Third and final part of this mini-saga, written by my friend. The next chapter after this was written by me.
The drop ship shook while descending toward the surface of Mars and Stock checked the pistol that Reya had given him, unloading and reloading it several times. It was an old Lex that had seen better days, the grip was worn, the matt black finish was faded to a dull black-grey and scratches from abuse in battle crossed and re-crossed the receiver and frame. Reya had made the decision to trust him with a firearm, something Ira strongly protested. It was the same argument, betrayal, back stabbing, ratting them out. Even after Reya pointed out that the marine was under constant surveillance and that they were four tenno against one human, the Loki still whined. Now they all sat in the drop ship, Reya and Talos up front, Boreas in the seat next to Stock, and Ira in the seat across from them. After checking his pistol Stock moved on to his tomahawk strapped to his hip. He had managed to get Boreas to sharpen it, reasoning that if things went south during the mission then it might be needed.
"It was a mistake on Reya's part to give you that pistol," Ira growled, "A mistake I will correct."
"Oh, for fuck's sake, do you ever shut up? All you do is talk, where is the off button?" Stock shot back.
Ira stayed silent after that but was still visibly angry. He clenched his fist so tightly that Stock could hear his armor creak. Stock rested his tomahawk on his lap, his hand tight around the hilt, and glared at Ira. He knew that when it came down to it he was no match for the tenno and in a fight he would be obliterated in an instant, but he was still determined to put up a hell of a fight.
"Enough, we are almost to the manor. If you two kill each other all will be lost," Boreas told them calmly.
Neither of them changed their demeanor; Stock continued to rest the tomahawk on his knees while Ira continued to clench his fist. The drop ship jolted, then settled, and Stock heard the engines power down to a low whine before the ramp lowered to the ground sending a cloud of red sand up into the drop ship. Stock unclasped the seat harness and quickly stood up, causing Ira to jump up himself, his hand clutching the sword at his side. Stock smirked and walked down the ramp into the swirling dust.
In front of Stock lay the remains of Azarat Manor. It was mostly ruins half buried in sand, but some pillars still stood while others lay shattered here and there, eroded away by the Martian wind and sand, its once high outer walls crumbling. It looked more like a tomb now than the lush paradise that Stock remembered.
"How does it feel to be home?" Reya asked quietly. She had come up beside him to look at the manor.
"I don't know… this isn't the home I remember. It looks like someone forgot to pay the grounds keeper and in return Mars decided to take everything back. I guess now it's just a tomb for the forgotten dead," Stock mused. He wondered if he'd encounter the ghosts of his mother and brothers along with the squatters who had undoubtedly occupied this place in the centuries since.
Reya nodded silently, then she addressed the team as a group, "Once we are inside we will split up. Ira, you are to stay here with the drop ship and keep the comm. open with the Harbinger. Boreas and Talos, you two take the first floor and any sub floors that are still accessible. Woodstock, Thoth, and I will take the second and third floors. Let's move out; the quicker we get this done the quicker we can be out of here."
They all split up and went about their assigned tasks. Ira moved back inside the ship, glaring at Stock until he closed the hatch and in return Stock made a rude gesture at him, reminding Ira that they had some unfinished business. Stock un-holstered his pistol as the rest of the team moved into the manor turned tomb. Upon entering they were greeted with what was once a grand stair case with two hall ways that stretched away on each side of the staircase. Without saying a word Boreas and Talos each proceeded down their own separate hallways while Reya and Stock moved up the stair case.
"So what happens after this?" Stock asked Reya as they walked down a hallway. Glancing into some of the rooms Stock could see that no one had been here in ages. What furniture he remembered occupying these rooms had long since decayed. Each room lay empty except for scraps of cloth or piles of Martian dust. Mars had been busy in the centuries he spent sleeping reclaiming what was rightfully its own.
"What do you mean?" Reya questioned in return.
"Well, once we find this clue, it sounds like it will be the last bit we need to find Anya," Stock said, "What are you going to do with me? Leave me here? Put a bullet in the back of my head? Or drop me off on some rock?" He peered into a room and could have sworn he saw something move around inside, but he couldn't be sure.
"As much as Ira would love any and all of those options, I think the best course of action for now is to keep you with us, we may have further use for you in case this isn't the last clue," Reya replied, "If it is the last, the very least we can do is keep you with us long enough for you to see Anya and then go from there."
Stock remained silent, he had too much to think about. They were so close to finding Anya, but he felt like it had been ages since he'd last seen her and he had no idea what he would say. He briefly wondered how much she had really changed. Stock glanced to his left, then did a double take. Stretching further into the manor was a hallway with eight rooms, four to each side. He tapped Reya's arm, while motioning with his pistol towards the hallway. Reya was about to make a comment about breaking his fingers if he nudged her like that again but thought better of it as she looked down the hallway and realized he might be onto something.
"We might have found something, we're in the south hallway on the second floor. We'll investigate and see if we can find anything," Reya reported over the comm.
"Affirmative, do you want us to meet you up there to help?" Boreas asked.
"Negative, keep searching just in case this is a false alarm," Reya instructed. It didn't take long to clear all eight rooms, tearing apart anything for any clue, but came up empty. But after each room Stock began to feel more and more certain that it wasn't the rooms they should be looking at. After the final room Reya turned to head back toward the main hall while stock stood facing the wall at the end of the side hallway.
"Hey, Reya, hold up a minute, do you notice anything funny about this wall?" Stock asked.
Reya turned around, clearly annoyed at being told what to do, and spat back, "No, what is it? There isn't anything here, we need to get moving."
"If I remember correctly there used to be a room with a planetarium at the end of this hallway, there used to be a door right here," Stock informed her, "At least, I'm pretty sure there was." He holstered his pistol and unsheathed his tomahawk, then using the spike on the back of the head he swung at the wall. The clay bricks of the wall began to chip away with each swing.
"Here, stand back." Reya said. She shoved him back, chambering her fist for a blow and pivoting her feet before saying, "I hope you are right about this, because if not we could bring this whole building down on top of us." She threw the strike at the wall, connecting with a loud crack. The wall exploded outward into a hidden room showering Reya and Stock with more of the red Martian dust. The building shook and Stock wondered if Reya was right and the building would come down on top of them, but the structure eventually quieted down.
"What was that?!" Boreas exclaimed
"It was nothing, we just had to knock out some debris," Reya lied. Stock gave her an inquisitive look but she ignored it and stepped into the room beyond. Upon entering the room a holographic display of the known universe lit up from a pedestal in the center of the room. As Stock wandered around the room looking at the planets, he could tell the map hadn't been updated in awhile. It showed earth as the seat of Orokin power instead of the lush overgrown world that he had seen not even a week before.
"So why did you lie to Boreas?" Stock inquired while circling the room. He instinctively kept Reya on the opposite side of the pedestal from him. The lie she had told Boreas threw him off for some reason. He felt like she was a carnivore hunting her prey and he was the prey. She had her hands clasped behind her back while roaming circles round the room opposite Stock.
"Because of what we talked about, someone is tipping off the grineer and I don't know who it is," she responded, "If it is Boreas, or in the unlikely event that it's Talos, I don't want them coming up here and reporting back what they see. We've been harassed by the grineer enough. It's time we put some breathing room between us and them."
Stock remained quiet on that. She had a point. "Thoth, do you see anything unusual? Anything that would point to a clue?" Stock asked. Everything looked as it should apart from the map that hadn't been updated in centuries.
"Hmmm yes… It is rather obvious is it not?" Thoth responded.
"Wait, you found it and didn't say anything to us, Thoth?" Reya snapped at the cephalon.
"I…had thought that you knew and were simply marveling at the beauty of the planetarium," Thoth replied, "My apologies."
"Not cool, Thoth, we are on crunch time, just tell us what it is," Stock said, exasperated.
"Look at Mars. It has not moved," Thoth explained patiently, "And its coordinates in this planetarium match up perfectly with the incomplete coordinates from the riddle."
Sure enough, in the planetarium's hologram Mars stood still while all the other planets rotated around the sun.
Just then a voice spoke over the Harbinger comm. channel, "Reya, you've got grineer inbound, they will be on top of you in five minutes or less!"
"I should have known… Thoth, copy the planetarium's data core then purge the data. Boreas, Talos, meet us in the main hall, we're getting out of here," Reya ordered, "Harbinger, jump straight out of Mars' orbit, we'll meet you at rendezvous point bravo-two-nine. Give us 24 hours, and if we are not there when the time is up make a few uncalculated jumps to lose any tails and then report back to the Dojo and inform Elan of what's happened. Move it people!" Thoth floated to the pedestal, the hologram flickered, then disappeared shrouding, the room in darkness once more.
Reya and Stock fled down the hallway as the building shook due to orbital kinetic bombardment from the grineer ship, finally emerging onto the stair case and then starting down. By time they met up with Boreas and Talos they could hear a fire fight going on outside the manor. Ira had engaged the grineer with the drop ship's guns.
The grineer took notice of the tenno and marine fleeing the manor and move in to engage. Several grineer jumped up from behind a fallen pillar and charged at the fleeing group. The first came up on Stock and he unsheathed his tomahawk as he ducked a swing from the grineer lancer. Stock swung his tomahawk into the soft part of the grineer's midsection and he felt it sink home as the lancer cried out in pain. With his tomahawk still buried in the grineer's midsection he drew his pistol and shot another lancer who was charging at him, felling the armored beast in one shot, and then he turned back to the lancer who was still hanging on the tomahawk and howling in pain. Stock yanked the tomahawk free at a crooked angle, making sure to tear away as much flesh as he could.
He was feeling a bit pissed, these idiots had harassed himself and the tenno every step of the way, it was time for some pay back. He leveled his pistol and shot twice from the hip, each round slamming into another grineer, then he leveled the weapon at the lancer's head and shot once, putting the grineer out of his misery. Stock turned around to see the rest of the team finishing off the other grineer soldiers, then they all bolted for the drop ship. Once they loaded up Reya took the helm and made a beeline for orbit, taking fire from ground based anti-air platforms the whole time.
"Jumping into the Void, brace for a bit of turbulence!" Reya shouted over the comm., and everyone scrambled to take seat. Stock barely managed to get buckled in before he was slammed back into his seat then slammed forward into the harness. After several more heavy jerks everything slowed down and became calm. He felt a strong sensation of nausea and vertigo that quickly passed.
Reya came back to crew cabin and said, "I have our course plotted, it's going to be about 9 hours before we arrive at our destination so I recommend all of you get some rest." Stock found a nice wall to sit down and lean against, the cold metal helping to dim the headache that was forming. After the dim fluorescent lighting of the ships, the natural sunlight plus all the Martian dust was causing his head to pound.
Stock was unsure at what point he stopped being in reality and started dreaming, all he knew was that at some point the lights dimmed, and Anya sat in front of him on the seat. She wasn't wearing her tenno armor, in fact she was wearing what he would consider civilian clothing. It looked off on her. He looked around but saw no one else in the cabin. The ship hummed and shuddered gently.
Anya leaned down to him. "Hi," she said.
"What the fuck?" he started, then sighed, "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. Why does it matter?" Anya asked.
"It matters because..." Stock realized suddenly that he had no answer and trailed off, trying to think of a reason why he shouldn't be asleep and dreaming. At least he wasn't having that reoccurring nightmare he had been having.
Anya stood up and stretched. "You probably know this already, but I'm not really Anya," she told him, "I'm just your subconscious manifesting itself to warn you. Your rat is with you still; watch your back and watch everyone else's backs. The traitor no longer cares what others think, only about achieving their own goal, and it may or may not be who you think it is."
With that the ship shuddered violently, the lights flickered, and Stock jolted awake. Boreas was nudging his foot trying to wake him. "You ok?" the frost inquired, "It looked like you were having quite the dream."
Stock ran a hand through his hair and sighed, "Yeah, that seems to be the common opinion these days, that I have interesting dreams."
"Oh, well, I just wanted to wake you to let you know we are here," Boreas informed him.
"Already? How long have I been out?" Stock asked while getting to his feet.
"You slept through the whole ride," Boreas answered, "Don't worry, you didn't miss much; just the usual really, Ira bitching, Talos and Reya telling him to shut up. It sounds like the Harbinger made it out of orbit, though they took a slight beating."
The craft jolted, then settled before letting the engines die down. After the hatch dropped the team disembarked. The hanger was massive, it reminded Stock of the void space where Anya had put him in cryosleep. Everything seemed to be either solid gold or white trimmed with gold accents. Massive arches stretched like the fingers of a god to the ceiling. He didn't take too much time marveling at the Orokin construction, he had somewhere to be. The team proceeded to a door in a side wall and then down a hallway, but not before spotting an ancient tenno craft docked in the far corner, collecting dust.
"It's as if this whole place was forgotten by time, there is still running water and plants growing," Stock commented as he took in the lush foliage and the flowing water to either side of the walkway, "Are we sure this place is abandoned?"
"We're sure, we did a scan before docking," Reya told him, and he imagined her rolling her eyes as she continued, "I'll have you know there were no living organisms here, but there appears to be a cryopod signature at the center of this structure. I believe this might be our long missing tenno."
"Are you sure, because it sounds like someone is whispering in my ear, yet I don't see anyone and I can't make out what they are saying," Stock told her as he glanced around. It was the same voices as when they were on earth. A million incomprehensible voices muttering and whispering. It unnerved him and made him feel like he was being watched.
"That's the void speaking," Talos said. Stock was surprised, this was the first time he had ever heard the tenno speak. At first he didn't know how to respond, but then he realized this might be his chance to finally, maybe, get some insight on how the tenno thought.
"What is it saying?" Stock wondered.
Talos remained silent, but Boreas spoke up instead. "No one knows," he told Stock, "We have tried recording the voices but they never appear on audio files, we have tried speaking to them but receive no response. The only reaction anyone has ever gotten was the Orokin. They would often have to cleanse places like these. The people they sent here to do research nearly always somehow became corrupted. That is why most of these places are abandoned. The voices corrupted those who dwelled here."
"So there is a chance I will probably go insane before this is up?" Stock could feel the voices get louder slightly, it was starting to make his head hurt again.
"Only weak willed beings get corrupted, which is proof that you Orokin are inferior to the tenno and deserved the death you got," Ira spat.
"Ok, ignoring the comment from the mongoloid, can I get a legitimate answer?" Stock asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No, you would have to be here for a prolonged period of time, days, maybe even weeks," Reya responded, "Depending on how thick the structure's void shielding is of course. And play nice, we are almost at the end of our journey."
They came upon a massive elevator lift with its doors jammed open and Reya sent Ira back to the drop ship to prepare for a speedy launch. After fiddling around with the wiring for several moments Boreas managed to get the panel to light up and the lift to rise to take them to the next floor. The lift halted at a room with only one door. The door was white with a holographic display in the middle and on closer inspection they noticed a matt finished black panel imbedded into the door.
"A scanner?" Stock wondered.
"Most likely, probably meant as a final deterrent against would be tomb raiders," Reya responded, "Let's see who it's calibrated to, you go first Woodstock." With that Stock stepped up to the panel and put his hand flat against the panel. At first nothing happened but then he heard a slight hum and felt a prick on his finger, followed by a mechanical voice that said, "Welcome, Sergeant Conner Woodstock. You may proceed."
"A cephalon?" Boreas asked in surprise.
"Not as such, most likely prerecorded responses," Thoth huffed, "If it is a cephalon it is an extremely primitive one, unlike myself."
Before anyone else could say more the door slid open to reveal a massive room with a pool of water in the middle and three waterfalls cascading down into the pool from each wall. Stock marveled once again at the engineering and sheer beauty of this place. If this did turn out to be Anya's resting place, he felt it would be fitting. Upon entering the room a chime sounded and the waterfalls slowed their flow while a cryopod slowly rose from the depths of the pool. Inside the cryopod they could just see the faint outline of a Nova Prime warframe.
Once the cryopod had fully emerged it coasted to the edge of the pool on a rail and stopped, awaiting a response from the team. Reya stepped up to the cryopod and touched a series of buttons at the foot, then stepped back as a series of chirps sounded from the pod. At first nothing happened, then the pod hissed, releasing a cloud of vapor and the lid folded open like a flower's petals. Inside was Anya in all of her glory. At first the tenno didn't move, but then she slowly gripped the edge of the pod trying to pull herself upright before falling out of it instead.
Stock tried to run to her to see if she was ok but Boreas put his hand out stopping Stock in his tracks. For a few painful moments Anya didn't move, but eventually she slowly got to her hands and knees. Her back heaved slightly before she started fumbling with her helmet, finally managing to find the release and ripping it off. Her hair fell over her face, it was longer than Stock remembered. She heaved again, and this time a clear liquid spilled from her mouth to splatter on the floor. Stock didn't let Boreas stop him, he pushed the frost's arm down and rushed to Anya's side. Crouching down he put his hand on her shoulder and spoke to her for the first time in centuries.
"Anya! Are you alright?" he asked.
At first she didn't say anything, she just looked up glaring. She had a look on her face which Stock could only describe as a death glare, an expression usually given only to something she intended to kill. The glare quickly softened to wide eyed amazement as Anya realized who he was. She quickly tackled him, wrapping her arms around him.
"Stock, is it really you?" she whispered. She held on tight, refusing to let go.
Stock returned the hug, wrapping his arms around Anya. "Gee, I hope so, if not someone has some explaining to do," he chuckled softly.
"How did you find me?" Anya asked. But before Stock could reply he heard Reya clear her throat. Anya and Stock quickly glanced up to see Reya with her arms crossed, Boreas pretending to look at the surrounding scenery, and Talos standing there like a statue.
"Reya, Talos, Boreas!" Anya exclaimed excitedly.
"Oh yeah, them, I had a little bit of help," Stock quickly explained.
"What he means is he helped us find you, Tenno," Thoth explained, "We just kept him along for the ride, now if you are able, please collect yourself and your things. We must be going, Ira has just informed me that he is reading drive signatures of a grineer warship that just jumped into our current void space. They are already landing as we speak."
Stock and Anya quickly got to their feet, and Anya grabbed her weapons from a storage compartment in the cryopod while Stock cleaned out her helmet then passed it to her. She smiled and blushed slightly before putting it back on, once more becoming the tenno he once fought with.
"Ready?" he asked. She responded by chambering a round into her sniper rifle. The team moved quickly back to the elevator and then down the hall. They didn't get very far before the far door opened and several grineer troopers started walking down the hall. The team quickly took cover, Stock and Anya ducked behind a planter on the right side of the walk way, while Boreas took the other side. Behind them Reya and Talos took similar positions further down the hallway.
The grineer troops filed past, two by two. Stock waited till the last two passed their position before unsheathing his tomahawk. He nodded to Boreas before sneaking up behind the closest grineer soldier while Boreas did the same. Stock swung at the back of the grineer's knees, knocking him down, the grineer letting out a sharp yelp before Stock silenced him by burying the tomahawk into his neck. He looked up in time to see all hell breaking loose. Reya and Talos opened up with their tenno powers, cutting down several troopers while Boreas slammed his fist into the ground sending out a shock wave of icicles that impaled several other grineer soldiers.
Something blew past Stock and he whirled around to see a short grineer butcher running full sprint towards Anya who was wrestling around with a larger grineer, probably a lancer. He quickly cocked his hand back with the tomahawk and threw it, there was no way he would let a grineer take Anya after he just found her. The tomahawk imbedded itself into the back of the large grineer that Anya was wrestling with, the trooper cried out in pain and Anya finished him off, then quickly raised her rifle and shot the butcher, disintegrating his head into fine red mist. She then bent and pulled the tomahawk free of the body and tossed it back to him. The other tenno quickly finished off the remainder of the grineer, then the whole team moved on to the hanger.
Before they reached the hanger they heard two reports sound, and upon emerging from the hallway they saw Ira with his pistol in his hand, standing over two fallen grineer who lay side by side. Before Stock could react, Ira raised his pistol and said, "Oh good, you found Anya. Looks like we won't need him anymore."
Ira pulled the trigger and the gun barked. Stock prepared for the bullet to hit him like a freight train but nothing came. Instead he just had enough time to see Anya flash in front of him, deflecting the bullet with her sword, sending it whining off into a wall before she charged straight at Ira. In a split second she had him pinned against the drop ship, his wrist with the pistol gripped in one hand pinned above their heads while with her other hand she had her sword drawn and the tip against his throat. She spoke in a cold tone that Stock had never heard from her before.
"If you ever do that again, or attempt to harm him in any way, I promise I will personally kill you," she said, her voice almost a purr if it hadn't been so cold, "I will make your death as painful as possible and last for what seems like an eternity."
"Anya! That's enough!" Reya barked.
Anya released Ira and backed away, sheathing her sword. Ira didn't say a word, he just rubbed his wrist and climbed aboard the drop ship.
"You didn't have to do that," Stock said walking up to Anya and touching her arm.
Anya was shaking. He didn't know if she was crying or if it was rage. He supposed it was a bit of both most likely.
"Yes I did. If I hadn't he would have killed you, he was aiming for your head. If he had succeeded, I don't know what I would have done… I don't want to lose you after all this, after everything that has happened," Anya said quietly. He could hear her choking up a little bit. So he didn't say anything but gently took her hand in his and lead her to the drop ship. Once they were inside they sat down next to each other, and he kept hold of her hand. She was still shaking slightly and he squeezed her hand, she responded by giving his hand a small squeeze in return making sure not to squeeze too hard.
All in all they had been gone for a total of eighteen hours, with the return flight taking about six hours. Stock used that time to fill Anya in on what had happened since he was unfrozen. A lot of which seemed to upset her even more, she tried not to show it but he could see it in the way she tensed up.
Upon emerging from the Void at the predetermined rendezvous point which Stock later learned was in the middle of an asteroid belt, they could see the Harbinger under siege from two grineer battle cruisers, but like all previous battles it seemed to be one sided in favor of the Harbinger. Both the cruisers where pock marked from the Harbinger's rail gun. One of the cruisers was almost cut completely in half and both were venting atmosphere from the all the holes. Docking in the landing bay as fast as was safely possible, Reya gave the order to jump into neutral space.
Once the Harbinger had jumped safely away and determined there were no credible threats around, Reya ushered the team off the drop ship. She rushed Anya away while Ira, Boreas, and Talos departed the vessel. Stock remained behind to think which was soon interrupted by a knock on the ship's frame. He glanced up to see Tess standing at the top of the ramp.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing. Just thinking," Stock sighed. He leaned back, he was sore and tired from all this travel and he wondered what was in store for him. He didn't think that Reya would kill him, but he wasn't 100% positive either. But that also meant that she still had to do something with him. His value had gone to zero and his purpose was completed; she no longer had a use for him. Would she air lock him? Would she just drop him off on some abandoned planet? Maybe he could convince her to take him back to Mars. He supposed he could try to rebuild his old manor.
"Mind if I join you?" Tess asked, walking in and sitting across from him.
"No, I don't mind, but… I don't know, what now?" he questioned, "We have Anya… She's different from what I remember, but at the same time she's the same."
"Well, she went through a lot while you were gone. I remember staying up late into the night cycle on this ship just so I could read up on her exploits," Tess told him, "She was the stuff of legends, what we tenno only dream to aspire to, she set the bar for the rest of us. No one knew what drove her at the time but I think I now realize what it was. She had someone to protect, so she made sure she did her job to the best of her ability, even going above and beyond what was required of her, and in the end it changed her a little bit. Just give her some time, I'm sure she'll come around. Other than that, how did it go?"
"It went pretty well. Fought some more grineer, Ira tried to kill me, good times," Stock muttered.
"Ira tried to kill you?!" Tess demanded. He thought she might explode.
"Yeah, I guess he felt I had fulfilled my purpose and he thought it was his duty to get rid of the last Orokin marine. Anyway, Anya nearly beheaded him, which was a response I honestly wasn't expecting," he replied, "That's kind of what I was talking about, how she's different, it's almost as if she's darker or has seen some darkness."
"Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it. My advice? Go back to your room, take a shower by the way because you stink, and then get some sleep. There's no point in worrying about something you can't deal with right now," Tess said in a matter of fact tone.
"Thanks, Doc, you just cured all my ailments," Stock said sarcastically as he stood. But she did have a point, he did need some sleep.
"Anything for one of my patients, Doctor Tess is always in her office," Tess snorted in response.