Chapter Nine: Star In The Void.
HarakoniWarhawk
Striking from the Skies
- Location
- Holy Terra
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My Muse wishes this written, so here we go! Something a tad happier cause even the Zariman has its bright spots.
Music for the chapter is from the Aviators.
Immy's Gramma had been fond of saying that Death was a person's best and closest friend.
Death was watching over you when you were born, she'd said, and they'd be with you every day of your life. Death wasn't one to discriminate, and they favoured everyone with equal and intimate attention, every hour of every day as you grew older. And then, when a person's life was coming to an end, Death was by your side, offering their bony hand to help you beyond this realm to where the dead resided.
But, in private, whispered to the younger members of Gramma's clan, Immy included, the family matriarch had always tapped her nose and said that not even the Orokin were safe from Death's attention. The Reaper kept track from their domain in the Void; she'd said, always watching and planning how best to claim the mortal debt the Orokin owed, and then...
They'd snap them up!
"Guess you were right in the end, Gramma," Immy whispered.
"And we got..." Tavor glanced up from his noteputer. "You say something, Immy?"
She shook her head. "Talking to myself is all. What were you saying?"
Her brother in all but name briefly frowned, but he kept his own council before returning to reading the tablet as they walked.
"We got one of the Corpsies back, Volan, though he's still a bit dazed..."
Now it was Immy's turn to frown. "We agreed to call them Death Dazed, Tavor, or Dee-Dee for short."
Personally, she thought even that was offensive to their fellow kids who died and ended up stunned afterwards, but the redhead wasn't willing to continue that argument. Instead, Tavor weathered her disapproval with his usual irreverence, though he at least looked momentarily ashamed about using the slang instead of the agreed term.
"Volan's on his feet, but he told Jules that he'd had a chat with his Reflection while he dreamt, and it helped him come back."
She didn't need to see Tavor's face to know he was a little unnerved by mentioning the Reflection, capitalisation fully intended. Immy cast her gaze about, but this section of D-24 was empty as she'd predicted, given it was the nominal sleep cycle for most of the kids aboard. So, assured none of her easier-frightened siblings was in earshot, the redhead broached the touchy subject.
"That makes Volan the sixth Dee-Dee who's spoken with it," she noted, lips thinning as she glanced at Tavor. "How is everyone taking the news?"
"You want the truth, or can I put a spin on things like Melica's lessons did?"
Immy pinched the bridge of her nose. "The truth, please."
"A few extra on the side of keeping the Weirdos about 'cause they know about the Reflection, but," Tavor waggled his hand. "But there's more wanting them kicked out for the same reasons."
He seemed like he was finished, but the raven-haired teen tucked his noteputer under one arm and slowed to a halt.
"Look, Immy, you know I'm with you till the end, but..."
"But what?" The redhead interrupted, motes dancing between her clenched fists. "Sol above, Tavor, I'm not tossing them out into the cold just because some of the others feel like they're weird!"
"I'm not saying that!" Her brother's brown eyes expressed his concern far better than words could.
"Then what are you saying?"
"But we might not have a choice when the Spacer kid drops dead from whatever's killing her," he finished softly. "Nobody wants to catch whatever she's got, and we both know her group are only sticking about 'cause they can't risk the trip back to D-27."
Immy whirled and drove a glowing fist into an engraved wall section, punching through the alloy and leaking shards as she removed her hand and sighed. The blow hadn't hurt, nor was she expecting it to, but the redhead wished this problem was solvable via excessive amounts of physical violence.
"Fucking stupid..." was as far as Immy got before she felt the Void's touch.
Her brother responded simultaneously, the otherworldly dimension's caress familiar yet carrying an undercurrent akin to a live wire burning hot. She closed her eyes and reached out to locate the source and found it right as a distant voice reached the redhead's ears and her esoteric senses.
'Sleeping in the cold below!'
Immy's feet were moving before her mind caught up, Tavor's presence a silent but reassuring companion as she felt the Void wax and wane in time with the strengthening song. And, as she recognised the route as leading to one of the several observatories on D-24, what the teen had taken to be one voice revealed itself as several harmonising with uncanny perfection. Mama had always said she'd had a good ear for music and the distinctive strains of an amateur Shawzin player trying to match the voices identified it as only one person; Kira.
And where the ivory-haired girl went, so too did the rest of the Weirdos, an apt if very offensive term for the odd group.
'Sisters! Below, below...'
Tavor stumbled with a cough, and Immy worriedly glanced at him, but he grimaced and continued on without offering an explanation. The song's approaching climax and the corresponding growth of the Void's touch had the pair skidding to a halt once they entered the observatory and beheld the spectacle within and without the chamber.
Arranged beneath the statue of Albrecht Entrati were the six members of the Weirdos, though only four of the five humanoids were small enough to be children and resonating with the Void. The improvised armouring on the kid's suits would have marked them out from the other children on the Zariman without Immy needing to see their faces, though she was tempted to follow their example. But regardless, Kira's fingers worked the Shawzin as Rell and Tanner gave voice to a song that struck the teen to her core. Mara's comparatively tiny form (especially compared to the sheer bulk of their Grineer companion) was hard to make out through the violet haze surrounding the Spacer. Yet, despite that, Immy knew the girl was channelling dangerous levels of power.
"Sis! Eyes up!"
Tavor's insistent hiss had the teen looking up through the observatory's dome to the swirling Void storm beyond... or more specifically, the hazy outline taking shape from the streamers of not-gas and ghostly lightning that filled the otherworldly space. It looked vaguely familiar as Immy squinted, but it wasn't until a split-second before the song abruptly ended in wet-sounding coughs that she recognised it as a Railjack, one of the Golden Lord's warcraft, wherein it promptly vanished.
What in Sol's name had she just witnessed?
Immy's body turned hazy as she reflexively drew on the Void to dash across the observatory towards the statue and the hunched form of Mara, the girl continuing to sound like she was hacking up a lung. Her charge met the ambulatory mountain of ferrite that was Kaz the Grineer, but he smoothly moved aside once he met the teen's concerned eyes. Tavor had worse luck with the group's Kubrow, who very nearly bowled the raven-haired boy over before a barked command from Tanner had the animal backing down.
D-24's unofficial (she didn't want the damn job) leader baulked as Mara waved off her companion's panicked fussing and managed a trembling smile through a crimson-streaked face. The purple-red veins under her face's right side stood out through the girl's clammy, pale skin, undeniably having spread since Immy last saw them and leaving the eye on that side bloodshot.
"S-Sorry about that," Mara coughed, bloody flecks marring her spacesuit. "Didn't mean to scare you, Boss Lady."
For once, the annoyance she felt from the irreverent nickname the Spacer insisted on giving her faded behind concern for the girl's failing health. Tanner attempted to shield his friend but backed down when the teen glared at him before pulling the shorter and younger Mara into a gentle hug.
"What were you thinking?" She demanded. "Sol, what in the Star's name was that?"
"A fool's errand," Kaz grumbled, surprising her, though the novelty of a smart Grineer had long faded.
Agreeing noises from Kiera and Tanner backed up his assessment, but dissent came from the shaven-haired figure of Rell, someone who Immy had briefly known before the disastrous Jump. Of course, the odd boy hadn't been someone she'd spoken with before, but his logical mindset was a treasure compared to all the other kids aboard.
"We have already proven that Eternalism holds sway on the Zariman Ten-Zero, and belief is just as important," he calmly interjected. "Attempting to summon rescue through Mara's method did nearly succeed."
Immy stiffened, recalling the ethereal Railjack. "The singing... was linked to the creepy see-through Railjack?"
"Tempestarii," Mara corrected.
"Huh?"
"The Railjack's name is the Temperstarii, a rescue vessel," here, the girl's eyes clouded. "It was there; I could feel it calling to me!"
That was as far as the cyan-haired Spacer got before she bent double as another round of wet coughs wracked her slim frame. False-light surrounded Tavor's outstretched hand as he laid it on her shoulder, but the Void's reassuring caress did little to ease the flow of crimson droplets staining the deck. Immy glanced around the group, concerned about the lack of healing, but felt her stomach sink as resignation graced their faces.
It wasn't that Mara's group didn't want to help her; they obviously couldn't treat whatever was afflicting the strange girl.
Immy regretfully allowed Kaz to pull Mara from her embrace and into his arms, the Grineer's expression betraying none of the fear she felt lurking in the Void. The Clone wasn't like the children, not entirely given they weren't human, but she had an inkling their condition was linked to Mara's failing health. The girl managed a shaky grin that hurt the teen to witness more than it reassured, with even that gesture fading as the Spacer fell into a restless slumber far too abrupt for Immy's liking.
"We will take our leave, Immeya," Kaz rumbled, using her full name. "Lady Mara needs her rest, but she wishes to speak with you at a later date."
Immy doubted there'd be a later, but she wasn't that much of a bitch to say it out loud. "A-Alright. I'll, uh, see you then?"
Internally, she cursed herself for sounding hesitant, but the Grineer merely nodded and departed in the direction of the far exit, Mara's fragile body gently cradled in his arms. Rell offered a solemn nod and went to follow, as did Tanner after the older body ordered his Kubrow to come rather than mournfully whine at the blood on the deck. Tavor's choked cough heralded an attempt on his part to perhaps offer to heal, but he caught himself and returned to Immy's side, radiating distress.
She was so caught up in watching the group vanish into D-24's halls that it took a high, thrumming note from Kira's Shawzin for the redheaded teen to realise the younger girl was still here. She hadn't moved or said anything since the singing had come to an abrupt end, something that changed as the white-haired pre-teen gave Immy and Tavor a tiny if genuine smile.
"Thanks for helping... We appreciate it, really."
Tavor let himself drop onto a nearby garden feature. "Was it going to work?" he asked. "The rescue attempt, I mean?"
"Maybe, probably not." Kira plucked her instrument's strings. "Wasn't meant to summon the Tempestarii, anyways."
"It wasn't?" Immy licked suddenly dry lips.
The ivory-haired girl continued to play a simple repeating tune, one high note followed by one low, though her gaze was fixed on a point over the redhead's shoulder. She glanced back and caught a blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpse of herself hanging upside down from a distant tree. Her Reflection, for that's what it was, jauntily waved and vanished with a burst of distant laughter.
Kira pointed the end of her Shawzin in the same direction. "Wally is trying to make a deal with Mara, but she's being stubborn." She said it with such casualness that Immy understood why the group were called Weirdos, but curiosity kept her listening. "He's curious more than anything, but I think Mara's risking too much to get a better offer."
"They why in Sol's name is she making deals with that thing?" Tavor demanded, nervously eyeing the surrounding foliage. "Hells, why didn't you stop her if you don't agree?!"
Kira laid her Shawzin against the statue's base and met the boy's eyes, offering a tiny shrug and a 'what can you do' expression in the way of a response.
"Mara's Mara, I couldn't stop her if I tried, and besides..." she offered a wry grin. "She's kept us alive this far, and you stick with your family, always, even if they're a thick-skulled Spacer that never backs down."
"That's..."
Immy laid a hand on her brother's shoulder. "Tav, that's enough."
He glared at her. "We can't just let them try this stuff alone! We have to do something."
"And we will," the redhead stressed before meeting Kira's curious gaze. "What can we help with, personally, that is?"
The white-haired girl held up a finger and turned away to rummage through a pack Immy hadn't seen sitting behind them. She watched, curious, as the younger kid retrieved a ruggedised noteputer a good deal bulkier than Tavor's and offered the device to her.
"Mara's written down the song and a few other things the Tenno should know," Kira explained as Immy powered up the pad. "Rell's done all the math stuff, but us four don't have enough Void juice to properly call the Tempestarii..."
"But there's eight-hundred and seven of us aboard," Tavor finished, trailing off briefly before his eyes lit up. "If you don't have enough power to send a distress beacon, pump more into the array!"
"Where'd you learn that?"
"Dad is..." The boy winced. "Dad was the Helmsman for the Zariman; he taught me a few things."
Immy's eyebrows were busy rising into her hairline as she read the song's lyrics. "No offence, Kira, but I'm pretty sure this song is about people dying."
"Of course, it is," the other girl replied. "How else do you call a Ghost Ship?"
She opened her mouth to dispute that but closed it and sighed because, while the logic was terrible by usual standards... It fit right in on the Zariman Ten-Zero. Anything remotely considered normal had been left behind with the adult's sanity and the physical realm, leaving Immy with powers beyond mortal ken and far too much on her plate.
"I'll see about giving this out, but no promises."
Kira shrugged.
"I don't expect those anymore, but who knows anymore?"
And wasn't that a rhetorical question that was going to haunt Immy's dreams for Sol knew however long... Well, that and a visit from her Reflection, the weirdo.
What did Kira call it?
Wally?
Impending death really has a way of changing how one regards the universe... or, in this case, how I interact with an eldritch being from beyond space and time whose true intentions are beyond mortal ken.
Also known as Wally.
"What was that thing."
I cracked open an eye and stared at Wally as he? She? It hung from the ceiling of the Wildcat station's control room. There was something darkly ironic about my having a better relationship with an eldritch entity from beyond the pale than a lot of the kids on board, but I wasn't in the mood to go down that rabbit hole.
What was a rabbit anyway? Some kind of mutant Pobber?
"A shadow," I answered. "Of something that doesn't exist... Or at least not yet."
Wally flickered and appeared atop one of the nearby consoles. "That's not an answer, Kiddo~."
The Void creature sounded annoyed, even with that damnable singsong tone they used. Still, I'd interacted with it enough in my dreams to recognise the curiosity burning underneath the uncanny facsimile of my face. Wally had the air and behaviour of someone who understood what emotions were but had trouble expressing them without sounding subtly off.
"A Shadow, literally a shadow of another being." I sat up and ran fingers through my shoulder-length hair. "I'm surprised you don't know this already, given you're basically a god in this dimension."
"It reeks of the Orokin; why?"
I glanced to the ceiling. "Sol, give me strength," I muttered, ignoring Wally's creepy (read: irritating) laughter. "It's something from the future, sorry; a possible future. That one is called Sevagoth, the Helmsman, master and commander of the Tempestarii." Then, seeing my unwelcome guest's pout, I gave up. "Fine, they're called Warframes..."
The dreamscape, and the Void it represented, rippled as a section of bulkhead melted, the semi-liquid structural alloy pooling on the deck before a shape took form not all that far from us. So, curious more than anything, I closed my eyes and dove into my past-life's memories for a suitable display for a visibly confused Wally. Time and trauma had dulled my recollection of vast swathes of the disjointed flashes of a life that was and yet wasn't mine, but the Warframes came through loud and clear.
The Void entity leapt off the console and stalked around the forming shape, their mimicry of my body failing in places as I reconstructed a Saryn from my memories. Her edges were blurred, and I knew the colours rippled like paint tossed against a wall, but the intimidating and illusionary flesh golem looked damn good even though she didn't exist yet, or perhaps never would.
"A container? No..." Wally muttered as he traced a hand across the illusion's flesh shoulder. "A vessel for what? Would the Orokin be so foolish to..." Then, blazing eye sockets, the colour and intensity of forges landed on me. "Ah, ah, ah, Kiddo, I know what you're doing~."
I shrugged. "I'm sweetening my end of the deal..."
The burning cold hand clamped around my throat killed my voice, but I kept my cool with nary a trembling lip as Wally invaded my personal space and glared at me with a shark-like grin that literally stretched from ear to ear.
No, seriously, there was razor teeth coming out of his ear lobes.
"You're dying, Kiddo," he hissed in my ear. "Deady, dead, dead until there's nothing left in that little head of..."
"I get it," I interrupted, smirking at the entity's surprised face. "You want to know what I know? Don't you?" With a mental tug, it was my turn to hang upside down from the station's ceiling. "I know you hate the Orokin for all the shit they've done to you, and so do I."
Wally's head rotated 180 degrees to face me, still grinning from ear to ear. "I'm listening, little Spitfire~."
"There'll come a time when the Golden Lords, in all their 'wisdom', create Warframes like her," I waved towards the walking bioweapon that was Saryn. "Even the Entrati..."
"THIEVES!"
I continued on without acknowledging the furious howl. "The brightest minds the Orokin possess, dedicated to weaponising the Void and the Tenno to combat their own wayward creations. Years of grinding conflict where their reliance on your realm grows while their strength wanes in the physical dimensions..." I trailed off expectantly.
And, as I'd predicted, the Lidless Eye, the Indifference, yada yada, licked his bloodless lips in an incredibly blatant hunger to know the rest. Wally was oddly human at this moment in time, expressing an overpowering desire for revenge through simple expressions and a burning need that resonated through the dreamscape. I dropped off the ceiling, sat at the only table present in the control room, and then smiled when the entity hurriedly joined me.
"There's a future where the Warframes and the Tenno that bond with them become known as Godhunters for, well, I'm sure you can guess."
I'd thought Wally's perpetual smirk couldn't get any larger, but the multiple rows of teeth morphing my doppelgangers' face into something from a Giger painting proved me wrong. Of course, each horizontal slash left behind less skin and way more teeth than I'd be comfortable with, but that was before I treated with a Void entity for my health and my family's safety. So, leaning back on the chair, I twisted the dreamscape to deposit two noteputers on the table and pushed one across to Wally.
The being cocked their eyeless head. "What's this, Kiddo?" Then, almost as an afterthought, he extended a hand.
"A contract," I stated, ignoring the handshake and implied deal. "I'm a Spacer; a deal isn't worth organic detritus pellets unless it's written down and signed."
There was a painfully long moment of inactivity from the entity before he hesitantly took the noteputer and looked at it. I almost quipped something from my past life, but common sense took that bit of my brain to the nearest airlock and ejected the fool.
"We'll start with punishing all the Orokin who've abused the Void and work our way down from there..."
When making a deal with the Void Cthulu always make sure to get it in writing.
Handshake deals are for suckers.
Music for the chapter is from the Aviators.
Immy's Gramma had been fond of saying that Death was a person's best and closest friend.
Death was watching over you when you were born, she'd said, and they'd be with you every day of your life. Death wasn't one to discriminate, and they favoured everyone with equal and intimate attention, every hour of every day as you grew older. And then, when a person's life was coming to an end, Death was by your side, offering their bony hand to help you beyond this realm to where the dead resided.
But, in private, whispered to the younger members of Gramma's clan, Immy included, the family matriarch had always tapped her nose and said that not even the Orokin were safe from Death's attention. The Reaper kept track from their domain in the Void; she'd said, always watching and planning how best to claim the mortal debt the Orokin owed, and then...
They'd snap them up!
"Guess you were right in the end, Gramma," Immy whispered.
"And we got..." Tavor glanced up from his noteputer. "You say something, Immy?"
She shook her head. "Talking to myself is all. What were you saying?"
Her brother in all but name briefly frowned, but he kept his own council before returning to reading the tablet as they walked.
"We got one of the Corpsies back, Volan, though he's still a bit dazed..."
Now it was Immy's turn to frown. "We agreed to call them Death Dazed, Tavor, or Dee-Dee for short."
Personally, she thought even that was offensive to their fellow kids who died and ended up stunned afterwards, but the redhead wasn't willing to continue that argument. Instead, Tavor weathered her disapproval with his usual irreverence, though he at least looked momentarily ashamed about using the slang instead of the agreed term.
"Volan's on his feet, but he told Jules that he'd had a chat with his Reflection while he dreamt, and it helped him come back."
She didn't need to see Tavor's face to know he was a little unnerved by mentioning the Reflection, capitalisation fully intended. Immy cast her gaze about, but this section of D-24 was empty as she'd predicted, given it was the nominal sleep cycle for most of the kids aboard. So, assured none of her easier-frightened siblings was in earshot, the redhead broached the touchy subject.
"That makes Volan the sixth Dee-Dee who's spoken with it," she noted, lips thinning as she glanced at Tavor. "How is everyone taking the news?"
"You want the truth, or can I put a spin on things like Melica's lessons did?"
Immy pinched the bridge of her nose. "The truth, please."
"A few extra on the side of keeping the Weirdos about 'cause they know about the Reflection, but," Tavor waggled his hand. "But there's more wanting them kicked out for the same reasons."
He seemed like he was finished, but the raven-haired teen tucked his noteputer under one arm and slowed to a halt.
"Look, Immy, you know I'm with you till the end, but..."
"But what?" The redhead interrupted, motes dancing between her clenched fists. "Sol above, Tavor, I'm not tossing them out into the cold just because some of the others feel like they're weird!"
"I'm not saying that!" Her brother's brown eyes expressed his concern far better than words could.
"Then what are you saying?"
"But we might not have a choice when the Spacer kid drops dead from whatever's killing her," he finished softly. "Nobody wants to catch whatever she's got, and we both know her group are only sticking about 'cause they can't risk the trip back to D-27."
Immy whirled and drove a glowing fist into an engraved wall section, punching through the alloy and leaking shards as she removed her hand and sighed. The blow hadn't hurt, nor was she expecting it to, but the redhead wished this problem was solvable via excessive amounts of physical violence.
"Fucking stupid..." was as far as Immy got before she felt the Void's touch.
Her brother responded simultaneously, the otherworldly dimension's caress familiar yet carrying an undercurrent akin to a live wire burning hot. She closed her eyes and reached out to locate the source and found it right as a distant voice reached the redhead's ears and her esoteric senses.
'Sleeping in the cold below!'
Immy's feet were moving before her mind caught up, Tavor's presence a silent but reassuring companion as she felt the Void wax and wane in time with the strengthening song. And, as she recognised the route as leading to one of the several observatories on D-24, what the teen had taken to be one voice revealed itself as several harmonising with uncanny perfection. Mama had always said she'd had a good ear for music and the distinctive strains of an amateur Shawzin player trying to match the voices identified it as only one person; Kira.
And where the ivory-haired girl went, so too did the rest of the Weirdos, an apt if very offensive term for the odd group.
'Sisters! Below, below...'
Tavor stumbled with a cough, and Immy worriedly glanced at him, but he grimaced and continued on without offering an explanation. The song's approaching climax and the corresponding growth of the Void's touch had the pair skidding to a halt once they entered the observatory and beheld the spectacle within and without the chamber.
Arranged beneath the statue of Albrecht Entrati were the six members of the Weirdos, though only four of the five humanoids were small enough to be children and resonating with the Void. The improvised armouring on the kid's suits would have marked them out from the other children on the Zariman without Immy needing to see their faces, though she was tempted to follow their example. But regardless, Kira's fingers worked the Shawzin as Rell and Tanner gave voice to a song that struck the teen to her core. Mara's comparatively tiny form (especially compared to the sheer bulk of their Grineer companion) was hard to make out through the violet haze surrounding the Spacer. Yet, despite that, Immy knew the girl was channelling dangerous levels of power.
"Sis! Eyes up!"
Tavor's insistent hiss had the teen looking up through the observatory's dome to the swirling Void storm beyond... or more specifically, the hazy outline taking shape from the streamers of not-gas and ghostly lightning that filled the otherworldly space. It looked vaguely familiar as Immy squinted, but it wasn't until a split-second before the song abruptly ended in wet-sounding coughs that she recognised it as a Railjack, one of the Golden Lord's warcraft, wherein it promptly vanished.
What in Sol's name had she just witnessed?
Immy's body turned hazy as she reflexively drew on the Void to dash across the observatory towards the statue and the hunched form of Mara, the girl continuing to sound like she was hacking up a lung. Her charge met the ambulatory mountain of ferrite that was Kaz the Grineer, but he smoothly moved aside once he met the teen's concerned eyes. Tavor had worse luck with the group's Kubrow, who very nearly bowled the raven-haired boy over before a barked command from Tanner had the animal backing down.
D-24's unofficial (she didn't want the damn job) leader baulked as Mara waved off her companion's panicked fussing and managed a trembling smile through a crimson-streaked face. The purple-red veins under her face's right side stood out through the girl's clammy, pale skin, undeniably having spread since Immy last saw them and leaving the eye on that side bloodshot.
"S-Sorry about that," Mara coughed, bloody flecks marring her spacesuit. "Didn't mean to scare you, Boss Lady."
For once, the annoyance she felt from the irreverent nickname the Spacer insisted on giving her faded behind concern for the girl's failing health. Tanner attempted to shield his friend but backed down when the teen glared at him before pulling the shorter and younger Mara into a gentle hug.
"What were you thinking?" She demanded. "Sol, what in the Star's name was that?"
"A fool's errand," Kaz grumbled, surprising her, though the novelty of a smart Grineer had long faded.
Agreeing noises from Kiera and Tanner backed up his assessment, but dissent came from the shaven-haired figure of Rell, someone who Immy had briefly known before the disastrous Jump. Of course, the odd boy hadn't been someone she'd spoken with before, but his logical mindset was a treasure compared to all the other kids aboard.
"We have already proven that Eternalism holds sway on the Zariman Ten-Zero, and belief is just as important," he calmly interjected. "Attempting to summon rescue through Mara's method did nearly succeed."
Immy stiffened, recalling the ethereal Railjack. "The singing... was linked to the creepy see-through Railjack?"
"Tempestarii," Mara corrected.
"Huh?"
"The Railjack's name is the Temperstarii, a rescue vessel," here, the girl's eyes clouded. "It was there; I could feel it calling to me!"
That was as far as the cyan-haired Spacer got before she bent double as another round of wet coughs wracked her slim frame. False-light surrounded Tavor's outstretched hand as he laid it on her shoulder, but the Void's reassuring caress did little to ease the flow of crimson droplets staining the deck. Immy glanced around the group, concerned about the lack of healing, but felt her stomach sink as resignation graced their faces.
It wasn't that Mara's group didn't want to help her; they obviously couldn't treat whatever was afflicting the strange girl.
Immy regretfully allowed Kaz to pull Mara from her embrace and into his arms, the Grineer's expression betraying none of the fear she felt lurking in the Void. The Clone wasn't like the children, not entirely given they weren't human, but she had an inkling their condition was linked to Mara's failing health. The girl managed a shaky grin that hurt the teen to witness more than it reassured, with even that gesture fading as the Spacer fell into a restless slumber far too abrupt for Immy's liking.
"We will take our leave, Immeya," Kaz rumbled, using her full name. "Lady Mara needs her rest, but she wishes to speak with you at a later date."
Immy doubted there'd be a later, but she wasn't that much of a bitch to say it out loud. "A-Alright. I'll, uh, see you then?"
Internally, she cursed herself for sounding hesitant, but the Grineer merely nodded and departed in the direction of the far exit, Mara's fragile body gently cradled in his arms. Rell offered a solemn nod and went to follow, as did Tanner after the older body ordered his Kubrow to come rather than mournfully whine at the blood on the deck. Tavor's choked cough heralded an attempt on his part to perhaps offer to heal, but he caught himself and returned to Immy's side, radiating distress.
She was so caught up in watching the group vanish into D-24's halls that it took a high, thrumming note from Kira's Shawzin for the redheaded teen to realise the younger girl was still here. She hadn't moved or said anything since the singing had come to an abrupt end, something that changed as the white-haired pre-teen gave Immy and Tavor a tiny if genuine smile.
"Thanks for helping... We appreciate it, really."
Tavor let himself drop onto a nearby garden feature. "Was it going to work?" he asked. "The rescue attempt, I mean?"
"Maybe, probably not." Kira plucked her instrument's strings. "Wasn't meant to summon the Tempestarii, anyways."
"It wasn't?" Immy licked suddenly dry lips.
The ivory-haired girl continued to play a simple repeating tune, one high note followed by one low, though her gaze was fixed on a point over the redhead's shoulder. She glanced back and caught a blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpse of herself hanging upside down from a distant tree. Her Reflection, for that's what it was, jauntily waved and vanished with a burst of distant laughter.
Kira pointed the end of her Shawzin in the same direction. "Wally is trying to make a deal with Mara, but she's being stubborn." She said it with such casualness that Immy understood why the group were called Weirdos, but curiosity kept her listening. "He's curious more than anything, but I think Mara's risking too much to get a better offer."
"They why in Sol's name is she making deals with that thing?" Tavor demanded, nervously eyeing the surrounding foliage. "Hells, why didn't you stop her if you don't agree?!"
Kira laid her Shawzin against the statue's base and met the boy's eyes, offering a tiny shrug and a 'what can you do' expression in the way of a response.
"Mara's Mara, I couldn't stop her if I tried, and besides..." she offered a wry grin. "She's kept us alive this far, and you stick with your family, always, even if they're a thick-skulled Spacer that never backs down."
"That's..."
Immy laid a hand on her brother's shoulder. "Tav, that's enough."
He glared at her. "We can't just let them try this stuff alone! We have to do something."
"And we will," the redhead stressed before meeting Kira's curious gaze. "What can we help with, personally, that is?"
The white-haired girl held up a finger and turned away to rummage through a pack Immy hadn't seen sitting behind them. She watched, curious, as the younger kid retrieved a ruggedised noteputer a good deal bulkier than Tavor's and offered the device to her.
"Mara's written down the song and a few other things the Tenno should know," Kira explained as Immy powered up the pad. "Rell's done all the math stuff, but us four don't have enough Void juice to properly call the Tempestarii..."
"But there's eight-hundred and seven of us aboard," Tavor finished, trailing off briefly before his eyes lit up. "If you don't have enough power to send a distress beacon, pump more into the array!"
"Where'd you learn that?"
"Dad is..." The boy winced. "Dad was the Helmsman for the Zariman; he taught me a few things."
Immy's eyebrows were busy rising into her hairline as she read the song's lyrics. "No offence, Kira, but I'm pretty sure this song is about people dying."
"Of course, it is," the other girl replied. "How else do you call a Ghost Ship?"
She opened her mouth to dispute that but closed it and sighed because, while the logic was terrible by usual standards... It fit right in on the Zariman Ten-Zero. Anything remotely considered normal had been left behind with the adult's sanity and the physical realm, leaving Immy with powers beyond mortal ken and far too much on her plate.
"I'll see about giving this out, but no promises."
Kira shrugged.
"I don't expect those anymore, but who knows anymore?"
And wasn't that a rhetorical question that was going to haunt Immy's dreams for Sol knew however long... Well, that and a visit from her Reflection, the weirdo.
What did Kira call it?
Wally?
Impending death really has a way of changing how one regards the universe... or, in this case, how I interact with an eldritch being from beyond space and time whose true intentions are beyond mortal ken.
Also known as Wally.
"What was that thing."
I cracked open an eye and stared at Wally as he? She? It hung from the ceiling of the Wildcat station's control room. There was something darkly ironic about my having a better relationship with an eldritch entity from beyond the pale than a lot of the kids on board, but I wasn't in the mood to go down that rabbit hole.
What was a rabbit anyway? Some kind of mutant Pobber?
"A shadow," I answered. "Of something that doesn't exist... Or at least not yet."
Wally flickered and appeared atop one of the nearby consoles. "That's not an answer, Kiddo~."
The Void creature sounded annoyed, even with that damnable singsong tone they used. Still, I'd interacted with it enough in my dreams to recognise the curiosity burning underneath the uncanny facsimile of my face. Wally had the air and behaviour of someone who understood what emotions were but had trouble expressing them without sounding subtly off.
"A Shadow, literally a shadow of another being." I sat up and ran fingers through my shoulder-length hair. "I'm surprised you don't know this already, given you're basically a god in this dimension."
"It reeks of the Orokin; why?"
I glanced to the ceiling. "Sol, give me strength," I muttered, ignoring Wally's creepy (read: irritating) laughter. "It's something from the future, sorry; a possible future. That one is called Sevagoth, the Helmsman, master and commander of the Tempestarii." Then, seeing my unwelcome guest's pout, I gave up. "Fine, they're called Warframes..."
The dreamscape, and the Void it represented, rippled as a section of bulkhead melted, the semi-liquid structural alloy pooling on the deck before a shape took form not all that far from us. So, curious more than anything, I closed my eyes and dove into my past-life's memories for a suitable display for a visibly confused Wally. Time and trauma had dulled my recollection of vast swathes of the disjointed flashes of a life that was and yet wasn't mine, but the Warframes came through loud and clear.
The Void entity leapt off the console and stalked around the forming shape, their mimicry of my body failing in places as I reconstructed a Saryn from my memories. Her edges were blurred, and I knew the colours rippled like paint tossed against a wall, but the intimidating and illusionary flesh golem looked damn good even though she didn't exist yet, or perhaps never would.
"A container? No..." Wally muttered as he traced a hand across the illusion's flesh shoulder. "A vessel for what? Would the Orokin be so foolish to..." Then, blazing eye sockets, the colour and intensity of forges landed on me. "Ah, ah, ah, Kiddo, I know what you're doing~."
I shrugged. "I'm sweetening my end of the deal..."
The burning cold hand clamped around my throat killed my voice, but I kept my cool with nary a trembling lip as Wally invaded my personal space and glared at me with a shark-like grin that literally stretched from ear to ear.
No, seriously, there was razor teeth coming out of his ear lobes.
"You're dying, Kiddo," he hissed in my ear. "Deady, dead, dead until there's nothing left in that little head of..."
"I get it," I interrupted, smirking at the entity's surprised face. "You want to know what I know? Don't you?" With a mental tug, it was my turn to hang upside down from the station's ceiling. "I know you hate the Orokin for all the shit they've done to you, and so do I."
Wally's head rotated 180 degrees to face me, still grinning from ear to ear. "I'm listening, little Spitfire~."
"There'll come a time when the Golden Lords, in all their 'wisdom', create Warframes like her," I waved towards the walking bioweapon that was Saryn. "Even the Entrati..."
"THIEVES!"
I continued on without acknowledging the furious howl. "The brightest minds the Orokin possess, dedicated to weaponising the Void and the Tenno to combat their own wayward creations. Years of grinding conflict where their reliance on your realm grows while their strength wanes in the physical dimensions..." I trailed off expectantly.
And, as I'd predicted, the Lidless Eye, the Indifference, yada yada, licked his bloodless lips in an incredibly blatant hunger to know the rest. Wally was oddly human at this moment in time, expressing an overpowering desire for revenge through simple expressions and a burning need that resonated through the dreamscape. I dropped off the ceiling, sat at the only table present in the control room, and then smiled when the entity hurriedly joined me.
"There's a future where the Warframes and the Tenno that bond with them become known as Godhunters for, well, I'm sure you can guess."
I'd thought Wally's perpetual smirk couldn't get any larger, but the multiple rows of teeth morphing my doppelgangers' face into something from a Giger painting proved me wrong. Of course, each horizontal slash left behind less skin and way more teeth than I'd be comfortable with, but that was before I treated with a Void entity for my health and my family's safety. So, leaning back on the chair, I twisted the dreamscape to deposit two noteputers on the table and pushed one across to Wally.
The being cocked their eyeless head. "What's this, Kiddo?" Then, almost as an afterthought, he extended a hand.
"A contract," I stated, ignoring the handshake and implied deal. "I'm a Spacer; a deal isn't worth organic detritus pellets unless it's written down and signed."
There was a painfully long moment of inactivity from the entity before he hesitantly took the noteputer and looked at it. I almost quipped something from my past life, but common sense took that bit of my brain to the nearest airlock and ejected the fool.
"We'll start with punishing all the Orokin who've abused the Void and work our way down from there..."
When making a deal with the Void Cthulu always make sure to get it in writing.
Handshake deals are for suckers.
