Second chapter, this one written by me.
"Stand by for jump."
The pilot's voice rang over the comm. system and Anya settled herself more firmly into her stance. She had only just finished her training to operate the warframe she was currently wired into, but the so-called rebel uprising had apparently rattled enough cages that even brand new tenno had been pulled in to assist various military units. She relaxed as much as possible, ignoring the activity around her until she heard someone giving orders, tuning in just in time to realize she'd been attatched to the third battle unit. She knew exactly which bunch of marines that meant because all of them reacted.
Most looked completely terrified and they all moved just a few more inches away from her, although one of them seemed to have done it on instinct rather than out of any real intention to avoid her. He wasn't overly tall, a flat six feet in his socks, but well built. He had black hair and somewhat pale skin, and as she watched him he checked his rifle with the practiced hands of someone who'd taken the weapon down and put it back together again enough that it was second nature. She watched him work the gun three more times, then there was a split second of vertigo and the ship started to drop toward the planet.
The marine chambered a round and his hands went still as the drop ship's loading hatch cycled open and they could see the planet speeding by. Anya resisted the urge to put a hand to her mouth. Not only would it have done nothing to relieve the sudden nausea, but her instructors and her handler had informed her that any indication that she was anything less than invincible would be viewed as a sign of weakness. She doubted the men on the drop ship cared what she did at this particular moment though, some of them were doubled over losing their breakfast and all of them were watching the opening like they expected something very unfriendly to come through it toward them at any second.
She looked toward the marine she'd been watching earlier and saw the same apprehensive look on his face as all the others, then when she moved slightly he flinched and gave her a slight glare. She doubted he'd intended to, it looked like it had been reflex more than anything, but she still felt a little guilty for having startled him. Even though she was familiar with warframes, she had to admit that the featureless glass or metal face plates were anything but friendly to look at, and the fact that they were one way and mirrored did not help. She could see out, but no one else could see in.
She went back to studying him, and smiled a little. She was no expert, not by a long shot, but after being surrounded by elderly scientists for her whole life, being near someone more or less her own age was like seeing the sky for the first time again. And this marine was rather a good looking young man, strong jaw, bright hazel eyes… She squashed that train of thought. Never mind what he would do, if her handler found out she was thinking things like that it wouldn't matter, the marine wouldn't survive and she would regret being born. She didn't want to see him die.
"Drop point one in range, you are cleared for ground assault."
The first sergeant and his combat squad dropped out of the ship, then ten minutes later Second squad dropped.
"Approaching drop point three."
"Gear up, marines," Lance Corporal Havoc ordered, "Remember what Sergeant Booth said, tenno is off limits. We drop, we do our job, we get out. Clean, quick, easy."
Personally Anya doubted there would be anything clean, quick, or easy about this. She knew about earth. She wasn't supposed to, but she knew. The so-called rebels living there were families, people who'd run away from the cruel oppression of the Orokin Empire. Anya blinked her eyes furiously. She and the marines would be killing defenseless women and children, there would only be a few scattered reservists there to defend the young ones. She looked again toward the marine she'd been watching off and on and he flinched, giving her a brief glare before shuffling away from her to the side.
"Alright, squad, we're cleared for drop, scramble! Tenno first," the lance corporal growled the last order as the marines headed toward the hatch.
Anya bowed her head, eyes closed, deep breath, then she raised her head again and strode to the edge of the hatch. One more deep breath, then leap, dive toward the planet, change position at the last moment, touchdown, straighten, done.
This was the first time she'd touched the ground since before the terrible nightmare of the Zariman. She wanted to savor the moment, to enjoy the feeling of having something solid and good under her feet again, but there was no time for that. The marines had hit dirt side and were moving off toward their objective. Anya scrambled to catch up, easily falling into step with the front line of infantrymen.
She heard a bolt cycle in one of the weapons again and instinctively turned to see the marine look up and meet the gaze of her faceplate. He slapped his gun closed and glared at her, and Anya faced forward again. Alright, so maybe his glare earlier actually had been intentional. She didn't blame him though, the sergeant had done his best to make sure none of the marines would see her as anything other than a monster they had to be afraid of.
She didn't have time to dwell on that however, because right then the jungle just ahead of them exploded and the marines scrambled for cover. Anya hit the dirt and scuttled into the underbrush, narrowly avoiding the hail of bullets that peppered the forest floor where she and the marines had just been. She didn't want to kill these people, she didn't think they deserved it, and if she had been the only one who would pay she might have point blank refused to go farther. But the marines would take flak from high command if the mission was a failure, and Anya didn't want to find out how far the brass would be willing to go to make their control stick. Anya crept through the undergrowth to a massive tree root stretched across their path, then turned and motioned for the marines to follow. Next she conjured a massive orb of antimatter, and as it floated in the air before her she began pumping rounds from her assault rifle into it.
The black-haired marine gave her an uncomprehending look and she stopped, conjured another glowing orb, and sent the first one over to an approximation of the place the attack had come from. The ball touched down, sat there for a split second, then detonated, the huge explosion obliterating everything organic within a five meter radius and melting the dirt at the center to glass. She then directed the second one to the other side of the path and set it down. It exploded as well, but not nearly so impressively, merely singing the foliage around it and leaving a scorch mark on the earth. The marine nodded his understanding and she nodded back before creating another orb, directing it up into the air for them to shoot before sending it down the forest corridor and planting it well behind the rebel lines.
The orb detonated, and the rebels retreated. Stock wasn't surprised, not one of them on either side had ever seen anything even remotely like this in all their time fighting wars. The tenno slumped for a few seconds, then it was up again, vaulting the tree root and ducking into the undergrowth at the side of the path. Occasionally the foliage would move, indicating approximately where the thing was, then all movement ceased for several long moments. The other marines started to get antsy, but just as Stock started to think he couldn't stand it anymore the tenno popped out of the bushes and jogged back to where they were hiding, gave a slight nod, and slinked off again. Once they'd taken up their new positions it brought two more orbs into existence and the marines dutifully filled them full of assault rounds, at which point the tenno sent them floating to seek out more targets, setting them down on the ground and blowing away all cover.
Stock almost felt sick as he saw what happened to a human body caught at the outer edge of the blast zone. You apparently didn't always die right away, but that didn't stop flesh from melting and running off bones to land sizzling on the ground. He chanced a glance at the tenno, expecting no reaction as the dying man shrieked in utter agony, but the odd construct was on the ground on its knees with its hands clamped firmly over the sides of its head. Almost as if trying to shut out the sound. Curious, he dared look a tiny bit closer and realized that it was shaking, and the thought occurred to him that maybe this thing really wasn't a monster at all. The tenno seemed to like this destruction about as much as he did, which was frankly not at all. A shot rang out and the horrific screaming stopped, and Stock looked up to see Havoc's rifle pointed squarely at the dead rebel's head.
The tenno however didn't seem to notice, it was still on its knees, its hands were still clamped to the sides of its head, and its body was still shaking. The other marines all moved as far away from it as they could get, and when Stock looked at Havoc for help the lance corporal raised his hands and backed away. Stock nodded. He didn't really want to touch it either, but they had a mission to finish and if the tenno shut down here then the marines would pay for it, probably with their lives. He gave it an experimental nudge with the toe of his boot and the tenno jumped, looked at him for a long moment, then seemed to gather itself and stood back up to follow them on down the path.
The next time they needed an orb the tenno seemed apprehensive, as if not quite sure it wanted to make another one, but eventually it did cast one, raising it into the air for them to shoot and then floating it to where the rebels were hiding. This time they were expecting the inevitable aftermath and the marines made short work of the rebels, none of them wanting a repeat of the previous experience.
Stock was now paying a good deal of attention to the tenno, and as they continued pushing the rebels back he was starting to notice things, little quirks that didn't quite fit. For one thing the movements weren't jerky the way they would be if it were a machine, and the joints were particularly articulated, it could clearly handle a rifle as well as any of them could. It had also seemingly developed a tick, he noted that it would twitch whenever an enemy cried out in pain, especially when the tenno had been the one to fire the shot.
He would never have thought such a thing were possible, but he now found himself almost feeling sorry for whatever kind of creature was trapped inside that armor. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was at least a little bit human, otherwise he doubted it would be hesitating every time it went to create one of those floating death orbs. None of the others seemed to have noticed any of this, they were just as afraid of the tenno as ever, but Stock was well over that by now. He was certain that it would not hurt them. Unfortunately these new problems were slowing them down, third squad was about twenty minutes behind schedule at this point and Corporal Havoc gave him a frustrated look. Stock gave the tenno another gentle nudge, which seemed to break it out of the odd trance it had fallen into, and the squad began to move forward again.
It was a long, hard battle, the forest was thickly over grown and they often had to hack their way through with machetes. On top of that they rarely saw the enemy before they were peppered with machine gun fire, and they lost two men before the squad stopped. The tenno soon gave up worrying about what the orbs did though, opting for protecting the marines and getting rid of the rebels instead. Eventually they managed to blast a way through the thick jungle, and soon they were ready to take the first of the rebel staging posts.
Just then Corporal Havoc's radio chirped and he motioned for them to halt. "Third squad, what is your position?" Sergeant Booth demanded.
"Outside the forward staging post, sir," Havoc answered, "Awaiting your orders."
"It's about damn time, marine," growled Booth, "Alright, First and Second squads will create a diversion and draw the rebels out. Third squad, you and the tenno make sure they can't get back in. Divide their forces, and eliminate them. No prisoners."
"Sir, yes, sir," Havoc acknowledged. The radio chirped again and went silent. "You have your orders, marines," Corporal Havoc said, "On my signal. Tenno, be ready with one of those bombs."
The tenno gave a barely perceptible nod. They sat there for several minutes, but then there was an explosion and the rebels in the base cautiously began going after the First and Second Squads. Havoc gave the signal then and led them through the hole two of the marine's had been busily cutting into the thorny hedge surrounding the compound.
It turned out though that not all of the rebels had gone after the other two squads, and when all of Third Squad was inside they were ambushed. A bullet slammed into Stock's left shoulder and he dropped to his knees, gasping at the pain as he fumbled with his pack. The next thing he knew there was a flash of steel and his pack had released the stranglehold on his shoulder allowing his vision to clear enough to see what was in front of his face. The first thing he saw was a black and gold metal boot, and he realized that the tenno must be standing between him and most of the gunfire, then as he looked up he saw it roll the biggest bomb he'd seen yet between its hands. The tenno floated the orb into the air, pumped three full clips from an assault rifle into the bomb, and launched it through the doorway into the tallest building. It melted the edges of the stone walls on the way in, then there was a surprised yelp right before the orb detonated.
The entire bottom and second floors were vaporized in that split second, and the shockwave from the blast caused the rest of the building to crumble in on itself. Unfortunately it also radiated outward, and the marines scattered, scrambling to find cover before they were in any serious danger. Stock didn't have time to move, he was still half strapped into the pack and his shoulder was making him see stars, but he was surprised a second time as the tenno bent toward him again.
It unsheathed its sword and before Stock even had time to see it move the straps holding the pack to his body released. The tenno tossed the sword away and dropped to one knee beside him, looping his good arm over its shoulders before wrapping its own arm around his waist and hauling him to his feet, guiding him behind a wall and helping him to sit down just before the shockwave from the blast caught up with them.
Stock lay there against the wall panting for several moments, then looked at the tenno. Its armor was scuffed up and the sword it had carried was missing, still on the dusty battleground no doubt, then as he watched it put its hands to its head and its shoulders started to shake. They stayed there like that until the fighting had died down, then the tenno helped him back to his feet. He nodded his thanks, then they made their way to where Corporal Havoc and the rest of the squad had regrouped and were waiting for them.