and smashes them onto the floor of the generator room.

Tremors spread from the point of impact, indicative of the waifish Tenno's tremendous strength. But the tremors don't stop. They continue, wave after wave of kinetic force, traveling through the ship and wreaking utter havoc on the delicate core systems. The vibration through the floor knocks you off your feet. As you lay there, your own armor begins to shake, resonating with such force that it actually causes you pain.

Distantly, you note that you can now hear the system alarms. Sound has returned, and the computer is alerting the now-deceased crew to the damage suffered by the core generator. But the sound is beginning to 'tear' and fade. The searing pain about your head from the tremors tells you that your skull has reached its resonant frequency. Your disintegrating nervous system blends the sounds and sensations into a cacophony as your vision is cut off from your eyes exploding.

And then you are welcomed, at last, with eternal silence.

Saryn is up next, the warframe that inspired me to create this concept. Then I have to figure out how to make VAUBAN of all things terrifying. That's a challenge.