19/11/2021 edit: Officially no longer a prequel, this is now its own thing.
Hell on Earth doesn't even come close to describing the mess of that ship.
Anyways, enjoy the first chapter of Reliquary Drive Failure.
Music comes from Colm McGuiness.
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The Mara Detron was an anomaly among the multitude of weapons available in the Origin System.
It was crude, lacking the elegant sophistication of the Empire's weaponry. You could make one from any fabrication unit capable of producing starship components, which were prolific, to say the least. It didn't use the omnimunition system that characterised every other firearm out there; it used metal blocks as ammunition. Though, of all its many unique aspects, the radioactive shrapnel it fired was powerful enough to shatter any infantry and light vehicle armour in existence.
That was why it was a death sentence to possess a Mara Detron.
Of course, the ire of the Golden Lords didn't stop men and women at the edges of society from using the handheld shotgun; far from it. From fringe bandits beyond the Outer Terminus to smugglers plying the Jupiter spacelanes, you can bet they packed a Mara Detron somewhere handy. It was a form of contract security in a way; most sane people thought twice about shorting someone if there was a chance they packed the weapon.
Why's any of this relevant, you may ask?
Like the Mara Detron, I'm an anomaly. The name's Mara, and yes, my father named me after the weapon. But that wasn't why I was an anomaly, far from it. I've got memories of another life, you see, from someone who lived on an Earth that the Infested didn't overrun. It wasn't until my tenth birthday-which was four months ago- that I realized why I'd known things no non-Orokin should know.
This was the universe of Warframe before the Sentients returned from Tau to destroy the Golden Lords. I knew that as a fact because the shuttle I'm on is heading to a colony ship whose name heralded a turning point for the system; the Zariman Ten Zero. Dad's latest job had him as part of the Zariman's engineering team, specifically for the ancillary systems for the Pendula.
Ekan Tethys-named after the moon that hosted our home clan, Tethys-was an odd man, even among our people. He got on better with machines and Grineer than other Humans, a fact which let my unusual maturity pass without notice. He's a spacer and engineer by trade, so he'd been more than happy about his daughter being smart for her age. So I'd been taught everything from how to bypass a fried plasma conduit to sealing hull breaches with a plasma cutter, y'know, perfectly normal skills for a father to teach his ten-year-old daughter.
As I said, Dad was odd even by clan standards.
The patchwork hazardous environment suit I wore wasn't in the least comfortable to wear. But after growing up on ships and stations, the security it brought was indispensable. My past memories found the concept of children doing what I did horrific, but it's how our family of two survived. I can get into places that no adult can, and with the Orokin's hatred of automation, that meant spacer kids grew up doing that kind of work. The really hazardous stuff was handled by the three mountains of geneforged muscle sharing the compartment with Dad and me.
Kaz, Hon and Tij were Grineer, the slave caste of the Orokin Empire. Created as disposable labour, they did the jobs that even the Empire regarded as beneath their Human citizens. It's darkly ironic because people like us were akin to bugs to the average Orokin. It's not like OSHA existed here, I'd seen too many deathtraps in my ten years of life to think otherwise, but some jobs only Grineer could do.
In the case of the trio that Dad commanded, that meant servicing the reactors that powered the Pendula... while they were active. As you can imagine, that's not something conducive to a long and healthy life, not that the Orokin cared. Grineer weren't even animals to them, so they discarded them like broken toys if they got injured or sick. Having grown up with the gentle giants, that wasn't an attitude I could ever condone or agree with.
Holding a Grineer's hand as they died from the cancerous tumours eating their bodies from the inside ensured that.
I'd performed that rite sixteen times in my life, and it never got easier. These weren't the Grineer of my memories; dumb brutes that destroyed everything they touched. They were simple-minded, true, but all they cared about was doing a good job. Even as they lay dying, every single Grineer wanted to know if they'd made Dad proud. Only heartless monsters like the Orokin would create sapient beings and subject them to existence like this... which fit the golden bastards to a t.
That wasn't why I was tense as our shuttle approached the Zariman, far from it. But Dad noticed it and, mistakenly, assumed it was because of the Orokin.
"Mara." I looked up to see him offering a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about meeting an Orokin; our quarters won't be close to them."
His words made an old joke of ours bubble up. "Because we'll be doing actual work which they're allergic to?"
Dad laughed. "Ayup." He rapped a gauntleted hand against his hardsuit's chestplate. "Can you imagine one of the pricks trying to wear these?"
The attitude was one common among clan spacers, going beyond the animosity between grounders and space-born. We existed near the bottom of Imperial society, which bred a stubborn people who took quiet pride in mocking the high and mighty Orokin. The jokes we cracked weren't really funny, to be honest, but silver linings were few and far between for us.
I tapped a finger against my helmet, pretending to consider the question. "I think that implies they'd know what that is, Dad."
"True, true." The grin faded, his expression turning serious. "We've got a chance of a better life with this job, you understand? Three years of this will get us the money for our own ship."
Dad sounded so hopeful as he spoke about buying his own ship. It had been a dream of his for as long as I can remember, but until now, we'd never had enough credits to afford it. With the Zariman pay, we'd never have to do wildcat jobs ever again, not that he'd ever get the money. The fate of the Zariman Ten Zero was one I couldn't tell anyone, not even my own father.
So I lied and plastered a fake smile on my face. "I'm picking the colours, though; you're colour blind."
He clutched his chest with a dramatic gasp. "Insulted by my favourite daughter!"
"I'm your only daughter." I snarked, rolling my eyes.
The compartment rang with our laughter, the three Grineer no doubt looking confused behind their white facemasks. Of course, the big guys didn't really get humour or a lot of Human behaviourisms, but that was just their nature as Grineer.
Our bantering was interrupted by the harsh blare of the docking alarm from the ceiling-mounted speaker. Dad grabbed his duffle, the size of me and packed with the tools of the trade while I picked up my own much smaller bag. Even with an active lifestyle and what I suspected was some gene therapy in our lineage, I was still a ten-year-old girl. So my bag only carried my timeworn blanket, a few pieces of personal equipment and a tool kit, which was the limit to what I can carry.
I checked that my helmet was secured to my hip from reflex and felt better when I touched the metal. A spacer never went anywhere without everything needed to survive sudden decompression, even when, in our case, it wasn't going to happen. It wasn't paranoia when most civilian ships lacked simple things like a centralized life support system.
The Grinner stood up with a rattle of armour plate, thick slabs of radiation-resistant ferrite making their already impressive stature more imposing. The deck beneath our feet rumbled as the pitch of the thrusters shifted to docking mode, a thrumming note as the gravitics kicked in. About a minute later, the shuttle landed with an overly heavy thump.
"Knew the pilot was a rookie," Dad murmured, turning to approach the rear exit.
I followed on his heels, nose scrunching up as the ramp lowered, and I got my first whiff of our new home. It smelled new, the air lacking the subtle tang of heavily-recycled closed systems. Dad didn't like it either, and for a good reason. New meant equipment and systems hadn't been given a proper shakedown, at least, not a spacer one. That fed into my growing unease as the door opened enough to let me see the ship properly.
The hanger we'd landed in was small, barely large enough to fit the battered shuttle we'd rode in. It was clearly not the primary hangar of the ship or even one of the numerous secondaries. Despite that fact, the place was bedecked in gold and white panelling and ornamentation. My jaw dropped open as I spotted a fucking arboriform lurking behind the ludicrously expensive-looking refuelling station. This was a freaking shuttle hangar, for Sol's sake, yet it's got more wealth on display than I'd seen in my short life.
Dad handled the scenery a little better than me, but he was still off-kilter, and it showed in his body language. His head snapped towards a door against the far wall as it opened, revealing a figure wearing a suit much like our own. The dichotomy between the grubby hardsuit and the ornamented surroundings was a serious one. They looked as out of place here as we did, which made their accent all the stranger.
"Ekan and Mara Tethys?" The man's voice was pure upper-class, emphasising the t's that marked them as Europan. "Welcome to the Zariman Ten Zero. I'm Joakim, Auxillary Engineering Supervisor." He offered a hand, wrist canted in the space style.
The familiar gesture surprised Dad, but he accepted the handshake. "That's us, Sir." He let go and continued in a lower tone. "No offence, but your accent..." He trailed off.
Joakim chuckled, waving him off. "Jarring, isn't it?" His next words were a thick Jupiter burr. "I put it on for the Lords and Ladies, the curse of being the face of Aux Engineering."
"Ah." Dad relaxed, looking much happier. "Had me worried for a sec, won't deny it." He gestured to me with his free hand. "If it's not too much of a bother, Sir, can we walk and talk? I want my daughter to get settled before we take the tour."
A gleam of white teeth came from the Supervisor before he nodded. "No problem, though it's a bit of a trip." He turned on a heel and moved towards the door, prompting us to follow. "Fair warning, your quarters are in the residential section, which is twenty-seven decks above engineering."
Holy shit! "Why's that?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.
To my surprise, Joakim answered. "Everyone on board with children is in the same section, kid." It didn't need saying that the higher caste children wouldn't be present. "Sol knows why, but that's what the shipwrights chose for the Zariman."
I had a suspicion why, but it wasn't something I could voice. It relied on information from my previous life, which I hadn't and couldn't tell another soul. Keeping my worry hidden wasn't easy given my age, but thankfully it worked this time. The two adults chatted together about everything from the efficiency of the air scrubbers to the number of colonists on board. The latter was of interest because our guide stated there were close to ten thousand people on board, not including the two thousand crew.
Kaz, Hon and Tij were ordered to enter a Grineer-only dormitory on one of the sub-decks we travelled through. I got a glimpse of cramped bunks, and poor lighting before the door closed, leaving me missing their presence. Unlike everyone else onboard bar Dad, I knew they'd never hurt me. Having them nearby was this life's safety blanket, despite their being vat-grown clones with stunted minds.
I referred to them as gentle giants for a reason.
Joakim wasn't kidding when he'd said it was a bit of a trip. The bag over my shoulder was like a leaden weight as my legs burned from the exertion. My limited endurance was shot after climbing so many stairs, though I was also too tired to continue worrying about the ship's fate. Our surroundings, somehow, managed to become more ostentatious, which only the Orokin could achieve. The sight of so much expensive and blatant wealth made me uncomfortable, and I wasn't the only one.
Dad practically glared at every door we passed through, grumbling about the lack of redundancies in case of atmospheric loss. It was a concern his new boss shared if their whispered conversation and pointing was any indication. I lacked the energy to devote to listening in, busy as I was putting one foot in front of the other. I barely repressed a groan as another flight of Sol-awful golden stairs came into view.
Why are there so many stairs!
Dad offered to carry me halfway up, an offer I gladly accepted. Being short for my age came in useful here, as he managed the feat without any sign of strain. Joakim gave the scene a wry smile which smoothed out as we reached the top and met other people. I tapped Dad's arm to let me down as the family ahead glanced our way. As my boots hit the decking, I got a front-row seat to the disgusted expressions on the adult's faces.
The parents and their kids were dressed in white robes, with nowhere near enough bling to be high-class. The curled lips of the father only matched the sneer on the mother's face as he pulled his white-haired daughter away from our path. Even though I'd grown up facing that kind of reaction, it still hurt to see someone my age being hurried away as if we'd infect her with our lower-class nature. Dad tossed a smouldering look at their retreating backs before Joakim pulled him away.
"Here's your berth." The blond supervisor waved us towards an unmarked door along a hallway filled with such doors. "Go on in and stow your kit; I'll wait outside."
Dad gave him a nod before we entered the cabin together. It lacked any kind of decoration, but it was huge! Two beds were side by side against the far wall, with a sofa and table taking up half of what was left. Through a doorway, I could make out a small but functional bathroom. Combined, there was like, seven or eight times the available floor space compared to our previous lodgings. That had been a repurposed closet with two sleeping bags and nothing else, wedged between a thermal inductor coil and its cooling unit.
Our berth was decadent beyond belief, and I froze, unable to consider this ours. Dad wasn't much better, but he managed to rest his duffle on the table and gestured for me to do the same. Amazement was writ across his face, and I had no doubt mine was a mirror of his.
"So," The word hung heavy in the air for a long moment. "This'll be our home for the next few years." He shook his head as he spoke, disbelief infusing his voice. "I'll... I'll go see about that tour, so why don't you get settled in?"
He clearly wasn't comfortable with the prospect of staying in such a decadent berth first thing, not that I blamed him.
"Okay!" I chirped, giving him my best smile. "Have fun with the tour!"
A grin and a hand ruffling my hair was his response, leaving me with a mouthful of cyan hair. I laughed as I spat it out, waving Dad goodbye as he totally didn't rush out the door. That left me alone... in a room that was now making me paranoid from being so large. The air was too fresh and carried the ever-so-faint weight of a high-pressure environmental system. I hoped we'd be allowed to lower it locally so that any breaches would be less destructive. I pushed the discomfort aside to toss my own pack onto the bed I claimed as mine.
My suit left a streak of grease and other miscellaneous compounds on the white sheets, but I didn't care. Those wouldn't stay pristine for long, not in a berth with a space-born engineer and their kid. The pain of my sore muscles began to fade as I relaxed on the bed, the sheer softness tempting me with the lure of sleep. I powered through it to grab my bag and rummage through it, withdrawing my personal tool kit, though it was more of a belt.
A moment's fiddling had the battered and well-used atmospheric sensor up and running with a cheery beep. The digital readout confirmed what I suspected; the air pressure was a little higher than the norm, as well as the worryingly pure air. Groundies would call that a stupid thing to say, but air this pure meant the atmospheric system was either brand new or running at full tilt. Either was bad because new equipment always had issues with gremlins and a system on maximum power tended to increase parts wear.
The Orokin's fetish didn't help the latter with having as many moving parts as possible in their equipment. There was a damn good reason a small hammer was clipped to the belt, and it wasn't just for killing wire-eating vermin. I had no doubt I'd be using it for some percussive maintenance before long... though hopefully long before everything went to hell.
Worrying about the Zariman's fate kept me up until Dad returned, well into the ship's night cycle. He promptly swept me up in a gentle hug, which I tried my best to act happy to. I knew he was trying to comfort me, but all I could think about was what would happen to him if the future held.
I didn't get much sleep that first night.
{LINE BREAK}
This is... well, it's something. I can't rightfully recall many other fanfics that cover the Zariman beyond Drich's fic from years ago. Even after all this time, we still know very little about what it was like or what it really was. It's recorded as a military ship, yet it had loads of children onboard, so who knows?
Regardless, this is an AU because I'm going to need to create things from whole cloth and because of the AU verse that Biohazard Warning Mara comes from.
I can't promise consistent updates, but this fits better than trying to cram all this historical stuff in the main story, a fic which I should get to crossposting soon.
I wasn't allowed to help Dad and his team with their job.
He'd planned to tell me after coming back from the tour, but comforting me had taken precedence. I hadn't been in the least happy about being told that the moment I woke up from a nightmare-filled sleep, but he had a good reason for it.
An Orokin is overseeing the Pendula team, and he's from an Entrati cadet branch.
Dad had said it with a calm voice, but it shut me down instantly. Any clan spacer who'd ever worked on a ship with a Reliquary drive knew about the Void-touched Entrati and their brand of crazy. Rumours and whispers exchanged in seedy bars, and dark berths spoke of the ruin that befell any ship that hosted a member of that house or their branches.
While the Entrati from my memories were mad for an entirely different reason, the two viewpoints weren't mutually exclusive. While I had no doubt most of the rumours were just that, I wouldn't put it past Wally to sabotage any vessel hosting an Entrati as revenge. Say what you will about The Man In The Wall, but he had a legitimate reason to hate that house; stealing your fingers to power their FTL would do that.
Dad was too busy worrying about working with an Entrati to notice my reaction was a bit too visceral for the news. So, once again, I thanked Sol that he was terrible at reading people's expressions, as it allowed me a reprieve. He made his excuses and left for work after a particularly crushing hug, which cheered me up for all of a minute.
I realized not long after that I'm on my own for the rest of the day. That left me with only two options, neither of which could be said to fill me with glee.
One: I try and sleep in the berth for as long as possible and tinker with what little materials I have on hand the rest of the day. As it involved staying in the freakishly pure air, that option was immediately dismissed without protest.
Two was both easier and harder, in that it involved me leaving the berth and... interacting with the other kids. This was where growing up with only Dad, and the Grineer for company came back to bite me in the butt. It's not that I'm sheltered, far from it; I just had no clue how to chat with kids my age. My past life was no help there; they'd been a loner as a kid and had as much trouble as I do with making friends.
It probably didn't help I'd never stayed in one place long enough to make friends before we arrived on the Zariman.
I eventually moved off the bed where I totally hadn't been sulking, eyeing but never approaching the door. Out there was a deck full of people so far above me in caste I'll stick out like a macrowrench in a box of plasma cutters. A gleam of light drew my gaze to a mirror I'd missed last night, showing me in all my pale-ass glory.
Blue tended to be the first word used to describe me. Metallic blue hair cut to the nape of my neck was my defining feature, the length due to avoiding issues with helmet seals. The only allowance to femininity was the fringe, long enough to cover my eyes if I didn't tuck it behind my ears. Compared to my glorious, shiny hair, the rest of my face was only notable for sharp green eyes and ashen skin.
A lifetime of living in space wasn't really conducive to getting a tan, so my skin was a few shades off being albino-pale. Absently blowing a lock of hair away from my eyes, I recalled every clan spacer I'd met being this pale. Now that I think about it, it might be a genetic thing on our part?
Combined with the fact I'm short for my ten years of age, I had no hope of blending in. What was that saying from my past life? Take refuge in audacity or something? The idea of going out there in my envirosuit was tempting, but I dismissed it after a few seconds of fantasising. Choosing not to blend in was one thing, but shoving the fact in everyone's faces and wearing the suit was most definitely a bridge too far.
Such a curious expression, a bridge too far. My mind jumped to the bridge of a ship, but it was a reference to a battle on the Earth my old self came from. I could and had gotten lost in those memories, but I regretfully stopped so I could prepare to leave. Throwing one last imploring look at my envirosuit, I bypassed it in favour of grabbing my tool belt. Last night's impromptu atmospheric survey necessitated recovering the scanner from beneath the duvet, but once the box was back in place, I was good to go.
Being ready to go didn't stop me from treating the stupidly ornate door like it leads to a hard vacuum. With one hand on my emergency respirator clipped to my belt, I reached out and triggered the motion sensor. A faint murmur of people hit me alongside a reassuringly scented air, never had body odour smelt so wonderful.
Looking both ways showed a few adults in the distance, but none were facing me. After a moment's thought, I picked the direction with the least number of people and slipped out. With every hurried step, I took, the urge to turn tail and run back to my room increased, but I stubbornly continued onwards. I managed an entire minute to myself before someone noticed me.
She was tall and wiry in a way that betrayed a low-gravity upbringing. Her uniform was one I'd briefly seen on the trip from the shuttle bay, a series of interlocking alloy bands over a close-fit bodysuit. If that wasn't already indicative of her being a guard, the stun stick on her hip cinched it. Our eyes met as the woman emerged from a side passage, slate-grey eyes narrowing as she studied me.
Never having the best experience with authority, I wilted under her gaze and tried to look reputable. To my surprise, she not only dropped the stern look but offered me a faint curl of the lips that might be a smile.
"You Saturnian, Kid?" It was faint, but there was a hint of a spacer accent there.
Straightening up, I nodded. "Tethys, Ma'am!"
Her smile grew by orders of magnitude. "Enceladus, good to see it's not all groundies running about." She walked closer, forcing me to crane my neck from how freakin tall she was. "Here, take this." A data chit was offered to me, pinched between her fingers.
I took it hesitantly. "What is it?"
"The last view of home you're going to get for a long time." The smile faded as a note of melancholy entered her voice. "Observation blister 51's got a great view of Saturn right now; the chit will get you past the maintenance lockouts."
I gazed at the lump of smartcrystal in a new light. "Thank you, Ma'am!" Then, on a whim, I darted forward and gave her a quick hug.
The gesture startled her, but after a few seconds of silence, she reached down and ruffled my hair. I struggled not to get all teary at the gift she'd given me, but I mostly managed to stay composed. There was a knowing look in her grey eyes as I pulled away, but she said nothing before continuing her patrol. Then, clutching the precious gift from my fellow spacer, I hurried to the nearest wall in search of a map terminal.
It took searching five different walls before I found the cleverly hidden switch to reveal the console. An entire section of white panelling slid out on hidden rollers and flipped, revealing the display concealed on the opposite side. It was a monument to the Orokins love of overly complex things, writ small. Why they could just have a normal console like everyone else, I didn't know.
Probably because they're self-absorbed pricks. Yea, that sounded about right for the golden nobheads.
Five minutes of browsing later, caused by needing to jump to see the screen, I had directions to the blister. I left the terminal exposed in the hopes of giving someone with OCD a fit before taking off at a fast walk... for me. Times like this made me wish I hit my growth spurt already; being 4'2" was a pain when you need to walk any real distance.
I managed to reach the door leading to the Observation blister without meeting another soul. In as good a mood as was possible given the circumstances, I went to enter only to hear voices from the other side. Maybe the guard had given other spacer kids access to the blister too!
Smiling, I entered the room only to stand on something incredibly sharp. I managed to land on my shoulder instead of my face, which let me curse without pause. None of them was for pleasant company, but I really didn't give a shit. All my attention was on probing my foot in search of a puncture wound, but my hand came back blood-free. I gave the weird tuning fork thing that'd been stuck in my foot a confused look, unsure as to its purpose.
"Who're you?" I tore my eyes away from the weird fork to see a teenage boy in fancy clothes staring down his nose at me. "You're not allowed in here."
His condescending tone and lilting accent made me hate him instantly. I ignored the prick in favour of taking in the room, not liking what I saw. The far wall was a single curved pane of transparent armaglass, the specially treated material as hard as hull plating and twenty times as expensive. Beyond it was the mesmerising and comforting sight of Saturn, hanging in the void like a watchful parent.
The room's occupants drew my attention for entirely different reasons. Two boys, slightly younger than cuntface were holding another boy of similar age between them. It took all of a second to note their grip was restraining rather than supporting him. Mook one and Mook two, as I dubbed them, were giving me looks of incomprehension, so I dismissed them.
With a shaved head and a curious jumpsuit, the third boy only had eyes for the tuning fork I'd stepped on. As a test, I moved that hand and noted how the boy's gaze followed it. The entire scene gave me the feeling I'd stumbled onto something the ringleader wanted to keep hidden.
I endured a stab of pain when I put weight on my sore foot, but no way in hell was I staying on the floor. Of course, the other kids here had a few years and at least a foot on me, but Dad didn't raise a coward.
He raised a spacer, and we're stubborn to a fault.
"Name's Mara, and I don't think you're supposed to be bullying that boy." I affected a casual shrug as I gestured to the shaven-headed kid. "But we're both doing things we're not supposed to, so eh."
Stick up his ass didn't appreciate that. "Go away, girl." Sol, the derision when he said girl was palpable. "Don't you have oil to lick or something, spacer trash?"
Now, the insult stung, but I'd been called much worse from scarier people than a snotty teenager. But he capped the statement by turning his back on me and moving to bully the retrained boy again... and that pissed me off.
"A baby could come up with something better than that," I called out, making the asshole pause. "Then again, it's probably the best thing a son of a Gutora like you can manage."
The harsh Sednian insult hurt my throat, but the dialect was amazing for insulting people. Better yet, very few outsides of the clans knew that dialect of English. The high-class teen's face scrunched up as he glared at me, no doubt knowing he'd been insulted even if the word was foreign. The goons were looking even more confused while the shaven kid was watching me now.
I stood my ground as the scumbag invaded my personal space. "What'd you call me?!" Yep, he was pissed alright.
"Oh, sorry, did you not understand that?" I clutched a hand to my heart sarcastically. "Did your high-class education not teach you languages?" I was getting worked up now, leaving me ignorant of the ramping tension in his frame. "I called you a son of a Gutora, a son of a bitch."
My vision exploded into stars as his fist lashed out and broke my nose. It wasn't the worst pain I'd felt in my life-I'd had a brush with decompression when I was six- but the shock of the blow took me down. The pain of hitting the floor was overshadowed by the throbbing agony of my nose, which was now impossible to breathe through from all the blood and mucus.
Of all the things I'd expected the teenager to do, clocking me in the face wasn't one of them. It might have been the beginning of a concussion, but I found the thought of him being threatened enough by me to lash out hilarious. Me, a fucking ten-year-old girl who was a foot shorter and thirty pounds lighter than him!
I laughed, amusement bubbling up from my core to ring through the observation blister. The sound was faltering and interspersed with bubbling snorts from my broken and clogged nostrils, but I kept going. The taste of copper filled my mouth, increasing as I forced my head up to see the teen and grin at him.
He was looking far less confident than he'd been before the punch. I didn't blame him, he'd broken my nose, yet here I was, forcing myself to my feet and laughing while blood poured down my face. The first inklings of fear came to the fore as I ever so slowly licked my teeth, cleaning the blood off. It tasted horrible, but seeing and hearing the goons snap made it all worth it.
At the end of the day, they were still children and had less mental fortitude. Mook one screamed and bolted for the door, promptly followed by a crying mook two. Their victim was watching me with an unreadable expression, but I kept staring at the ringleader.
His eye's darted to the door behind me, face ashen as twitchy. All it would take was one more push to tip him over the edge... so I did just that.
"Boo!"
My words were underscored by the glop of bloody mucus I spat at his feet, which made him snap. He nearly smashed right into the door before it could open; such was his speed to escape the blister. I didn't look back, waiting until the door hissed closed before dropping the tough-girl act. Eyes watering with barely-restrained tears, I tried and failed to pull a cloth from my tool belt, each attempt causing a few more tears to flow.
After six failures, I felt the belt jostle, and the cloth I'd been looking for was pushed into my hand. I set about wiping the worst of the blood from my face before reversing it to dab at my eyes. My nose was a dull throb of pain, but I was grateful that It'd clogged quickly. I probably looked-and certainly felt- like death warmed up, but I hadn't backed down, and that made me proud.
Stuffing the cloth into the pouch with more success than grabbing it, I looked up. The boy I'd saved still had that unreadable expression on his face, but he'd helped me, and that deserved thanks.
"Thank you," I belatedly offered him the slightly blood-covered pointy thing he'd been looking at. "This yours?"
"Mhmm." The noise was vaguely affirmatory, and he accepted the fork back after a short pause. "You okay?"
I shrugged, a move that caused the boy to flinch away. Taking a few steps back made my foot hurt, but he seemed to appreciate the extra distance between us. Something about his appearance and mannerisms was twigging a past-life memory, but I couldn't think past the broken nose.
"Been better." I avoided any large movements as I said that. "Wasn't expecting to be punched, honestly." I gave him a concerned glance. "They didn't hurt you, did they?"
To my relief, he shook his head. "Mhmm." Another one of those eerily familiar hums followed as he turned away, tuning fork clutched in his hand.
I followed, stiffly sitting down on the floor beside him once he sat before the viewport. Then, under the watchful eye of Saturn, I unhooked my belt and stretched it out before me. Next, I retrieved the bloody cloth from its pouch and began wiping down the tools that had gotten stained. It was as much to keep my mind off my nose as to clean them, but the familiar ritual soothed me.
We sat in science together for perhaps half an hour before I asked a question. "What's your name?"
The answer, when it came, cut through my headache like a cutting torch through a lighter. "Rell."
Well... fuck. Knowing what I did about him, I didn't offer him a hand to shake. Instead, I paused my cleaning to gaze up at the twinkling lights of passing spacecraft.
"I'm Mara. It's nice to meet you, Rell."
"Mhmm."
It might have been my imagination, but I thought that hum was a happy one.
{LINE BREAK}
Ekan Tethys ignored the disgusted looks he was getting as he jogged through the residential deck. Partway through his shift, he'd been informed Mara had been injured, and his presence was requested. So, hardsuit still marked by the runoff from the tertiary Pendula reactor, he all but sprinted to his daughter. More than a few insults were hurled his way, but he couldn't care less.
He was half tempted to take a detour to his berth and recover... shaking his head, Ekan dismissed those thoughts. They would only cause trouble, especially when there was no indication Mara was in any danger. Instead, his hands were clenching and unclenching from the moment he arrived on the residential deck to the moment he was stopped outside an observation blister.
The guard-one of two- held up a hand. "Ekan Tethys?"
"That's me." He couldn't help the worry that bled into his voice. "Where's my daughter?"
The gangly woman gestured to the door. "She's in there; you can..."
He missed the rest of her sentence as he stormed into the blister, taking in the scene with one glance. A man in the garb of the medical team was crouching beside his daughter, holding something to her nose. A boy, perhaps a couple of years older than Mara, was checked over by a raven-haired woman. She glanced up briefly when he entered but went back to fussing over her probable son.
Mara waved at Ekan as he walked over, but the medic spoke first, not looking away from his patient.
"Your daughter suffered a broken nose defending young Rell there, " He briefly lifted a hand to point towards the boy. "Before you ask, the parents of the troublemakers have withdrawn any complaints due to the entire thing being caught on camera."
Ekan's heart rate spiked at the start and only slowed when the medic's words sank in. In his experience, justice tended to fall on the side of the higher caste, which didn't seem to be the case here.
He choked back his initial outburst in favour of a, "Thank you." He turned his attention to Mara, who was smiling despite her injury. "What made you step in, Kiddo?"
Mara, his only child and the sole good thing to come from his long-dead wife glanced towards Rell. She gave them the old spacer sign for 'all good', and to Ekan's surprise, the boy returned it.
Brilliant emerald eyes shone in the reflected light from Saturn. "Everyone needs a friend, and Rell needed one. It helped I got to call the boy bullying him a Gutora."
She uttered the Sednian curse with such enthusiasm that Ekan's only response was to laugh. Not at his daughter, but in sheer fatherly pide. Ignoring the disapproving grunt from the medic, he swept his daughter up in a hug, chuckling all the while.
Mara certainly took after her namesake; that was for sure!
{LINE BREAK}
Here we go, the second chapter.
Mara is a paranoid spacer kid; she meets some bullies and creeps them out with Psyops. She begins a friendship with Rell, who really needs a friend who doesn't consider him weird.
Good thing Mara's just as, if not more, weirder than he is.
In regards to the curse she used, it's Grineer. In this AU, at least, Sedna is home to the primary cloning facility in the Empire. The Orokin captured it in this universe and dragged it back to form the facility that would become the Kuva Fortress one day. From there, I figured that the Grineer dialect might also have its roots in the language spoken by the people who lived there.
Nothing says Orokin excess like dragging a trans-Neptunian object into the solar system when it's full of perfectly good rocks.
Edit: Copy and paste didn't get the entire chapter, so I fixed that.
Observation blister 51 had become something of a refuge for Rell and me. After the... altercation, nobody seemed to be terribly enthused about bothering us. I'm not surprised, per see, but the fact there was no punishment was nice. Hooray for omnipresent surveillance systems that give no privacy!
The Zariman still hadn't left Saturn's orbit, and I wasn't sure why. From the way many adults were acting, you'd think we were prepping for a Void jump any second now. Even Dad was getting caught up in it, his return every night heralding a deluge of anecdotes about engineering. I've never seen him this excited over something in my life, but the ship's fate gutted any happiness I felt.
Still, I put on my best smile and eagerly listened to his stories. It sucked that I wasn't allowed down in engineering; it sounded like tons of fun!
The one bright spot in all of this was spending time with Rell. We were both technically-minded, were perfectly happy to sit in companionable silence for ages, and he was a genuinely nice kid. Case in point, here I was a week after arriving on the Zariman, running him through the contents of my tool kit.
I picked up the compact plasma cutter. "Dad got me this for my eighth birthday, which was also when he started letting me help him with his work." The battered tool was one of my cherished possession, and that bled into my voice. "She's not as powerful as the full-size models, but she retains the ability to cut through Class-B plating up to sixty mils thickness."
Rell studied it for a minute before pointing at the muzzle. "That's not an authorized modification for an XCN-81 Cutter." His expression was flat, but after a week together, I knew he was interested in the why.
"Of course not; I'm a spacer." I flashed a smile without teeth and hefted the cutter. "I'm pretty sure this is older than me..."
"It is; by seventeen years and two months."
I nodded to Rell's contribution. "Yep, so it's been modified heavily over the years. It's a modification of the containment field that keeps the beam coherent." I showed him the hidden latch behind the primary trigger. "I press down on that, and the field kinda, sorta... explodes? So instead of a two-metre beam, you get a twenty-centimetre bubble that degrades in a fraction of the time."
We used it to brute-force locks by erasing them from existence, but I wasn't going to tell him that. Officially, it was for slagging badly-forged structural members but officially didn't mean true. Rell accepted the explanation with his signature hum, but I knew he was more than smart enough to figure it out.
The rest of my kit was a lot less interesting. Utility knife, emergency cable, glowsticks, simple but practical equipment. Nothing to write home about, but invaluable should things go to hell in a handbasket. There wasn't enough room for a full-sized medkit, but that's what the duct tape was for!
Yea, of all the things to survive until the Orokin era, it's freaking duct tape.
Having someone happy to listen to my ramblings was nicer than I expected. Rell didn't find my behaviour odd or weird like other kids; he just listened and asked questions when something caught his interest. Blister 51 was perpetually lit by the sunlight reflecting off Saturn, which was handy because the actual lights were offline due to the maintenance lockdown.
Rell looked vaguely disappointed as I packed the tools away. Then, as I'm not a bitch, I promptly retrieved the surprise I'd brought along from my backpack. My audience of one watched on with interest while I pulled the time-worn case from the pack and set it on the floor. Dad had been leery about me bringing it, but I'd sold him on Rell's trustworthiness before long.
Any claims it involved puppy eyes, and tearful hugs were lies and slander.
I racked my brain for the code before punching it into the ruggedised keypad on the top. There are no fancy electronic locks here; we spacers prefer our kit simple and easy to fix when it inevitably breaks. A certain group of pompous wankers would do well to learn from that design philosophy. An audible clunk rang out once I hit the final key, heavy physical bolts retracting and popping the lid free.
The interior was split into three sections, each containing one part of an archaic communications system. I grabbed the bulky optical sensor first, the fisheye lens glinting behind the protective housing. Gazing up at the twinkling lights in the distance, I set it up on a spot that would get the best view. Next came the lamp, its multi-faceted focusing array making it a pain in the ass to lift with my tiny hands.
After a minute of cursing under my breath, I dropped it beside the sensor with a sigh of relief. The thump it made sounded bad, but I'd seen these shrug off hits from micro-meteorites. A tiny foot drop wouldn't do jack to the fragile crystals, let alone the shock-absorbent casing.
Silent until now, Rell questioned me when I fought to retrieve the final section. "What is that?"
I held up a finger. "Patience, young padawan." The reference, of course, went right over his head, but he did as asked.
Grabbing the carrying handles, I strained to retrieve the final piece and just about managed it. The entire thing hadn't felt that heavy on my back, but it also had better load distribution in my backpack. The box was about the size of an A4 page on each side, with a cable on opposite sides and an LCD. Interactive holograms had left the ancient technology behind long ago, but they were easy to maintain.
I went about connecting the bits and hit the power button, pumping a fist when the screen lit up. I noticed Rell leaning closer to see the display, getting close enough to enter my personal space. That was his equivalent to bouncing in excitement, so I began explaining once the boot-up sequence finished.
"Ok, so, this is how spacers communicate over short distances," I said, punching in the necessary codes as I spoke. "Ansibles are stupidly expensive, and lasers refract way too much in the belts, so we rely on an optical-based system."
Rell's eyes lit up. "It's a signal lamp?"
"A high-tech one, yep!" I popped the p and wiggled my free hand. "It's the same principle, but each clan has their own code. We stick to parts of the visual spectrum that won't be confused with sunlight, so there's less chance of mistakes."
While I'd only used the system on my own a handful of times, Dad had ensured I knew it off by heart. It took me a while to get the optical sensor at the correct angle, but it gave a cheery beep once I did. The Zariman was sitting adjacent to one of the primary gravity slingshot routes through Saturn's moons, from what I remembered being told. The lights of distant starships proved that correct, though they looked off to my eye.
With Rell giving me his version of rapt attention, I fired up the sensor to see... wow, there are some really angry captains out there.
"That... is a lot of cursing." I winced as a particularly expletive-ridden message came through. "Way too much cursing; the heck's going on out there?"
My new friend caught it much faster than I. "Mhmm, exclusion zone is disrupting slingshots."
Sure enough, once I stopped focussing on the rude words, he was correct. The entire reason for the gravity slingshots was to preserve fuel and reduce hull wear, both of which meant saving credits. Details were scant as the portable system struggled to decode so many high-powered bursts, but Railjacks of all things enforced the zone.
That, well, that explained a few things about my past-life's memories. First, they insisted the Zariman Ten Zero was a military ship, yet this was most definitely a colony vessel. Second, the Orokin running the show had enough influence to bring Railjacks to disrupt a slingshot route spoke leagues. Third, and perhaps the most worrying, I had a feeling this had something to do with why we were performing a Void jump from Saturn. A few solar rail jumps would get us to the Outer Terminus and provide a much better launching point.
We sat in silence, but this time it wasn't companionable. We'd caught a glimpse of something worrying, and it implied bad things were in store. I snuck a glance at Rell to see him no longer watching the screen. Instead, his attention was on the view through the viewport. He didn't look vulnerable, but I knew the other kids'd drive him out once the Zariman suffered the drive failure.
I planned to stick with him, but he needed a place to hide if I couldn't reach him in time.
"Rell?" It took a few seconds, but he eventually met my eyes. "Before your mom gets here, let me show you something cool." Once I got his interest, I pointed out the barely visible outline of a hatch near the door. "Lemme tell you about the maintenance tunnels that run under places like this..."
{LINE BREAK}
I'm starting to understand why Rell disliked hanging around the other children. The main dining hall for the family deck was huge, never emptied and was incredibly noisy. Parents and their children entered, queued up for food and then sat down to eat at one of the dozens of tables present. The entire thing was an intimidating sea of humanity that made me regret coming.
The moment I thought that my stomach rumbled, reminding me I had no choice in the matter. I needed food, and without dad here, it was up to me to do it on my... own. With my view of the food prep area obscured by an ever-shifting crowd, it would be a daunting task to achieve that. Gathering my fraying nerves, I wiped my hands on my envirosuit and set off into the unknown.
Like always, I stood out like a sore thumb, which meant negative attention from adults and kids alike. Muttered insults, dirty looks and more greeted me as I joined the closest line, leaving me feeling self-conscious. The caste-based stigma perpetuated by the Orokin was something I loathed, mostly because I always received it for existing. I kept my head down and focussed on putting one foot in front of the other, trying to ignore the comments.
By the time I reached the dispensers, the thought of sticking around quite honestly frightened me. I'd never been around so many higher-caste people before, and I'd grown up hearing enough tales about spacers getting assaulted to be comfortable here. A particularly foul look from a man who towered over me encouraged me to dispense half a dozen meal bars and all but run away.
The bars tasted like flavoured cardboard, but I'd grown up eating these and I needed the familiarity right now.
Food secured in a spare pouch, I caught sight of the teen who'd broken my nose through a gap in the crowd. He was sat at a table petting a Kubrow larger than he was. The enormous guard animal was clearly enjoying the attention, what with the tail thumping against the table leg. Oddly enough, he was alone, with no sign of the mooks he'd had in the blister.
I ducked out of sight before he could spot me, a move that allowed me to slip past a family entering the dining hall. Then, happily ignoring the glares sent my way by the parents, I walked away with a spring in my step. The further I moved from the crowds, the happier I became, though where would I eat my meal?
The blister was right out, Rell was with his mom, and Kay wasn't exactly a huge fan of my spending time with him. She still allowed it because I stuck up for him, but I knew she wouldn't appreciate me showing up to chat out of the blue. Dad's berth was right out; he was on shift and wouldn't be back for ages. I mulled over my other choices as I walked, sticking to out of the way corridors to avoid meeting anyone.
In the end, only one place provided the mix of privacy and comfort I needed right now. My knees hurt thinking about the multiple flights of stairs, but it would be more than worth it. Nodding to myself, I spent a minute recalling the route before setting off.
The number of people I saw lowered with every deck I descended, heading towards the core of the ship. The Zariman was split in two by the engineering section, with mirrored facilities on either half. It was an interesting arrangement that offered plenty of redundancy, though most never saw those areas. A series of elevators ran through the spine of the ship, ensuring the upper-class didn't have to lay eyes on the beings that kept the ship running.
I'm speaking, of course, about the Grineer.
If there was one place on the entire ship where nobody would find me, it's the Grineer barracks. Well, sub-deck is more accurate given its size, but Barracks felt better in my mind. Even after years of living alongside the clones, I half-expected to find them loaded down with weapons and bellowing battlecries. The only Grineer that even somewhat resembled those were the sort who worked with Dad, who required armour for protection.
The barracks were in sight when a voice piped up from behind me. "What're you doin?
"Aghhhh!" I screamed, trying to turn on the spot and run away simultaneously.
I quickly found myself landing on my butt with a painful thump. Blood pounding in my ears, it took me a moment to realize the white blob in my vision was a girl I vaguely recognized. Bone white hair framed a pair of curious blue eyes that matched the grin on her face. The staring match went on long enough I managed to recover some of my wits.
"Whuh?"
My horribly garbled question was met with giggles, the girl tilting her head to one side. "Whatcha doin?"
"What... am I doing?" Bemused and aching from the fall, I slowly leveraged myself upright. "I'm going somewhere to eat in peace."
Now that I got a good look at my ambusher, she was the girl whose parents had pulled her away from Dad and me. Compared to then, though, she was wearing a bodysuit similar to Rell's instead of the fashionable toga/robe things. That, combined with her evident curiosity, made me curious.
The girl looked me up and down. "Sounds fun. I'm coming with you!"
My response was a blank-faced stare, my mind unable to comprehend the tone shift. This girl goes from spooking the heck out of me only to declare she's coming with me? I searched for any sign of deception, though I can't say I'm great at that. She stayed where she was, leaning against the wall with a grin from ear to ear.
"Why?"
She shrugged, the grin fading a little. "Bored, got nothing to do. Heard you defended the weird kid and got punched for it. You're different from the others, so I followed you to see where you were going." She spoke fast enough for her words to bleed together.
It took me a second to translate it all. "I'm... going to meet my Dad's friends." More like family, but I didn't want to make us look stranger than we already were. "You ever met a Grineer?"
As I expected, she shook her head. Now it was time to see if her curiosity was strong enough to go all the way.
"If you're coming with me, you'll be seeing a ton of them." I flashed my own grin. "Still want to come now?"
The girl, who was around Rell's age, looked unsure. Very few people were comfortable around the clones, especially among the higher castes. I fully expected her to say no and leave, which was why I got blindsided by her acceptance.
Her attempt to look stern was foiled by the baby fat softening her face. "Yep!"
And there goes any chance of peace and quiet. "Okay, but follow my instructions, got it?" Where she showed no sign of leaving, I beckoned for her to follow. "When we get there, you need to say 'Frhuenr' and point to yourself."
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, she butchered the word. "Frueners?"
"Frhuenr," I stressed, the harsh Sednian word sounding off to my ears. "It sorta means friend in English, but not really. Just repeat it when we get there, and you'll be fine."
I earned a dubious nod before we descended the final flight of stairs. There were less blatant displays of wealth this far down, but more than enough to ensure you knew it was still Orokin-designed. What was of interest to me was the familiar ambulatory ferrite mountain that was Kaz facing away from us.
"KAZ!" The Grineer turned around just in time for me to wrap my arms around his leg.
He was by far the nicest of Dad's team, though it took him a few seconds to recognize me. One massive gauntlet descended and ever so gently tussled my hair, the action accompanied by a happy rumble.
"Little one." His heavily accented English was loud enough to be a Human's shout, but that was just his normal speaking volume. "Who with?"
I pulled away from the Grineer to see my tag-along observing the scene. She squeaked when Kaz spoke, hiding behind a nearby plant to avoid his gaze. I gave him a pat on the knee before pulling away to approach the girl.
"It's alright; Kaz is really friendly." I could just about see her eyes peering through the foliage, watching me. "I forgot to ask earlier; what's your name?"
"Kira." The act of speaking seemed to give her the confidence to peek her head out. "Is he really friendly?"
I turned to wave at Kaz. "C'mere, big guy." Once he was close enough, I pointed to the girl. "That's Kira; she's Frhuenr."
The clone digested my words for a minute before reaching up and removing his face mask. Pale yellow eyes peered out from a face just different enough to not look Human. While he certainly wouldn't win any beauty contests, he was much easier on the eyes than the degraded clones from my memories.
He laid a gauntlet to his chest. "Kaz, Frhuenr." The hand moved to point at a nervous Kira. "Kira, Frhuenr."
The white-haired pre-teen looked at me. "Is it safe to come out now?"
I giggled, waving her over. "Duh! He wouldn't hurt a fly, isn't that right?"
The Grineer took a knee with a rattle of ferrite plating and a thud that made the deck tremble. Even crouched, he was a foot taller than me, but I felt no danger in his presence, the opposite in fact.
"Kaz builds, not hurts." He declared, with a conviction, a religious fanatic would be jealous of.
Kira took her first hesitant steps towards the clone, curiosity starting to overcome fear. I stood back, letting her approach Kaz without interrupting the moment. She squeaked and screwed her eyes shut when he extended a hand, only opening them a few seconds later to stare at the single finger he'd extended.
His hands were way too large for us to shake, but Dad had taught him how to do it with one digit. I watched, struggling not to smile, as the girl gingerly wrapped her tiny hand around the armour-clad finger. Ever so slowly, practically glacial, Kira shook the Grineer's hand, once, twice, three times.
By the end, her grin had returned, and I fumbled through my pouches to retrieve a somewhat squished meal bar. The noise drew their attention, and I got to enjoy the sight of Kaz's face breaking out into a rare smile. He took the bar with the care of someone handling a baby chick, gently opening it with two fingers.
He then shoved the entire thing in his mouth and spoke around the bar. "Kaz likes tasty bars!"
{LINE BREAK}
Another day, another chapter.
Mara spends some time with her new friend, can't deal with large crowds and meets someone who'll play a big role... also Kaz, because Grineer are fun.
One more chapter before the Reliquary Drive Failure, which is when everything goes insane. It won't be happy, I can promise you that.
I don't know anything about Warframe, really, but I find I don't much care. This story is good; that's quite enough, and for the moment I'm able to enjoy it as a piece of original fiction.
That said, the 'Orokin'...
It might be coincidence, but I can't help but think the name just about translates to "Foolish ones". Is that reasonably accurate, I wonder?
The reference I'm making is to 愚か, of course. The creators don't seem to be Japanese, so I have no idea if it's deliberate or not, but from the impression I've gotten so far it seems likely.
I don't know anything about Warframe, really, but I find I don't much care. This story is good; that's quite enough, and for the moment I'm able to enjoy it as a piece of original fiction.
That said, the 'Orokin'...
It might be coincidence, but I can't help but think the name just about translates to "Foolish ones". Is that reasonably accurate, I wonder?
I'm happy to hear you think this is good enough to read without knowing about Warframe.
I will admit that a lot of this story will be my own interpretation because there's about a stub of information on what happened on the Zariman.
The reference I'm making is to 愚か, of course. The creators don't seem to be Japanese, so I have no idea if it's deliberate or not, but from the impression I've gotten so far it seems likely.
I honestly don't know if they can or not. I don't believe they can, but from what I remember the Zaraman had some unique circumstances behind it due to Orokin fueled stupidity and I don't know if that would effect the outcome either. So whether they can or not depends solely on the author in this case.
Side note, I say the Zaraman was unique because lore states that the Zaraman left without any kids on board when it was lost with all hands, yet there were kids when they found it again. That does imply that there was some dimensional mess going on, which isn't unprecedented as Limbo's whole thing is dimensional travel. This also explains why the Zaraman that left was a military ship yet the one that reappeared was a colony one, the two exchanged universes or something.
I don't know anything about Warframe, really, but I find I don't much care. This story is good; that's quite enough, and for the moment I'm able to enjoy it as a piece of original fiction.
That said, the 'Orokin'...
It might be coincidence, but I can't help but think the name just about translates to "Foolish ones". Is that reasonably accurate, I wonder?
Oro is also a word for gold in esperanto, italian, and spanish, with kin just referring to them as being part of the same group. Making the meaning of their name to something like "the golden people". And, if you take a look at Orokin archetecture, you could tell that they have a bit of an obsession with both the color and the metal.
Also worth mentioning is that they are all, almost without exception, HUGE pricks. And that's an understatement.
EDIT: Although I do agree that "Foolish Ones" is a very fitting descriptor.
Ekan Tethys awoke to the sound of someone knocking at the door. His sluggish movement to check the time activated the lights, bathing the compartment in warm yellow light. The clock showed 6 am shipboard, so the knocking confused him.
Who the hell would be looking for him at this time of the morning?
He made to get up, only for a pressure on his arm to draw him up short. A shock of blue hair emerged from beneath the duvet, a glance across the room showing an empty bed. He vaguely recalled waking up to movement sometime during the night, which probably meant Mara had snuck in then.
Gamely resisting the urge to chuckle, Ekan extracted his arm with the skill of long experience and softly pulled away. Then, holding his breath, he watched as his daughter mumbled something incomprehensible and rolled onto the vacated spot. Then, once he was sure she wasn't going to wake up, he snuck off the bed and went to greet the still-knocking visitor.
He was a little underdressed if they were someone important, but it was also bloody early. If his mysterious visitor couldn't handle the sight of Ekan in the body sleeve under armour, then they would have to suck it up and deal. However, he needn't have worried, for the door hissed open to reveal Kristof. The Auxillary Engineering Supervisor all but pushed him back into his berth before they slapped the door control.
"That Entrati bastard began the jump preparations early." The fear on his face backed up the blond's panicked whisper. "They've locked down the entirety of Engineering!"
There was only one 'Entrati Bastard' on board; the self-proclaimed Lord Navigator Quiran Hask-Entrati. The man was insane, even by the standards of that family. If the supervisor expected Ekan to react with horror, he was going to be disappointed.
Ekan clamped a hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "When?"
No sooner had the question left his mouth did a nigh-imperceptible hum reach his ears. Both men glanced towards the floor, where, twenty-seven decks below, the vast Reliquary Drive that allowed Void travel began to spool up. But, unlike his companion, who was getting paler by the second, Ekan felt only resignation.
He'd known this might happen... but failed to prevent it from occurring.
Kristof was much less accepting of the turn of events. As the hum of the charging drive built to a deafening crescendo, the other engineer's entire body started trembling. Ekan knew the signs of panic and ignored them in favour of moving to grab his duffle. He heard Mara awaken as he upended the bag onto the empty bed and cast it aside.
His trio of BCN-84 Plasma Cutters was quickly retrieved, each tool identical to its companions. He slipped one onto his belt before performing a ritual he'd never hoped to perform in these circumstances. Not even the growing pressure behind Ekan's eyes slowed him as he tore the shells apart to reveal the weapons concealed within.
Hidden for nearly a decade, the paired Mara Detrons had only ever been used in anger once. He brushed his hands over them to confirm they were still intact before holstering them where his tools usually went. He knew both Kristof and Mara would have seen it, and he turned in preparation to answer their questions.
In what was swiftly becoming an irritating trend, his plan was derailed by the Reliquary Drive activating. As the bone-deep thrum swept through his body, Ekan allowed himself the hope that the jump was perfectly normal. But the thrum continued, swiftly going beyond anyone's ability to hear. He still felt it, though, a sixth sense he'd always possessed screaming in a warning.
All he could do was mentally and physically brace himself when the drive failed... explosively. The blast was muted and brief, which meant the Entrati hadn't managed to override the safeguards built into every FTL engine. Unfortunately, that only meant the ship hadn't been split in half, rather than preventing the overcharged jump in the first place.
The results were immediate and heralded a fate far worse than death. What began with whispers at the edge of his hearing transitioned to phantom hands trailing across his skin. The touch of the Void was impossible to ignore, but Ekan resisted it when a scream battered at his ears.
It wasn't Mara- who was staring at the scene wide-eyed- screaming, but Kristof. The engineer hit the floor in a thrashing pile, limbs impacting every hard surface in reach with painful thumps. What Ekan first mistook as hallucinations took shape in the berth; iridescent balls of pseudo-light that began to converge on the occupants.
The seizing Kristof was the first affected, the floating lights phasing through his body without stopping. The engineer's screaming climbed the register with each contact before; mercifully, the noise stopped after the fifth such light. Ekan had time to note the bone shards emerging from Kristof's obviously broken legs before a curious sound drew his attention.
The lights had reached Mara... but she didn't scream or show any pain. What Ekan was suspecting was some manner of Void manifestation came to rest in his daughter's outstretched hand. As he watched, she closed her palm, and the sphere was absorbed into her body. The sound was Mara's delighted giggles being interrupted by pained wincing every time she absorbed a light.
Ekan spent so long gazing at the sight in wonder that he was caught blindsided by the first manifestation. In a moment that lasted for eternity and instantly, the Void's touch drowned out every other sensation. A cry of pain tore from his throat as the trailing fingers became vicious talons that tore at his very soul. The whispers became a damning chorus of wordless screams, any meaning lost in the agony that exploded behind his eyes.
He distantly felt his body hit the decking, but the Void's merciless assault prevented him from even opening his eyes. Rendered helpless, the only thing keeping his fraying sanity intact was the tiny hand gripping his own in a death grip. He couldn't hear Mara, but Ekan knew she was calling for him, and that gave him the power to fight back.
It was, by far, the worst pain he'd ever experienced in his life. Every cell in his body felt like it was on fire and doused in acid, to say nothing about the agonizing pressure in his head. But, bit by bit, he focussed on his daughter's touch, using it as a ladder to pull himself from the pit of madness that howled his name. It wasn't easy, but his body started to provide sensations that weren't mind-numbing pain.
The growl that drove spikes into his ears was a sound made by no human. Ekan's eye's snapped open to see Kristof lurching upright, their eyes bloody ruins. Gore stained fingers reached for Mara as the maddened engineer staggered forwards on shattered legs... but he didn't get far. His daughter's emerald orbs flashed purple before she whirled on the spot and thrust a hand out.
A coruscating, ravenous beam of energy briefly connected girl and man. It punched through the supervisor's chest without slowing before the man ceased to exist above the waist. Ekan's recovering sight was instantly obscured by the bloody mist that filled the berth, but that didn't stop him from catching his daughter when she fell.
With Mara's trembling and gore-soaked form in his arms, he felt the Void's touch lessen. Nothing in the last five minutes had many any sense, but one all-consuming through gave him the strength to struggle upright.
The Entrati had to die.
That had been the plan since he'd first caught wind of the Zariman, but now it was personal. The insane bastard had damned everyone onboard to lethal Void exposure. But, most importantly, as he helped a trembling Mara sit on a bunk, the Orokin had done something to his daughter. Ekan didn't know what it was, but children didn't just spontaneously develop the ability to kill grown men with energy beams.
"Mara?" He placed a hand on her jaw, suppressed the urge to snap her neck with a mental curse, and made her face him. "Kiddo, I need you to listen to me; can you do that?"
His daughter's blank-faced expression gradually returned to something approaching normal. Her eyes seemed to glow in the emergency lighting that had kicked on while he was seizing, but they eventually landed on him. His incredibly mature and brilliant daughter was on the verge of tears, and her response tore at his heart.
"Daddy?"
Confusion, horror and more filled a word that normally gave Ekan the urge to ruffle her hair. He caught himself before he did just that, lowering his bloody hand to rest it on her shoulder.
"I know nothing makes sense right now, but listen to Daddy, please?"
The second time was the charm in this case, for he abruptly received his daughter's full attention. In the corner of his eye, he noted the flecks of white light that coalesced around her clenched fists. While her mother had been a monster in human skin, they'd possessed that same ability to rebound from events that lesser people would break from. That only genuinely good thing that bitch had ever done in her life was giving birth to a brilliant little spitfire of a girl.
"You know what happened, yea?" He received a curt nod. "Alright, then you know what I need to do." That earned him a distraught shake of her head that had cyan hair whipping across his face. He squeezed a little harder than he intended, but it worked to get her teary eyes locked to his. "Mara, remember the Spacer's Creed."
"Save the ship, save the crew." She murmured, clearly fighting back the urge to say something else entirely. "You're... you're going to save the ship?"
"I'm going to try." He tried to sound confident, but whispers made him come across as pained. "There's... There are so many things I should have told you, but there's no time now. So I need you to do something for me, alright?"
"Anything."
Ekan had to glance away to avoid breaking down. "Don't follow me. Find your friends and hide." He wanted nothing more than to stay with her, but the murderous urges were getting harder to fight. "Please don't..."
"I'll do it." Her declaration was barely louder than a whisper, but she'd made it all the same.
Surprised, he looked up to see Mara gazing at him with shining eyes and a clenched jaw. No child her age should have ever needed to wear such a determined expression, but she was. The bloody mist coating her face was streaked with tear tracks, but beyond a wobbling lip, she managed to keep her composure. For a solitary, blissful moment, the Void's influence vanished from his mind.
Before the corruption could return, Ekan planted a tender kiss on her forehead. He made no attempt to halt the flow of tears running into his daughter's hair, though her own waterworks soaked the collar of his bodysuit. Then, breaking away from what was likely to be the last hug he ever gave Mara, he grabbed one of his Mara Detrons and pushed it into her hands. The pistol-shotgun looked massive clutched in her small hands, but she bore the weight with a grim acceptance that broke his heart.
It only took him a couple of minutes to don his hardsuit, the helmet sealing with a dull hiss. Ekan kept the faceplate down as he gathered everything he'd need for his final trip. His gaze lingered on a pair of drinking bulbs, the red-tinted fluid within seemingly moving on its own. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he slipped them into a pouch and turned back to Mara.
"I'll draw any adults away from this area; that should give you a clear run to the observation blister." A grin tugged at his lips when her eyes widened. "I know you've shown your friends the maintenance tunnels; use those to avoid getting caught." A blood-curdling howl from somewhere outside their berth highlighted the lack of time. "I love you, Mara; never forget that."
His daughter flung herself across the room for one last hug, her response muffled by the hardsuit. "I love you, Daddy!"
Ekan's hand drifted towards her thin, fragile neck to... He slammed that hand against the bulkhead, relishing the clarity it brought. Mara started at the noise, glanced up at his face and saw something that made her quickly pull away. Barely able to think beyond the whispers, phantom sensations and blinding headache, he moved towards the door, stepping over Kristof's corpse as he did. A lump of flesh squished beneath his boot, but as the door whisked open, he paused when Mara called out.
"Burn bright, Dad!" She said the ancient spacer farewell with enviable ease.
Having only learned it not long after she was born, Ekan took a second to recall the response. "Burn steady, Kiddo."
The door sealed shut behind him, leaving Ekan in a corridor devoid of life. Bloodstains marred a few doors, and a streak on the floor betrayed someone being dragged off, but that was it for disturbances. He managed half a dozen steps before slumping against the wall, and even that much nearly drove him to the floor. Ekan knew he'd drop dead long before he reached Engineering, but he had nothing... trembling fingers brushed against the glass and eventually retrieved one of the drinking bulbs.
He'd sworn a decade ago never to touch the stuff again, but it would give him the power he needed. Disgust warred with parental concern before, with hands that could barely hold a grip, he popped the lid off. The heady scent that filled his nostrils was like an old friend, despite having never used it in years. He hesitated, glanced back towards the berth, and downed the liquid in one go.
The Kuva hit his system like a runaway fusion reactor, liquid fire coursing through his veins that burned for one, long, glorious moment. Aches and pains he never recalled experiencing faded as his body eagerly accepted the distilled essence of life. Ekan knew it was a psychosomatic reaction from his Kuva-starved body getting a double dose, but he felt like he could do anything. His senses sharpened to the point he needed to seal his helmet lest the smell of blood overwhelms him, but it was a double-edged sword.
The Void's corruptive touch clawed at the walls of his mind, but Ekan now had the energy and the will to perform one final task. Mara Detron in one hand and Plasma Cutter in the other, he took off sprinting, screaming every insult he could recall at the top of his lungs. The noise drew the attention of the hostile kind, but the rabid adults that tried to rush him were put down like the animal they'd become. He soon found himself being pursued by a veritable horde of Void-crazed humans, but they had no hope of catching him.
With every blast of radioactive shrapnel or coruscating plasma beam he fired, people died. A madness he'd suppressed for the sake of his daughter grew as he shed blood in an orgy of violence. Crying tears of blood from eyes that were solid blue, Ekan prepared to finish the task he'd begun the day Mara was born. For that, he'd need to take a quick stop at the Grineer barracks. Even through the madness clawing at his sanity, he knew the team would be crucial for what came next.
There was no chance he would survive the encounter with Quiran, but his only regret was not being able to raise his daughter free of that House. He'd take her heritage to the grave with him if it were the last thing he ever did. Ekan bounded down the flights of stairs two at a time, murder on his mind and dealing death from his weapons.
A random thought caused him to burst out laughing, but there was no amusement to be heard. Ekan knew he was going insane, but that just caused him to howl as a man possessed.
Who better to kill a Void-maddened Entrati than their equally mad brother?
A shorter one today, at least, compared to the other chapters.
The next chapter will be from Mara's perspective with some Ekan at the end. I know I said the drive failure would have been chapter five, but the idea shoved its way into chapter four instead.
Sl Mara is also Orokin? Makes me feel like she will be ostracised even worse than original Rell for being void-corrupted. And it will be interesting to see how the Old War would go for her
