First of three, all consecutive. Written by my former co-writer.
It was the same dream again. The ceremony, the drums, the death, Anya standing over him, sword slicing into his throat. The city burning.
He awoke with a jolt, still in the same room he'd been in for—he didn't know how long. A day? Two? A year? He didn't know. Time had no meaning here. There was no sun to rise and set, no bells to toll the hour, no coo-coo clock to chime midnight. Just the metal walls and the soft blue glow of the light that never dimmed.
Stock shivered as he huddled closer into the far corner of the room. With the exception of his underwear the only thing he had on were the bandages they had wrapped around his burns. He had burns on both forearms, both wrists, around his abdomen, along both thighs, and around his calves. Wherever the restraints had held him, he had burns. The tenno had put him through hell, although he thought he'd been through worse. Hadn't he? He realized he couldn't remember. But he was pretty sure he had. Something about training or something.
His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten anything since being tossed into this room. He faintly remembered the door sliding open and a tray being scooted under, but at the time he'd been only about half alive and barely conscious.
He assessed his situation. Steel room, one way in, one way out, and no weapons, no clothing, nothing in the room but himself and a camera in the top corner watching him. He gave it a rude gesture. He was with the tenno, he knew, but how? He couldn't remember. While torturing him they had mentioned something about a cryopod, but he had no memory of the thing.
His muscles ached. It felt as if he'd gone ten rounds in the ring with the Empire's best cage fighter and lost. Still, they needed him for something or else he would probably be dead. They wouldn't have even let him live, let alone wrap his wounds if they didn't. The door hissed as it slid open a crack and a bowl of food was slid under, along with a second bowl which he found to contain water.
He almost rushed to the bowl to start wolfing down the food, but he remembered having seen prisoners do that before, remembered thinking at the time that they looked pathetic, already broken. He wouldn't let himself appear that way. He slowly got to his feet and with one hand held against the wall to keep his balance he made his way to the bowls. The food was simple. White rice and some sort of fish. The water was crystal clear and soothed his ragged throat. Lying on top of the bowl of rice and fish were two plastic sticks, chopsticks he remembered. It was kind of them to provide eating utensils, but despite Anya having done her best multiple times to teach him how they worked, he couldn't use them to save his life. Stock resorted to stabbing the fish and eating like a brute.
"Guess I will look pathetic to them regardless, I can't use chopsticks, so fuck it," he mumbled to himself as he ate.
Half way through his meal he heard a gruff voice speak through a hidden intercom. "Prisoner! Put the food and utensils down, stand up, and face the wall with your arms spread!" the voice ordered.
"Fuck off, I'm eating," Stock barked.
Wrong answer. A high pitched screech came blaring through the speaker and made his head pound. "OK! Ok, I'll comply, just turn that shit off!" he protested. The sound ceased. Stock got to his feet and did as the voice had ordered. A moment later the door slid open. This time he heard the voice of the woman who had asked the questions when he was tortured.
"You may turn around, sergeant," she said.
Stock did so and came face to faceplate with a tenno inside an ember warframe. "Enjoying your meal, Sergeant Woodstock?" she questioned. He didn't know if it was a trick question or not.
"Yes," he said cautiously, expecting some new form of torment to present itself.
"Good," she said, "I apologize for the poor accommodations but with you being a prisoner and all you understand we can't have you just wandering around. And you are going to help us."
"With what, if you don't mind my asking?" he ventured the question, still half expecting to get beaten by the mass of bricks standing behind her. A rhino frame, pretty much a walking tank. Still, there was one more thing… "Could I perhaps get some clothes..? I feel kind of… well, naked…"
"Of course! My apologies." The ember jerked her head at the rhino and he disappeared for a few minutes, then reappeared with a bundle of folded fabric, his boots sitting on top. His uniform. The rhino handed it to the ember and she set it on the floor between them. "Here you are," she said, "Now, as for your question, you are going to help us find Anya. Apparently you are some sort of key to determining her location."
"Anya? Where is she? Is she alright?!" It came out half shout, half worried yelp.
"That is what we are trying to determine," the ember replied, "How much of your memory have you recovered, sergeant? Do you remember what happened? She has been missing for several hundred years, ever since we went into hiding. Then you, somehow, ended up in her cryopod."
He remembered them mentioning something about that during the torture session. The Empire had fallen thousands of years ago, it was no more. He couldn't really say that was a bad thing…
"I haven't recovered anything since we last… spoke," he said, choosing his words carefully.
"Well get dressed, we're going to take you back to where we found you," the ember informed him, "Hopefully that will jog your memory a bit."
She left, and Stock quickly put his uniform on. It wasn't all there, just his socks, his boots, his pants, and his undershirt which had a hole in the shoulder. He touched the hole and found a brief memory of pain, getting shot. He pulled back the neck of the shirt and checked his shoulder, and found a scar that lined up with the hole in his shirt.
A few minutes later he had finished his meal and was once again greeted by the same voice ordering the same thing. Stand up, face the wall, arms spread. A few seconds later the door opened, then he felt a steel band go around each wrist, then his arms were jerked together in a weird set of cuffs behind his back. After that he was ordered to turn around and was greeted by the ember, and with her was a mag. The mag was short and wore a form-fitting frame, but unlike any other mag he'd ever seen, her armor was painted a bright pink. Stock had to wonder how she ever managed to hide in that thing.
The two of them marched him through the place, following an order to keep his head down and not to address anyone unless spoken to directly, but this didn't stop him from being able to catch stolen glances at his surroundings. He quickly established that he was on a spaceship of some sort, and arriving at the hanger confirmed this.
"So, uh… Can I ask your name?" he addressed the ember as they boarded a small, triangular drop ship.
A liset his mind told him. These things had still been in development the last he remembered. They were built for stealth and infiltration.
"You may call me Reya," she said, "I am the captain of this ship, Boreas is my executive officer, and this is Ira, my operations officer." She motioned toward the towering loki. His torturer he thought. Ira was standing at the top of the boarding ramp with his arms crossed. Stock somehow knew that under that frame was someone glaring at him. Reya never did introduce the mag who was acting as his handler, keeping the cuffs magnetized and walking behind him. After being ordered to sit he soon felt the ship lift off and speed out of the hanger, heading for the place where they'd found him.
"Ira, give us a quick briefing on where we're going and what we can expect to see," Reya ordered.
"Nothing," Ira said, "The grineer pulled out of this area after we recovered the cryopod containing that oppressor. We shouldn't encounter any grineer forces because they no longer have a reason to be in the area."
"Oppressor? What the fuck is an oppressor?" Stock asked.
"You are! We should have killed you the moment we found you. We don't need you to find one of our own!" Ira half shouted, springing to his feet.
"Ira! Enough. Go make sure your intel is correct," Reya ordered.
"What's his problem?" Stock asked Boreas. Boreas stayed silent.
The landing craft touched down about an hour later and Stock was once again escorted outside by the mag. Everything looked different from the last time he remembered being here, all overgrown with green foliage. He heard birds chirping away in the trees, coupled with the more immediate sound of buzzing insects. He wanted to swat them away, but his arms were still bound behind him.
They trekked uphill on a track along a cliff until they came face to face with a massive door. Reya touched a keypad by the door and the door slid open. Inside was a massive cavern that left Stock in awe. The walls stretched hundreds of feet into the air to meet at a dome in the center. The walls were the typical Orokin white with gold trim, and built into the far wall was a massive circle that covered the whole wall. It seemed to be made out of quicksilver. In it he saw eternity. He saw distant galaxies, other realities, and different times. It made his head hurt so much that he had to look away. In front of the void circle was a console which Ira was busily typing away at. A few seconds later, an alarm blared and the quick silver came to life, rippling and waving.
"Boreas, you will stay behind and stand guard in case we do receive some unexpected visitors," Reya instructed, "Everyone else, with me."
Before they left the mag paused, turning to Boreas, and the frost handed her a lever action rifle in addition to her burston rifle she had slung across her back. Stock guessed they must have been speaking to each other over a private comm. channel. The mag then pushed him toward the portal.
Stock took a breath, then closed his eyes and stepped through, immediately regretting it. He had a flashback to when he first met Anya, on the drop ship. He felt a sense of vertigo, then nausea. Luckily he managed to keep down the fish and rice. When Stock opened his eyes he was greeted with a familiar room that looked almost identical to the one on the other side of the portal, except that in the center of the floor here there was a metal stand, where the cryopod had once rested he thought. There were a few crates nearby, draped in OD green canvas, probably from when the grineer had been there.
"Do you remember any of this?" Reya asked Stock.
"No. It looks familiar, but… How am I supposed to know where Anya is from this?" Stock inquired.
"She left a message with you," Reya said, then she shook her head, "Shit, that's what I should have done, I should have just shown you what she left. She said she would leave clues behind, and that you were the key to deciphering some of those clues that would lead to her location."
"Maybe she left a clue behind?" Stock wondered, "Did you or your people look around when you picked up the cryopod?"
"Unfortunately they were a little besieged, so I'm sure they didn't get a look around," Reya said, "But, since we are here now, we may as well try and find anything the grineer didn't destroy. Everyone spread out, and yell if you find anything."
Stock wandered away from the others, still amazed at the size of the place. He knew deep down though that he was no longer even in the same galaxy as earth was. Maybe not even in the same dimension. He was in the void. He could hear it, a soft hum and half heard whispers too quiet to decipher. He knew the mag was still behind him, sticking close in case he would decide to do anything stupid.
Stock wandered over to the walls which curved down to small alcoves slightly lower than the floor. Looking down into each one, he really didn't expect to find anything, and yet he did. A small white object rested on its side in the floor of one of the alcoves.
"Hey! I found something!" Stock shouted.
Reya jogged over to where he was standing and pushed him back before kneeling down and picking up the object. It was white, about six inches tall, with dozens of spiky protrusions sticking out all over.
"What is it?" Stock asked, looking at it curiously.
Reya walked back to the center of the room and into the brighter light so she could examine object more closely.
"It appears to be a coral, but… I don't think it's from Earth," she said.
Stock was about to ask where it had come from but his question was interrupted by Boreas charging through the portal.
"The grineer are coming! They found us, this is a trap—!" his words were cut off by a squad of grineer marines gunning him down as they came through the portal behind him. Stock threw his shoulder into the mag and sent her rolling behind a set of crates, then dived after her, barely avoiding the hail of bullets that whizzed through the air where they had been standing. Ira and Reya were on the other side of the room sitting behind some other crates, returning fire.
Stock peaked over the ones he and the mag were hiding behind and saw that Boreas was still alive, and slowly crawling away from the grineer, injured and trailing blood. Thinking quickly, he worked his hands down to where he could pull them over his hips, then pulled his feet through and brought his hands up in front of him. He turned to the mag who was hunkering down beside him avoiding the bullets being directed at them.
"I need you to release me!" Stock yelled at the mag. She just looked at him. He knew she was probably thinking he was stupid.
"Look, I can help! If you don't release me, Boreas will die," he told her. The mag peeked over the crate but quickly ducked down again as more bullets filled the air over their heads. "If you don't trust me or I do something you don't like, go ahead and shoot me in the back, but please, release me so that I can help." Stock was calm, he knew fire fights. He'd been in plenty of them, and he felt the adrenaline coursing through his veins. The cuffs parted and he snatched the lever action rifle from the mag's hands then barked, "Cover me!" before rolling out from behind the crates and sprinting toward Boreas.
He shouldered the rifle and took aim down the sights. A grineer marine stood to shoot at him and Stock shot him through the chest. Working the lever was second nature to him, the gun felt like a part of him. Push the lever down, eject the spent shell casing, pull the lever back up to chamber a new round.
A second marine poked his head out and it exploded in a spray of red mist. Down, eject casing, up, chamber new round. Run and shoot. He made it to Boreas and dropped as the bullets flew around them. He took hold of one of Boreas' arms and looped it over his shoulder, attempting to pull him to his feet. Stock hadn't realized how heavy warframes actually were, it nearly pulled him down, but Boreas managed to struggle to his feet and together the two of them limped back toward the crates.
Half way there Stock saw the mag stand up with her hand stretched out in front of her. She then closed her fist and pulled it back toward her body. Stock heard screams coming from the air above them and glanced up to see several marines fly past over head to slam into the opposite wall behind the mag with a crunch. He knew they were dead, either from the impact itself or from broken spines.
Stock managed to get Boreas behind the crates and the mag quickly shifted her attention from the grineer to tending to Boreas, patching up several bullet holes. Stock continued to return fire, taking out two more marines before Reya rushed over and quickly inspected Boreas.
"We're getting out of here," she informed Stock and the mag, "You two are going to carry Jack, Ira and I will clear the way."
She motioned to Ira and the two of them stood and rushed the grineer, pushing them back through the portal. Stock and the mag each wrapped one of Boreas' arms around their shoulders and heaved him to his feet, and Stock heard him cry out in pain. Half dragging him, they managed to get him through the portal and out of the building, where they came up against another firefight. Reya and Ira were pinned again. Stock and the mag managed to get Boreas into cover behind a fallen tree before any of them were shot again. One of the grineer yelled at them then in a harsh sounding, gurgling voice, as if he were speaking with a mouth full of water. The only thing Stock could think of was gutter speak. It made him chuckle a bit.
"Tenno! Give up!" the grineer shouted, "You are outnumbered and out-gunned! One of your own is wounded and about to die. Give up and we promise a swift and merciful death!"
As he finished speaking a grineer drop ship hovered in and hung just off the edge of the cliff, expelling another battle unit of grineer marines onto the landing zone.
Before Stock knew what was happing, Reya shouted, "Now!"
The grineer drop ship exploded as the liset zoomed by, banking hard and coming around for another bombing run on the grineer in front of them. The grineer broke and scattered, shooting in all directions, not knowing who was shooting at them. Reya motioned for Stock and the mag to follow and they once again heaved Boreas to his feet, helping him to the cliff's edge where the liset was waiting and quickly boarding the ship. Stock helped Boreas to sit on a bench where Ira immediately went about tending to the frost's wounds. Stock sat on the bench opposite them, the mag sitting down beside him. He felt exhausted, but good. It had been a nice change to stretch his legs a little bit. Reya walked over to him and stood in front of him.
"That was incredibly stupid," she said, "Stupid, but brave. You risked your life to save one of my own. For that you have my thanks. One good turn however will not entitle you to move about my ship as you please. You will still be imprisoned upon return to the Harbinger."
"No, release him," Boreas said, struggling to sit straight.
"We know nothing about him, he is not to be trusted! He will remain our prisoner. Unless you wish to vouch for him," Reya growled at Boreas in the tenno language.
"That marine has saved my life twice now. Twice! The first time I repaid him by ending his interrogation, and I will vouch for him now. If he harbored any ill intentions, he would not have been so quick to save my life while others cowered behind cover," Boreas answered in Stock's own language.
"One tenno vouching for you will not end your imprisonment, sergeant, but I will make a deal with you," Reya said, turning to face Stock, "If you can get five tenno to vouch for you, you will be free to live your life as you see fit, however, if you give us any reason to believe that you have betrayed us in any way, your life and the lives of those who've vouched for you will be forfeit."
Stock thought for a long moment, not wanting to put Boreas' life in danger. But he couldn't see any other way.
"Alright," he finally agreed, "Deal."
Upon arriving at the ship Stock was informed that since he had saved Boreas' life, that in itself deserved a little bit of a reward. He was given a room and a cephalon named Thoth to keep an eye on him. Still a prisoner, but no longer a prisoner who would be kept in a cell in the brig. He was restricted from going above or below certain levels, and any time he was to leave his room he had to have permission from Thoth.
Inside the room was a simple bed along one wall and a locker built into the wall opposite the bed. When he opened the locker, he was greeted with heartache and a mystery. Inside were his dog tags, and the necklace that held the pendant Anya had given to him. He quickly put it on, not wanting to part from it until he was with her again. At the bottom of the locker were a set of Special Forces armor and his tomahawk. The tomahawk was worn and beat up, it had seen better days, and probably better years. Not wanting to think about why he had Special Forces armor in the bottom of his locker, he quickly closed it, untied his boots and kicked them off before passing out on the bed.
It was the same dream as before. The ceremony, the drums, the death, Anya standing over him, sword slicing into his throat. The city burning. He awoke covered in sweat, briefly forgetting where he was, thinking that he was back in the cell and the past day's events had all been a dream. Then he looked around and saw the locker, along with someone standing beside it against the wall, hidden in its shadow.
"Who's there?" he asked, "And why the hell are you in my room?"
"I am the ship's captain, this is technically my room, and I go where I want," she replied.
"Including rooms people are sleeping in?" he sighed the question.
"Occasionally, just to check on them. To make sure nothing has… happened to them." Reya stepped into the light. She had her helmet off. "You are an interesting person, Sergeant Woodstock," she continued, "You continue to amaze me. You managed to befriend the Butcher of Europa, to the point where you apparently mean something to her. You survive thousands of years in cryo, then several hours of torture, only to risk your life to rescue one who belongs to your torturer. Also, I can't forget the shooting. That was some fine shooting you did."
Stock just shrugged and said, "Call me Stock. I don't go by Sergeant Woodstock. What do you mean the 'Butcher of Europa?' Why does Anya have that name?"
Reya sighed and sat on the end of his bed, then leaned back against the wall. "That story is not for me to tell, to be perfectly honest I'm not sure I even know half of it," she told him, "But I will say this. When we find her, she may not be the same tenno you once knew. We all change at some point or another. Either way, today could have gone a lot worse."
"Or a lot better," Stock replied.
"What do you mean?" Reya questioned.
"Do you think it was by chance that those grineer marines came back? Ira said it himself, they had moved on, they had no reason to be there," Stock said, "Someone tipped them off."
"Are you suggesting one of my crew betrayed us? How do we know you didn't tip them off?" Reya asked, her voice tinged with annoyance.
"We both know I didn't tip them off," Stock said, "First, I have been in cryo for the past who knows how long, I don't know anyone here, let alone how today's technology works. Second, I have no way to tip them off, nor do I have the time. I'm sure you guys scanned me and probed every orifice I have to make sure I'm not carrying anything I'm not supposed to, and you've had me constantly monitored. So, that leaves your crew. So yes, I'm saying one of your crew tipped them off."
Reya was silent as she pursed her lips. Stock wondered if she was about to have him dragged out of bed and thrown back into the cell for even suggesting such a thing.
"How about this," he said, "This next location we go to, if the grineer show up there, then you take me seriously and start looking into your crew. If not, I will admit that I'm wrong. Deal?"
Reya smiled and said, "Well that might be a bit difficult, but deal. You see, the coral we recovered isn't from earth, it's from Uranus. If I'd have to take a guess, I'd say that's either where Anya is or she stashed another clue there, and Uranus is grineer territory. Get some sleep, Stock. We arrive in 72 hours."
With that she got up and walked out, leaving Stock wondering what had happened to Anya while he was away in cryosleep. Soon enough though he drifted off into his first dreamless sleep since waking into this new world.