Sentient Worm

[Darkphoenixlady]

Refit and design

With her lab now set up, and the appearance at a Relay looming, Margulis takes her portable engineering setup to the old Orokin lab and looks at it thoughtfully. The organic suspension tube looks like it could be promising. Quickly heading back to the Orbiter with her Mag she looks at the foundry.

"Ordis, is there any way to get designs out of the foundry?"

"No Ma'am, the system was specifically designed to store all designs as energy imprints, so that they could be purged in the event the orbiter was compromised."

"Two questions, why do you call me Ma'am and the other two Operator, or occasionally Lotus? Also, where has this sudden knowledge come from?"

"Ma'am is Orokin, Ordis precepts preclude addressing you as anything but. Ordis has also been communicating with Cephalons Suda and Cy about the history of the Orbiter. It is frustrating as Ordis has forgotten so much. Though Ordis is starting to believe it was self-inflicted during Ordis' capture by the Grineer."

"Mercury Mines, this is unacceptable. Ordis, I need you to dock the Orbiter in the dry dock, and then take the lander and go do something elsewhere."

"Ma'am what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to overhaul the systems in here, so that things like the foundry aren't crippled. I'll also give you a better computing core and powerplant while I'm at it. Might as well add a prototyping system to the foundry, as well as a recording function so that we no longer need to keep looking for the same blueprints all the time. Why they decided to call them blue prints I have no idea, they're really skeletal structures that the system grows the finished product on. While I've got the ship in the dry dock I'll also repair the damaged rooms so that they're airtight again. That will give us some more space, maybe…"

Ordis quietly docks the Orbiter and leaves while Margulis continues to think aloud.

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It's almost two weeks later when an irritated Anet boards the Orbiter, "Margulis, what do you think you're doing?"

Margulis pulls her head out of a panel in the wall, "Oh, hey I've made you a series of gardens below the Dry Dock, just take the elevator from the back. It's two floors down. Each one has its own EmMat and interface system as well as a whole pile of organic material I bought cheap from the corpus. I recommend switching off your sense of smell before you go in though."

Anet turns around to look at her new gardens before, with an effort, she stops and turns back to Margulis. "That's not what I'm here for. You've been holed up in here for 8 days, Taylor's been playing in your lab, and I've been stuck using Cy to run Railjack missions because the Orbiter is currently out of commission. We also need to make an appearance at a relay in two days time. You need to get the Orbiter operational in the next few hours and then work with me to differentiate our spectres."

"Oh, has it really been that long? Sorry, I lost track of time. Let me just put this panel back on and it's done. Oh, and I turned the old Orokin lab into a spectre design studio. The specimen tube will how hold a spectre and allow you to change the features and textures. There's also a wardrobe function, where you can upload a scan of clothes, or scan them there and then. Those can then be applied to the spectre and recoloured as required. What else was there. Oh, yes if you use implants to do the design, the spectre will have a full suite of implants. If you use the simple interface, it will only have the implants required to use those interfaces. There, done."

"Margulis, if all you needed to do was replace a panel, what have you been doing?"

"Oh, well I designed your gardens and got Emmy to make them. I upgraded the Orbiter systems to use full Orokin tech with the simple interfaces left behind. Then I redesigned the systems so that EmMats are decoupled from the computer system. I tested them too with my sentient body. They work 5% slower, but in return making a direct connection, as another Sentient would do, requires that you manually control 10 to the 7 processes individually. Granted, that's to make a strand of DNA. However, connecting through the implants provides a simplified interface, still more complicated than the ones in my lab, but I think it would be safe to roll it out as a blueprint to the ships cephalons. I did a similar thing with the Mod station, it works the same way through the simple interface. But if you use your implants it has a full programming suite and can be used to copy Mods onto new chips too. I've upgraded the arsenal so that it doesn't use the pad anymore, instead it uses EmMats that I've installed around the ship. The transference room now has three sentient compatible pods in it, and I've hidden all the hideous cabling. It's also now the default location that our Warframes will appear. On the second floor there's a standalone maintenance room with research grade EmMats and sensors in it. I've also made a separate entertainment room to the existing Living Quarters. There was one more thing I did. Oh that was it. I made a cuddling room that also holds Taylor's plushie collection. It has the most extravagant bed I could remember seeing, set at floor level as well as shelves around the room for all of the Plushies."



"Margulis, has anyone ever told you that you have the attention span of a verine?"

"Hey, I'm not that bad."

"How many projects do you have on the go?"

"38, no 37."

"And how many are you working on right now?"

"Five." – Anet just looks at her while they're heading to the Orokin lab – "Ok, maybe I am that bad."

"How did you get anything done back then?"

Margulis reluctantly admits, "One of the people helping me with the Tenno was there to take notes and keep me on track. I also needed to sleep otherwise I'd start falling over randomly. Oh, and can I scan your subframe in detail at some point, I have a theory I want to check out. If I'm right, Taylor and I won't need whatever facilities are buried beneath Deimos. Don't get me wrong, I'd still like to see them. However, I think you could persuade our bodies to grow one."

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While they're looking at the spectres, Anet chooses to just go with her iconic outfit and helmet. As soon as she's confirmed that choice, she sends her subframe to Margulis' lab while her main frame leaves to play in her new gardens.

As she walks in, she calls out to Taylor, "Hey Taylor, what have you been doing?"

"Oh, hey. I've been trying to make a pistol from my home world. It's been an interesting exercise in using my implants to control the equipment in here."

"Any luck?"

"I think I've got the design for bullets down, but I'm struggling with the propellent and ignition cap."

"Bullets?"

Taylor laughs, "Yeah, I know. With what we have here it seems ridiculous, but it's what we used on earth. A solid slug of lead travelling at around the speed of sound at sea level on earth and entirely chemically powered. To the point where the escaping gas from the explosion would automatically load the next bullet. I'm also learning chemistry at the same time, as I need something that's explosive enough to fire the bullet, but not so explosive that it damages the gun in the process."

"I see. What advantage does it have over the weapons we use?"

"Absolutely none, I just wanted to make one. Actually, there may be one, maybe possible advantage. It doesn't rely on anything except mechanical action and the chemical propellent in the bullet. Even that would be so situational as to be not worth using because of it. The actual gun is on the side over there."



Anet is still looking at the gun, trying to get her head around how it works, when Margulis comes in, and zeroes in on the gun like a corpus after a profit opportunity.

"What's this?"

"It's a primitive weapon from Taylor's home. Apparently, it fires solid slugs using explosions. There's no electronics, no systems to take control of, the worst I can think of doing to it is blocking one or more of the gears in it."

"Wait! Really?"

"Yep, I can't get my head around how it's supposed to work though."

Margulis holds out a hand, "Do you mind if I have a look?"

"No, go ahead."



Taking the gun, Margulis lays it down on a corner of the table that Taylor isn't using. Taking a scan of the entire structure she projects it in the centre of the room.

"Hmm, a carbon ferrous alloy for the body and moving parts. Long chain polymers for the padding on the grip. Smooth cylinder along the inside of the length of the weapon. Taylor does the bullet have any form of spin inherently?"

"Not that I know of, why?"

"I'm just taking your plans for a bullet, right, how fast should one of these exit the weapon at?"

Anet looks on in interest, "Taylor said around the speed of sound at sea level on earth."

"Right, so if we project the paths of 10,000 rounds fired from this point, we get a circle around 100mm across at 50m. If I impart an angular momentum of 50m/s and run the same simulation it produces a circle around 5.78mm. So add two grooves, that imparts 10m/s, 4 grooves is 25, 6 grooves is 36. 8 is 35, the barrel is probably too short. So if we then run the simulation again with just the bullet travelling with 6 grooves, we get… a circle 6mm in diameter. Taylor, this is absolutely genius for its simplicity. If you'd suggested this design before we locked away your memories, you'd have been immediately elevated to one of the most prestigious Orokin alive at the time. Of course, you'd have probably died shortly after that as you wouldn't have been given a Warframe."

Anet looks confused, "I don't get it. Why is this so revolutionary?"

"That's just it, it isn't revolutionary. In fact it's positively crude, which is why it would have been so important. Let's look at a Lato in comparison," – she brings up a Lato next to the pistol – "they look similar at first glance. Now see this large part under the barrel on the Lato, that's where the electronics and material for the rounds go. It has a smart material reservoir that you fill, and an exhaust port for the spent material. Taylors gun instead ejects the spent material after every shot. The Lato has to be preconfigured with the sort of bullets it's going to fire. Taylors gun doesn't. Instead you can load any combination of bullets you want and it will fire those. The Lato can be reconfigured to adjust range, muzzle velocity, and even the spin imparted on the bullet, Taylors gun can't. The Lato is packed full of technology to do all of that, Taylors gun has none. The Lato links to smart aiming systems automatically. Taylors gun can't. Normally, this would make the Lato the superior choice in just about every situation.

"However sentients exist. Suddenly, most of those plus points on the Lato become downsides, and the limitations on Taylors gun become positives. Because of the clip system, Taylor! You need a stronger spring in your design. You can have a smart clip that takes smart-material and converts it to bullets for the gun. Because the clip is also in a known location on the weapon, the clip could also connect to a smart aiming system. You could also trivially make an auto reloader that you place a clip in and it fills it with freshly manufactured bullets. When you come across a Sentient, your bullets are already loaded so they can't disable your weapon without interfering with the mechanics, which are far less sensitive than the systems in the Lato. In many cases it looks like a hard tap would also dislodge most attempts to prevent the weapon from working.

"In the current climate, with Sentients being a myth again, everyone would pick the Lato as it uses less material per shot, and it has far more customisation options. As and when the Sentients start to come out of the asteroids again, well. A purely mechanical weapon system will be worth a lot. Probably only to the Grineer though, as the corpus have too much augmentation to worry about having their weapons disabled."

Taylor calls over, "We used the same basic theory for nearly all our guns, from fully automatic weapons that could fire thousands of rounds a minute, to massive cannons that launched shells as thick as Mag's thigh. Though the latter need reloading manually. The biggest problem is that our weapons only need smart material with the right composition to work, while different style guns need different bullets, even amongst the same class of weapon. From a resource point of view, unless you can utilise smart materials somehow, this gun will only ever be a novelty. Anyway, didn't you want to examine Anet's subframe, that she has kindly left here while she's doing something else."

"You're right!"

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Margulis leads Anet over to a large pad on the floor, "I'd like you to stand here. I'm going to construct a tube around you and fill it with argon. Once that's done I'm going to use the EmMat above you to scan you down to the molecular level. Do you think you can remain absolutely motionless for 10 seconds, or do I need to manufacture some restraints?"

Anet nods.



Margulis walks away and a transparent sapphire cylinder forms around Anet. When the scan begins, the gas glows from the energy being used in the process. As it finishes and Margulis is looking at the results, she suddenly flies into the air in a rapid spin.

"I was right, I was right!"

Releasing Anet with a wave of her hands, Taylor walks over from her tinkering, "What were you right about?"

"Look at this, see how the cell structure is identical to a scan of a human?"

They both nod.

"But if you look at the molecular composition, they're completely different. Your systems converted each and every cell in my body into it's own little machine."

Anet frowns, "Wouldn't that mean I should be able to change this part of me the same as I do my main chassis?"

"No, that's just it. So our bodies are made from nanoscale components that can reconfigure on the fly. Our systems and intelligence are all predicated on the sheer quantity of the right components. When I scanned myself, I identified 500 distinct components, 10 of which are involved in our intelligence. The human body only has 200 distinct types of cell, 3 of which are brain neurons. What Anet's systems did is create new components to replace the cells in my body one by one, including my egg cells. If we can find your DNA Taylor, then we can create a fertilised egg cell for you and convert it into one of these machines. Implant that cell on your connectors and it should grow you a body in around 6 weeks. Of course, as I'm your daughter I should take an egg from each of you and combine them for my own body…"

"OI!"

"I'm serious."

"How certain are you?"

"I'm not. Oh the theory is sound, but I can't simulate it as it's too complex for the systems we have here. It might still be better to find the flash cloning technology that we used to extend our lives. As oppose to the cloning technology that we used to create the Grineer."

Anet stops to think, "Wait, does that mean I could have human children?"

Margulis shakes her head, "No, you could have children the human way, but your eggs probably can't be fertilised naturally. Doesn't mean you couldn't have fun finding out though."

Anet looks vaguely repulsed by the idea, "No thanks, I think I'll stick to Taylor. And maybe you, depending on how things pan out."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Moving On

Nervously, Anet and Margulis step out of the lander onto the Strata Relay. Anet especially, as she's going to be trying to pilot a Warframe at the same time, once Ordis reaches the Orcus Relay.



Initially, they're just another couple of faces on the relay, even when they arrive at the concourse. Because of this, they lean against a railing to watch the world go by.

"How long do you think it will be before we're recognised?"

"A minute?"

"I say 5."

"30 second buffer, what's the wager?"

"You'll help me in the lab for a day."

Anet nods, "Fair, you'll do a full day of missions."

"Hey!"

"Add to that, if we both lose, we still have to cover the bet."

"Fine!"



It was exactly 3 minutes and 25 seconds later when the first Tenno recognised The Lotus helmet and approached.

"Are you The Lotus?"

Anet smiles, "I am, and this is Margulis."

The Tenno pops out of their Ash, "But you died."

Margulis looks at the Tenno gravely, "I was supposed to have. Sentenced by my own husband to the Jade Light. I didn't wake up after my sentencing until Taylor, with Anet, pulled me out of a pod. They were there to rescue The Lotus after Ballas kidnapped her."

Anet takes over, "Given the re-emergence of Ballas, both of us will be staying at a secure location and only appearing remotely."

All of which had the benefit of being true, even though it was also highly misleading. What they didn't know is that the Station Manager had recognised them within seconds of their arrival, and had started Holo Recording and prepping the additional concourse floors for use. It's a song and dance they, and their staff, were well used to, as some of the famous designers would occasionally visit unexpectedly. It was still annoying.



Back on the concourse, the First Tenno had messaged their clan to report the return of the Lotus before leaving their frame. They had then messaged their own friends, and the closest of the Tenno not currently busy were just streaming into the concourse now.

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Taylor and Anet arrive on the Orcus relay and start to do some of their standard business with the syndicates. When they check in on Darvos, he looks up from his console.

"Is it true that you rescued The Lotus and Margulis?"

Taylor glances at Anet, "Where did you hear that?"

"Haven't you heard, they've turned up at the Strata Relay, and named both of you as having rescued them."

"Fuck, there goes my quiet life. I asked them to keep that quiet."

"Darvos promises to tell no one of this conversation."

"You've sold the information already, haven't you."

In his office on Venus, Darvos glances down at his console, where he has confirmed the rumour as true, before looking up. "Of course not, customer confidentiality is very important to me."

Taylor looks at him shrewdly, "10% discount on future purchases for the money you've just earned from my outburst."

Darvos grouses, "And this is why I hate dealing with you Taylor."

"You know you love it. I keep you on your toes."

"Yeah, yeah, do you want to buy anything?"

"Let's see what you've got before I answer that."

"Certainly, and you might as well earn that discount. Is it true that Margulis' husband kidnapped The Lotus?"

"Ex-husband, I think most people would agree that sentencing your wife to death, is pretty much a death knell to any marriage."

"What about the fact that Sentients were involved."

Taylor and Anet share another glance, and Anet says, "I can confirm that is true."

"How about the fact that Sentients were holding Margulis?"

"They were, though they weren't aware of that fact. Probably the only reason she's still alive now."

There's a pause, and suddenly Darvos asks, "How about the fact that you and The Lotus are the same person."

"Darvos, I'm here, answering your questions. Given the fact you keep looking down, you must be getting the information from somewhere."

Darvos sighs, "Fair, not even Tenno can actually be in two places at the same time. Even though you often fake it really well."

Taylor laughs, "It's an artifact of transference, those of us that have awoken again can leave what most people now see as our real bodies."

Darvos shudders, "You couldn't pay me to use one of those. So where have the two of you been recently?"

Taylor sighs, "Margulis wasn't the only one rescued. My Orbiter has been more than a little crowded, while we've avoided staying in one place, as the Tenno Cephalons move the Lotus chamber to a secure location."

"I see. This is my daily deal. I've also got your standard deals on air-filtration and basic star ship consumables."

"Yeah, I'm still letting Ordis handle that. Sorry."

"I had to try."

"Well, next stop is New Loka."

"What? Not going to Strata?"

"And get mobbed by everyone? No thanks. I've always been more of a loner, you know that."

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When the allotted time ends, and Margulis and Anet deactivate the spectres, Taylor and Anet finish up their business on Orcus before making their way back to their lander. When they arrive back at the orbiter, they both head for the onboard lab, where Margulis is already flitting from thing to thing.

"Margulis," Taylor asks gently, "Are you ok?"

"No, it was horrible. I know every single one of their names, and most of them don't know their own names. Worse were the ones that just didn't recognise me. Natul cried to sleep for 3 weeks when Dax Leva was reassigned. Hoara needed help when her menstruation started before she was old enough to have the maintenance implants. Shola kept losing their Kubrow toy. Do you have any idea what that's like? Of course you don't, you couldn't. I can't even have my implants removed anymore, as they're no longer distinct parts of me. The emotion suppression isn't working either, as I don't have any chemicals to supress, or rebalance. How do I deal with this?"

Understanding dawns on Taylors face, and she leaves her Warframe before walking over to Margulis. Gently pulling her away from the tool she's currently using, Taylor pulls her into a hug, "At the moment, you cry and accept my hug. Going forward, you learn proper coping mechanisms. Let's go to the nest and you can hug some plushies, throw a few against a wall, and cry your emotions out."

"I haven't cried since I was a girl."

"Then it's time you learnt how to do it again."

Anet follows the two to the nest, as she is still learning about these weird things that keep happening to her processing since Taylor kidnapped her. When she arrives, she picks up her condorac and squeezes it.

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"Taylor, you need to connect to the systems and send an image of what you want them to form."

"If it's so easy, you do it!"

Margulis forms a ball floating in the centre of the maintenance room, "There you go, simple."

"I can't do that."

"You can, and you will. Thousands of generations of Orokin have been able to do this. There is another way to learn how."

"What is it, I'll do it."

"Hard way it is then. All you need to do is make a door and leave the room. Oh, and the room will start to shrink in an hour. Anet will make sure you're not cheating too." Margulis fades from sight as the room changes into a rough stone cave.

"Oh shit, I'll do the ball, I'll do the ball. Margulis? Anet?"



Nearly a day later, Taylor slithers out of a tiny hole that she's managed to form from the centre of the room to the outside of the orbiter. Anet looks at her appraisingly as she reforms, "Looks like you've also perfected your mimic abilities too."

"You suck, you both suck."

Margulis smiles, "Create a ball."

Taylor groans and creates the ball as requested, "How? I'm not inside the room."

"Omni EmMats like the ones installed in this ship don't need line of sight to an emitter. As long as you're in the power field you can manipulate it with your implants."

"So what's the point of the Maintenance room?"

"Computing power and precision. Something you'll find you need less help with than even gifted Orokin's as we progress into more detailed constructions."

"What! That's not enough? It's taken me months to get this far."

Margulis shakes her head, "No Taylor, you've only just reached the most basic competency that any Orokin would be able to do. Now we start your education in earnest, you'll be spending 3 hours a day with me on physics, chemistry, and engineering. We'll both be spending 1 hour a day with Anet on biology and living systems." – She then grinds out – "And I will be spending 2 hours a day with you on your own specialities."

"When was this decided?"

Anet looks guiltily at Taylor, "While you were in the room."

"Fine." Taylor whines, "As long as we're also working on finding the Zariman and how to get Margulis and I subframes."

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A new cult called Narmer is slowly gaining traction through the solar system. However its central message 'The Tenno are monsters, and they massacred thousands of you' is only palatable to the most ignorant or desperate. In large part because both the Lotus and Margulis make frequent irregular appearances at population centres around the solar system. More than one news outlet manages to do an on the spot interview with one or both of them. Additionally, Taylor is persuaded to make the odd appearance in person with Anet in their 'native' forms. Sometimes with the other two, and other times on their own. Slowly, the reasons for the old war unfolds in the news, and the actions of both the Orokin and the Sentients towards the Tenno are made known. This is while the Tenno continue to be mercenaries for hire in order to fund their charitable actions, never knowing that their cephalons are the de facto Lotus, while Anet is the Leader, and maintains Veto over the others.



With Margulis now around, more and more Tenno start to awaken from the second dream, as she's able to name each and every one of them, and tell them stories of their time before her trial.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

A Lead

"Margulis, I hate you!" Taylor screams as she ducks in a spectre that is configured for her old operator body, with implants, but without void abilities.

"Taylor, you said yourself that you learn best under pressure. You've been struggling with how all the lessons could apply over the last 2 months."

"I know, but MOT?"

"You have everything you need right there to completely take over that tower."

"Margulis, I don't even have an overlay!"

"Well make one then."

"Oh, yeah, I can do that."



Quickly, Taylor configures a basic map overlay, as well as an FoF system. Finding a door that should connect two sections, but is currently locked, she unlocks it and darts through before locking it behind her. As the computer starts to divert compromised troops her way, she signals the computer to query what crew are active on the tower.

"Shit, that's a lot of corrupted, please can I use transference?"

"Nope, we all know you're doing really well in the combat uses of your natural form. Now you have to show you can do the same with only your implants."



Plotting out a route, Taylor desperately searches for the engineering tube that runs the length of the tower. Sprinting for a closing gap in the coverage of corrupted, she dives through a door and lands on a pressure plate before sliding to stop in front of a death orb. For a couple of breaths she waits to die, then her brain realises that there are lasers spinning overhead. Wait! "Margulis, didn't you once say that death orbs were portable generators?"

"I did"

Flexing her will, she makes the orb levitate and jams it into the door she just came through, the laser slicing some of the corrupted in half as a bonus. Quickly reprogramming it, she sets it to disable the lasers that are pointing towards her before searching for any more death orbs. Slapping her head she queries the tower for them and gets them nicely displayed on her overlay. As an afterthought she adds EmMats and gasps at just how many there are in the tower.



Cursing, as the tower starts to reconfigure to allow the corrupted troops to flank her, she comes up with a plan on the fly. Scurrying off, she locates the nearest death orb that isn't stopping her from dying hideously. Separating the laser plates she set them to spinning slowly around her while the orb itself follows her around like a puppy. At this point her mood does an about face, and her brain starts seeing her implants as tools to be abused, rather than something that just causes her headaches, because she doesn't understand the math she's supposed to know. Slowly and carefully, she makes her way close enough to an EmMat that she can control it directly, and disconnects it from the ship. With an EmMat, one or two death orbs, and a multitude of laser plates, she's able to start to cobble together some basic droids to carry the lasers and handle the aiming.



After an hour she makes her way into the maintenance room, and closes the door. Leaning heavily against the wall, Taylor authenticates herself to the controlling intelligence. As she does she slaps her face, as she realises that she could have done that at the beginning and avoided all of the fighting. Creating a goblet of water, she quenches her thirst before she goes to work suborning the cephalon in charge.

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As Taylor exits the transference pod, Margulis stands there in human form, her hand on one hip, "Well, I don't think we're ever going to make an Engineer out of you. Your instincts are all wrong. But you did well. Could you have done better? Probably not, you could have done it faster by marking yourself as friendly from the beginning. But you wouldn't have learnt anything. At the end you reminded me of Ballas, and the way he could effortlessly make things happen, but always needed help with coming up with something new."

"Great, now I'm being compared to Ballas. If I become more like him, shoot me please? And make it fatal."

Margulis laughs, "As long as you don't start mimicking his flaws, you'll be fine."

"Operators, Ordis has good news. Lotus Cephalons have located Grineer facility with probable location of the Zariman. A new Quest has been created."

Taylor laughs, "Lotus Cephalons?"

"With the Lotus back, it didn't feel right referring to ourselves as the Lotus."

"No, I like it. I was just surprised, and happy that you've chosen it. How's Anet doing on her mission?"

"She is having fun Tenno."

"Margulis, what did you have her doing?"

"Same as you."

"Ordis, do you have a visual on the inside of her ship?"

"Displaying in the entertainment quarters."



While they're sat watching the display, Taylor remarks, "She's absolutely terrifying in a totally oblivious and cute way."

"I think it's because she's dumped all her responsibilities on you and the Cephalons. So, she's back doing what she loves."

"I agree, but what she loves is as beautiful as it is terrifying. Last time it was a radioactive landscape, this time… I'm not actually sure what she's done this time."

"There's a lot of radio interference there. Ordis, could you translate the radio spectrum to visible light please?"

"Calculating, showing results."

"It's beautiful, how's it going to survive though?"

"By the looks of things, by absorbing all higher energy bands of light completely and radiating them as radio waves as the waste product."

"Ordis," Taylor says suddenly, "Where's Anet's main chassis?"

"Locating, it is in the Dojo."

"That cheating bitch."

"What have you worked out?"

"I think she's using the systems you set up in her gardens to work out what she needs to do. She is then sending those instructions through the implants to make it happen."

Margulis laughs, "It's cheating against the spirit of the test, but fully inline with the instructions I gave both of you. Namely, you could only use your implants, no weapons, armour, or other abilities."

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6 hours later, Anet exits her pod once she realises that she's just fiddling with the details now. She's not even got to the door before Taylor comes in, while shifting to a human form, and pulls her into a hug. Just as she's getting used to the sensation, Taylor hesitantly places her mouth on her own.

"Anet love, you are absolutely terrifying. Cute but terrifying."

"What did I do?"

"Anet, you've now made two environments that are absolutely inimical to the majority of life in the solar system. For completely different reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that they are. Your only reason for doing it is that they were interesting and beautiful. That and the fact you turn my head every time you walk past means that you're cute and terrifying."

"Thank you, though I'm not sure what you mean by turn your head."

Taylor laughs, "Don't worry, it's a human thing. Anyway, they've found a lead on the Zariman."

"That's great news Taylor. Where is it?"

"We don't know yet, we were waiting for you. Oh, and you might as well bring your chassis back while we're getting the information."

"Oh, you noticed."

"You were working too fast for only using the spectre. Great job on being able to be in both places at once though."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

With Anet's chassis back on the orbiter, the three of them make their way to the lander where Ordis starts to brief them.

"Operators, we have discovered a hidden Grineer facility deep inside Phobos. It has been overlooked before due to the massive amounts of Corpus there, we now believe that the reason for the frequent Grineer invasions is to transfer resources and products from the fleet to the facility, and the reverse. This is further complicated by the fact that the facility is in the dark zone of Phobos, so the infested are in control."

Margulis asks, "If there's so much infested, how are we getting in?"

"The Mycona harvesters have found a safe route, however they have also come under threat from Nef again. Part of Neewa's price for their aid is persuading Nef that interfering with that colony is always going to be bad for business."

Anet looks like she's sucked a lemon, "Neewa? Isn't she the one that is immune to the infested?"

Taylor touches her and joins briefly, "Yes, she's the one that I let choose her own destiny."

Margulis looks between the two of them, "I'm missing something here."

Taylor sighs, "The Mycona colony are immune to the infested virus. They achieved this because of the Triuna, who has a genetic immunity that can be passed on. But only to children. A side effect of the immunity is a vastly decreased lifespan, measured in a handful of years. I gave Neewa the choice of what to do, and she chose to return to her people to give them time to adjust to not being farmers."

"Why does it shorten their lifespan?"

"It compromises their immune system, leaving them more susceptible to other illnesses."

"Would we be able to get her into the Orbiter lab? As it's something I might be able to help with, without compromising the immunity."

"Ordis can ask. However, it's unlikely to change their requirements."

"I looked after the Tenno because they were children that needed someone to defend them, and nobody else stepped up. Why would that change because this child has a different condition? There's also the fact that if I can unlock the secrets behind her immunity, it could save thousands of lives a month."



Anet looks at her hands briefly before looking up at the display, "Ordis, suspend all Corpus contracts, and inform them that it's because Nef has reneged on his agreement to leave the colony be. As soon as we hear from the colony that they are no longer being pressured the contracts will resume. In the event that we do not receive word within 10 days, their contracts will be terminated with no refunds. If there is a hostile takeover, or the colony is wiped out, we will no longer take Corpus contracts while the current board of directors is sitting."

"But Lotus, how will we afford to keep our ships in good repair?"

"Ordis, have you forgotten who the three of us are? If we have to, we can turn a tower into a maintenance facility."

"Yes Lotus, Ordis will pass your proclamation to the other Lotus Cephalons."

"Ordis, remind the Corpus that if we can't trust them to keep to their own agreements, then how can we trust them to keep to ours."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Neewa

"My Queen, we have relocated one of the more promising Orokin towers in the void."

The Worm Queen looks down at the general that so rudely made himself known, "Why did you interrupt the meeting with such prosaic news?"

The general hunches slightly, "My Queen, we were able to get some footage of the inside of the tower, even though it cost us a company of my brothers."

"Well, play it then."

"Yes My Queen."



The Worm Queen watches with interest as a bleak landscape appears in her view screen. It seems like the film has been taken in black and white, with a few splashes of colour here and there. That's until it pans to a Grineer soldier, who's face has started to bubble and boil, before they collapse. That's when she realises that it's not that the film is without colour, it's the landscape.



The video pans to the other members of the unit, only to show that the units without heavy armour are all succumbing to the environment.

Suddenly there is the loud retort of gunfire, as something attacks the squad. As soon as that happens, all of the surviving members of the squad turn on each other, and the last standing survivor limbs back towards the entry point.

"Bzzzzt, commander down, friendly fire. I repeat…"

Finally, the camera falls sideways and the film fast forwards to show an unknown animal nuzzling at the camera, and the picture going fuzzier as it does.



Another Grineer reaches down, and takes the still running camera from the body before moving back to the entrance. This process repeats itself as the film speeds up.



The Worm Queen looks over to the general, "What, was, that?"

The general shakes his head, "We don't know. The suit data from the camera shows that radiation levels were increasing steadily as the unit made their way to where they died. Nothing un-survivable until moments before their death, when it spiked to levels seen inside a ship's reactor. The lifeform that we saw was sending those levels even higher."

The Worm Queen nods, "Write it off, and let the Corpus find the coordinates. Their board of directors will salivate at the idea of discovering why it's like that. Let them spend the resources needed to pacify the ship."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Anet looks surprised when Ordis patches Parvos Granum through to her, "Lotus, thank you for seeing me on such short notice."

"What can I do for you Mr Granum?"

"Ouch, that was harsh. Anyway, I am calling to ensure that you are aware that I and my faction have nothing to do with the Board of Directors, or their politicking."

Anet raises her eyebrows under the hastily donned helmet, "Why would I need to know that?"

"It has come to my attention that certain of my, our, strategic contracts with the Tenno are currently on hold because of something the board or one of their members has done."

"Indeed, all corpus contracts are on hold for another 8 days. If the Board of Directors has not honoured their own contracts with 3rd parties at the end of that time, then we will be forced to cancel those contracts, and refuse future service until such time as The Corpus prove that they can be trusted again."

"I feel that this is failing to take into account the subtleties of the situation that The Corpus finds itself in."

Anet smiles, "Not at all, if we extend an exemption to one faction of The Corpus, what's to say that another faction wouldn't just use that faction's credentials to hire us."

Parvos frowns, "I assure you that our security is absolutely top notch, especially the communication codes that we…" He trails off as Anet transmits his private keys to his terminal, "How did you get these?"

"We didn't use Tenno, if that's what you're wondering. Is there anything else you need my attention for?"

Parvos looks down again, "No, no, it appears that I am going to be busy for the foreseeable future."



Anet takes the helmet off and turns back to Margulis, "Margulis, are you ready to go?"

"Just one more minute, I'm just making some changes to this, and then I'll be ready."

Anet sighs, "Margulis, that call didn't even take 5 minutes, how can you be that busy already? ...Margulis, we're going to see Neewa, whatever you're doing can wait."

"Just give me a sec, this is almost done."

"Margulis, do I need to call your other mother in?"

Margulis snaps her attention to Anet, "No, don't do that, I don't want to do another isolation vault."

"Then put your work down and get your warframe."

Margulis sighs, "Yes mum."

"And don't you forget it."



With no more distractions, the two of them quickly make their way down to the colony while Taylor keeps the Corpus busy, and distracted, at the surface.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

As Anet and Margulis make their way into the colony, and negotiate for a guide. Taylor flits from one Corpus forward base to another, leaving chaos and disabled systems in her wake.



As she's running through her 10th such base, Nef Anyo appears in her communications window, "What are you doing? You've destroyed months of progress, klicks of claimed territory lost, and for what?"

Taylor laughs as she jumps over a corpus heavy unit, changing into her fairy form mid jump and firing from mind air, "I'm pushing you back from the Mycona colony. Why what did you think I was doing?"

"My business dealings with them are none of your concern. And these outposts had nothing to do with that."

"They are when the colony has hired us to ensure that you honour the agreement, we brokered between you and them last time I was involved."

"And I have kept to that agreement, I have not taken any hostages or made any threats to them."

"Uh huh, I suppose that's why the monthly traders have been continuing to turn up. Oh, wait, they haven't. And it's something that started when you began your negotiations."

"I cannot be held responsible for the actions of independent merchants."

"Sure, sure, contact the Lotus and sort it out. Once I've got the all clear from her I'll be back in my orbiter before you can drink a glass of scotch."



Nef Anyo hangs up for an hour while Taylor works her way through this outpost. The first that she's aware of the restoration of negotiations is when a Zanuka Hunter drops onto her head, quite literally. She has maybe a second to transfer out of her warframe before the shields and health crumple.



As she does, Alad V opens up a communication with her, "My, my, a little birdy told me that you have been a bad little Tenno. Let's see how you get on without your fancy armour."

Taylor laughs, "Did Nef Anyo put you up to this?"

"Not at all Tenno, he merely pointed me at the cause of my lost contracts. I've lost some very time sensitive project to Grineer incursions because of that. I think your Titania will be sufficient recompense for that."

Taylor fires a void blast at the hunter, "You'll have to keep it first."

Alad laughs, "I don't think I need worry about that, as Anyo promised that he's sending you a present too."

Just as she's lining up for another shot at the Hunter, Taylor's sensors detect a Lynx running over the terrain towards her position. With a change of plan, she instead leaps over the Hunter, touching down just long enough to leave a little of herself behind. Then she turns to face the new threat as the Hunter disengages from the battle and starts heading into Corpus controlled territory.



The battle against the Lynx is long and hard, primarily as Taylor doesn't want to reveal her Sentient status to the galaxy at large. Instead, she relies on her ability to hide in the void, her amp, and the abilities from the Unairu focus school she's using. Eventually, the Lynx lies on the floor, in need of severe repair to even become operation again. With that done, she leaves the base into infested controlled land, heading after the escaping Hunter, before it reaches a safe location that it can be picked up from. A journey that is unhindered by the need to keep her abilities secret. Unfortunately, the Hunter has too much of a lead for her to catch up, before it is recovered.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Neewa looks around curiously, at the featureless landing craft, as she's invited up to a Tenno Orbiter. The secretive ships that they use to travel around the solar system. Oh, she's heard stories from traders who used to work on Tenno Railjacks, but almost nobody, who isn't employed by the Tenno as a whole, has ever seen the inside of the orbiter. It's also only the 2nd time she's been in space where she could see what was happening. Having seen enough of the blank surfaces, she turns to the window and plasters her face against it, trying to see as much as she can.



As the landing craft starts to turn away from the orbiter she reluctantly turns away from the window to face the entrance to the craft. As she does, the warframe standing statue still by one of the flat surfaces makes her jump as she'd forgotten it was there. After the ramp has lowered, and the warframe still hasn't moved, she gingerly walks down the ramp into the orbiter proper. There, she's greeted with the same featureless décor.



As she's wondering where she should go, a woman she'd recognise anywhere, from the holovids that are still doing the rounds, comes from deeper in the ship.

Margulis smiles at the girl, "Hello Neewa, I'm Margulis."

"Hello. Um, they said that you wanted to have a look at me?"

Margulis crouches down, "I do indeed child, as I maybe able to help where The Lotus couldn't."

Neewa steps backwards sharply, "No, don't touch me! I don't want to infect you."

Margulis laughs, "Child, you need not fear for my health. I am an Orokin, one of two that are still alive and uncorrupted by the years that passed since the war."

Neewa nods, but doesn't step forward again, "Um, what do you need me to do? And I'd rather die young than give up the immunity that I give my colony."

Margulis nods gravely, "Indeed, that's what I was told you had chosen. Before I went to sleep, I would have done whatever was best for you, regardless of your desires. Fortunately, I have a mot… Tenno who is teaching me their way as well as the ways of the current era. I promise you that you will leave with your immunity intact. I just hope to be able to help you the same way I helped the children who became the Tenno. Now, if you want me to see what I can do, follow me. Otherwise, Ordis will take you back to your colony."



Neewa looks at Margulis' retreating back, and then back at the lander. Then up, through the window in the ceiling, at the Railjack tethered to the Orbiter. Making up her mind, she runs after Margulis, "Can we look around the ship while I'm here?"

Margulis laughs, "Certainly, you remind me of Lotho, one of the children from the Ten Zero. Come on, let's get your investigation out the way."

After they've passed another featureless room, that's filled with plushies, Neewa asks, "Where's all the displays? As I can't see how anyone could navigate in here."

"They're all virtual, I'll make you a pair of glasses once we get to my lab."

"Oh, ok."

"Speaking of which, here we are." Margulis leads Neewa into a featureless grey room.

Neewa looks around, "Uh, really?"

Margulis nods, and holds out her hand as she forms a set of glasses that can see the virtual interfaces, "Really. Put these on and you'll see."

Neewa gapes at the glasses that are handed to her, looking between them and the space they came from. Reverently, she puts them on, and gasps as the previously grey room becomes well decorated, and covered in different displays.



While Neewa looks around the room, Margulis raises a table in the middle of the room, "Neewa, would you be able to jump on this table for me please?" Once Neewa is sitting down, Margulis smiles at her, "Great, now lie back."

Margulis taps at the table a couple of times, before throwing her hand up in disgust, "Well that's the problem then." Stabbing a finger at a floating display, she continues, "See you're not actually immune to the infestation, you're compatible with it. That blood sample you shared has a very cleverly engineered virus in it that modifies the cells in your body here, here and here. A side effect of this, is that it kills off your own immune system."

Neewa groans, "We know. The Lotus said as much before."

"Well, what she didn't know is that I can just do this and print you out an artificial immune system."



Margulis stabs a virtual button and Neewa panics as she loses feeling in her body and is unable to move. A moment later, she stares wide eyed as her ribcage opens like a demented flower. At the same time, Margulis lifts a small golden sausage off of the corner of the table, where it just formed, and places it into a cavity in her chest beside her heart. Once it's fitted, Neewa's chest closes as easily as it opened, until it's as though it never happened.



Smiling down at Neewa, Margulis, "There we go, that will monitor your own immune system for a while, then start to produce complementary antibodies and t-cells. It should also handle the normal bio-signalling for inflammation, fever, and the other methods your body uses to fight off infections. If you have any trouble with your immunity to the infestation, do let me know and I'll tweak the device."

Neewa, who has been patting her chest with wild eyes, mumbles, "Um, thanks?"

"Well, what are you waiting for. We're done, you can go and explore the ship now."



Neewa scrambles off the table and flees the room.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

"Taylor, let me go back to the orbiter please?"

Taylor shakes her head as she guns down another wave of infested, "No, and you know why."

"But it's been days, it wasn't that bad."

"Margulis, we had to give Neewa implants just to deal with the trauma you caused. That means that someone needs to teach her how to use those implants. All because you didn't think to anesthetise her."

"But I've never had to do that before."

"And that's why you are spending a week down here, with me, helping the colony harvest the materials they sell while Natah is teaching her how to use her implants."

Margulis throws her glaive at an Ancient Healer that's supporting the front line, "But… but…"

"No buts, it's something you should have been doing as standard practice. Unless you absolutely need them awake, like when you're modifying or installing implants. At that point, you should tell them what you're going to do and why."

"I never had any other complaints."

"Margulis, how many people did you work with who didn't have implants, and also had the authority to complain?"

Margulis stops for a precious few seconds while she thinks, only to have her back taken out by a juggernaut. Once Taylor has revived her, she responds, "Uh, one?"

Taylor laughs, "Let me guess, Neewa?"

"Um, yes."

"Remember, prevention is better than cure. How much time will be spent rectifying the trauma you caused by not spending a few seconds knocking Neewa out?"

"Um, probably a year, maybe. Over her lifetime."

"And that's why you are going to be banned from any research every time one of us has to come back here to look after her implants, and train her in their usage."

"But that's not fair."

"Neither's what happened to Neewa, or what Natah's having to do to teach her, or what will need to be done in the future. But this way you will remember it, and maybe, just maybe, think about how you can prevent a similar thing from happening again in the future."

Margulis grouches, "Yes Mum." As she resumes shooting at the infested, while the hunters and gatherers in the background are able to harvest far faster than they could when they need to be aware of the wildlife around them.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Which way should the story go from here?
[ ] Zariman
[ ] New War

If you want Taylor to get home to Brockton Bay sooner, vote for Zariman, if you want to see her go through the New War, vote New War,

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Scheduled vote count started by Darkphoenixlady on Feb 24, 2023 at 6:23 PM, finished with 24 posts and 24 votes.

• ---

  18 people have voted

  [x] Zariman

  • Balatro Philologus
  • Code-Perseus
  • Ahrii
  • Zarthoris
  • RavenWolffe77
  • 1Oldman
  • Naddakka741
  • shade argost
  • alice karu
  • Protor_X
  • ShadowWisp
  • Captain Dodgers
  • Need_More_Frames
  • DanteCry
  • Irnavyl
  • meloa789
  • Gabr132
  • Beast II

  6 people have voted

  [x] New War

  • Neo-Devil
  • Ardenzian
  • schism
  • death & gravitas
  • Siks
  • Archivist Grim

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 1 – The perils of forgetting to account for drift – part 1

Taylor, Anet, Margulis and Pemmy, well, not Pemmy as Pemmy isn't smart enough to understand, all watch in dismay as the orbiter slowly drifts apart in front of the lander. A little further away, the two halves of their railjack also slowly drift apart. None of them can miss the plushies slowly floating out of the nest room either.

Taylor sighs, "Ordis, what just happened?"

"Ordis is not entirely sure… Warning, sensors are reading a hyper velocity projectile coming towards… Operators, Ordis believes he knows what just happened. There is a receding light shadow from what appears to be a projectile travelling at speeds exceeding the speed of light."

Margulis has to be held back by Anet and Taylor as she tries to reach a console, "Ordis, that's impossible, nothing can exceed the speed of light."

Anet taps her daughter on the chassis, "Margulis, Ordis doesn't have anywhere else to go!"

Taylor asks, "Ordis, any ideas where that thing came from?"

"Ordis thinks the Operator would know more than Ordis does at the moment."

Taylor sighs, "Right, faster than light. Let me know if anything shows up on your scans, and depressurise the lander, I'm going to go and rescue my plushies. Come on Pemmy, let's see what we can salvage."

Margulis finally stops trying to reach a console, "Ordis, where are we?"

"My systems indicate that we are approximately half way between the orbits of Pluto and Neptune."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

A few hours later, a long, narrow, ship appears out of nowhere that bears no resemblance to any of the factions that the three of them are used to.

Carrying a plushie and a blue glass pyramid, Taylor flies out of the wreckage and over to the ship. Opening a call to the lander, Taylor says, "Oh, hey, they speak English here, or at least they use English letters. The ship's called Normandy."

Margulis says, "Can you see why it feels like there's negative mass there?"

"No clue, but it looks like someone's opening the door and I'm working on their communications. I'm just heading around to the airlock."

Anet shakes her head, "Talyor, be careful you've got Taylor there, and I know you want her to meet your dad."

Taylor shakes her head as she pulls herself into her human shape, "Yeah, yeah, I'll be careful."

As she makes her way around to the airlock, she spots a window and waves to the people staring at her from inside. At the airlock is a human, wearing some sort of basic propulsion frame, tethering themselves to the outside of the ship. Slowly they turn around to face Taylor, who waves cheerfully, before they check their oxygen supply.

While they're doing that, Taylor floats into the airlock next to them and touches the wall to close the airlock. As she does, she absently leaves part of herself behind to learn what she can about their computer systems.

BANG! Taylor looks down at the remains of her plushie and then up at the human in a space suit, at the same time her systems reconfigure her shields to convert piercing kinetic energy to electricity for her systems.

"What did you do that for? That was Anet's plushie!"

As the person in front of her takes a couple more shots, Anet asks, "Taylor, what's going on?"

"I'm being shot at, and the first shot went through your condrac plushie."

Anet begins to laughs, "Taylor have you tried speaking English? Oh, and my original plushie is in digital storage."

Taylor drops the plushie and puts her head in her now free hand, "I'm an idiot, no wait. I'm in a vacuum and we haven't… Really? Their communications aren't using any cyphers whatsoever? Fuck!"

Taylor connects to the humans communications system and drags her English language out of the back of her memory, "Good morning, I hope you don't mind me dropping by for a cup of milk…"

The human opposite her freezes before pointing their gun towards the ceiling, "What?"

"Don't mind me, I'm just trying to remember my word book as I haven't used it in over 1,000 years."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Jane Shepherd looks at the thing wearing the body of a human in alarm, changing channels on her comm, she says, "Joker, get command on the line we've got a first contact scenario."

Before Joker can say anything the thing says, "What? No, I'm not an alien, I'm human. Well I was until a few months ago anyway… At least I think I was, as I still had 28 chromosomes but do implants stop you being human… Oh, hey… Jane Shepherd isn't it. You have implants, have you stopped being human?"

Jane switches over to an encrypted channel, "Miranda get them out of our comms."

The thing shrugs, "If you're not going to put in even basic encryption, don't expect to keep anyone out. Oh, and the airlock now has pressure."

Miranda replies, "This is encrypted... I've generated 257 new keys, and they're broken as quickly as they're used."

The thing responds, "Wait, those aren't just fancy math tests? Margulis, have you ever heard of doing encryption with prime numbers?"

"No I haven't, I'm a bit busy trying to save the digital storage here."

Jane pulls her helmet off and leans heavily against the wall, "Just my luck, there's more than one of them."

A third voice comes over the comm, "Taylor, don't you think you should introduce yourself?"

Somehow, the thing in front of her manages to blush as it says, "Oops, sorry about that. I'm Taylor Hebert, originally from Earth Bet, but most recently from the Origin System. If it helps, I was born human, I just had a slight accident"

Jane stares at the hand that Taylor is holding out. Coming to a decision, she grabs the hand, "Fuck it, I'm Jane Shepherd. Pleased to meet you. You wouldn't happen to have seen anything attacking a shuttle that was passing through here a few hours ago?"

Taylor shakes her head, "Sorry, no. But it was probably the same thing that destroyed our ships. We transited from the void, and bam, we were hit by a projectile going faster than light."

Jane blinks twice, "Joker, calculate the exact vector the shuttle would have been taking."

EDI's voice comes back in less than a second, "Calculations say that it is possible that this was a collision rather than an attack. There was a 0.0000003 second window between the Mass Relay activating and the shuttle leaving the solar system plus or minus 500 nano seconds."

Taylor blinks, "Wait, that's a big error window. Let me see those calculations… Mercury's mines, how crude is this computing hardware. No wonder it's so bad… right I see. We didn't see the incoming light from the transit for 1925.436231984332 seconds after the collision which would put their relative locations at that, giving us a 0.21 arc second deviation…" Taylor continues to mumble for a couple of minutes before saying, "Margulis, could you check my math, to make sure I've correctly accounted for everything."

Jane shouts, "Power down the ship, don't let it get into our computers."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Miranda comes running to the airlock.

As Taylor glances over at the aristocratic looking woman with long black hair she calls out, "Comms are completely compro… oh… I also couldn't shut the ship down."

Taylor waves, "Hi, I'm Taylor. Oh, and Margulis is just coming to the ship with Pemmy. Something about impossible numbers in your calculations. So you may want to leave the airlock."

This is when she notices the trio of marines pointing their rifles at her, one arm turns briefly into a tentacle to snatch one of the guns, "Oh, those are interesting, where's the smart matter? And what's the deal with this impossible element?"

At the same time, there's the loud retort of automatic gunfire unloading into Taylor until the cartridges turn red hot and automatically eject. Something that she just ignores, as she's already adapted to it after Jane tried to shoot her.

Jane shouts "Weapons down! Weapons down! She is currently non-hostile and we don't want her to become hostile."

Jane's eyes widen comically as another thing comes through the wall behind the marines along with a floating pillar around as tall as a human, and maybe 2m in diameter.

That's when things go from sideways to surreal and all the guns in the area spontaneously dismantle themselves, with their components just floating in the air. The tiny spheres of eezo that provide the mass effect field needed to fire the weapons dance in front of the newcomer.

Taylor huffs as she starts to reform the floating weapon components into 3 Fulmin, the signature weapon of Wisp, and one Plinx, a corpus pistol, "Margulis, what have we said about not acting on your impulses. Sorry about that, these weapons don't need any ammo as they run entirely off of electricity."

Jane dumbly nods as she takes the weird looking pistol, "Um, thanks. Would you be able to give us our ship back?"

Taylor looks up, "Um, what? Oh… Sort of no? Taking over technology is a natural byproduct of us just being here. But I can certainly stop paying attention to it. Um, would you mind taking us to the Kuniper Belt so we can make a new Pemmy. That way we can let Margulis have fun building a dry dock and new base while Anet and I come and help you as best as we can as an apology for all this."

Margulis looks up, "You mean that Taylor? You'll let me build a new research centre? Can I keep these element samples too please?"

Taylor sighs, "Margulis, when did you learn English?"

"Huh? Just now. They have translation programs built in to their computers, so it was trivial to just copy them to my implants and add Orokin to them."

Taylor sighs, "Jane Shepherd, meet Margulis, my somewhat daughter and one of my partners. She's also the last Orokin Archemedian and the most intelligent person you'll ever meet. She also has the attention span of a mayfly."

Margulis looks up, "I'm not that bad."

Taylor laughs "Margulis, how's the planning for the in-place upgrade of this ship going, and how many new projects have you started since you dismantled the guns?"

"Shut up! I'm only 40% through that plan, as I need to really understand this new element. I don't yet understand how it allows for negative mass without destroying everything."

"And how many new projects?"

Margulis mumbles, "17, but only because I'm currently trying to get into the scientific journals to see the state of the sciences here. I predict another 135 projects arising from that information, including a dedicated toy to produce this element."

"What about the orbiter?"

Margulis looks up, "Hmm, that's interesting… Oh, what? The orbiter? My lab's on independent power now, and I left it building a new Pemmy, that should be done in the next hour and Ordis can then direct the most urgent repairs so we can get the ship into the drydock."

From the helm, Joker calls, "Captain, the ship is moving without me doing anything."

Taylor snaps at Margulis, "Margulis, stop that!"

"But!"

"This is not your ship, and they're not enemies. You're not our enemies are you?"

Jane shakes her head and raises her free hand, "No, no, we're not enemies. Um, are you AI?"

Taylor shakes her head, "We're synthetic, rather than biological, life forms. Ordis, Cy, and Taylor here," she lifts the blue pyramid, "are all cephalons. That means they used to be organic until the Orokin turned them into cephalons, and now they're digital intelligences."

Jane swallows hard, "Uh, Joker, set course for the nearest large object in the kuniper belt. Everyone else back to work. Miranda, get the others and meet me in the ready room with Taylor."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

As Taylor walks into the briefing room, she stops to look at the large wooden table, with a central holographic projector, in the cramped room. With a shrug, she activates the OmniMat built into Pemmy and replaces it with an Orokin era projector.

Cocking her head to one side, she sends a query to Margulis for the specifications of a mini synthesis simulacrum. Within milliseconds, Margulis has sent back the design, plus the designs for chairs that will allow non-orokin to use it.

With a minor thought, she dissolves the back wall of the room for energy and uses it to build a small void reactor and start it. Now having enough energy to work with, she first builds out the computing hardware needed to run the system, and a dock to put Cephalon Taylor on, before connecting the system to the ships computer network and starting on the chairs. As an afterthought, she locates the core for the ship's AI and points Margulis at it for upgrading, given the vastly more capable computer that Cephalon Taylor is going to have.

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Jane holds her brittle smile as she guides the human looking alien to the briefing room behind the CiC.

"Taylor wasn't it? Would you wait in there, I just need to get something from my quarters and I'll be back."

Taylor doesn't even seem to acknowledge her as Jane makes her way to the lift up to her cabin. Once inside, she makes her way over to her personal comm and inputs her codes for the citadel council.

A few seconds later, the salarian councillor, Valern, appears in the view screen, "Spectre, you are a long way from the Terminus System."

Jane nods, "I am, I'm in Sol on Alliance business. However, Council business dropped in my lap."

"Go ahead."

"We are currently experiencing a first contact scenario with a highly advanced species that seem to be extra-galactic."

Valern cocks his head, "What makes you think they're extra-galactic?"

Jane laughs dryly, "They had no idea what eezo was until they came aboard."

Valern looks down, "I see, I will have some diplomats sent out soon. Will you be in position long?"

Jane shakes her head, "I don't know. What I do know is that they took over the Normandy with no apparent effort. They are able to shrug off our weapons, and they have the ability to reform matter out of hand." Jane holds up her plinx, "This used to be an M-3 Predator. Now it's whatever this is."

"This is an order then, delay your departure from Sol for as long as you can. I will contact you again once I've convened the council."

Jane nods, "Understood."

With that, the screen goes blank and Jane makes her way back down to the CiC.

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Back at the cockpit, Margulis mutters, "Damn it, I wish I was in my research lab, then I could look at the subatomic make up of… Damn it Anet! Why didn't you make us train on the subatomic level…"

EDI turns her attention to Joker in the pilot seat, "Pilot Moreau, is it possible to look at subatomic structures? My records indicate that it is not."

Joker looks back as he's carefully throttling the eezo drive to allow the Normandy to reach the kuiper belt in reasonable time. "So far as I know, they still have to smash things together to see the bits and pieces that make up atoms. Something about quantum uncertainty or something."

Absently, Margulis says, "The universe is holographic, so you can just look deeper and deeper the higher the frequency you look in. That's interesting, I wonder how they managed that. Oh, EDI, this might itch a little."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Zariman – part 1

"Anet, Margulis, what are we looking at?"

Margulis looks up from the Grineer computer she's working on, "A pile of crap that offends every iota of engineering and research training I've ever had."

Anet laughs, "Tell us what you really think."

Margulis growls, "Do you want to do this? I mean, they don't even have the decency to include implant access to the computers. Everything has to be done through these terminals. Not even the Corpus have fallen that far. Then whoever designed the system seems to have never heard of an organisation tree, or any sort of file structure."

Anet laughs again, from her own computer, that she's leaning against, "Margulis, have you forgotten that you're not Orokin anymore?"

"No, I can hardly forget now can I." She holds up a hand and allows it to take on a less human appearance for a moment.

Taylor shakes her head and goes back to guarding the door, meanwhile Anet giggles, "Then why are you trying to access the computer like an Orokin?"

Margulis huffs, "I'm not, didn't I just explain that it doesn't have any systems for interacting with implants?"

"Daughter, you are a Sentient, not an Orokin. Why do you persist in ignoring that part of yourself?"

Margulis slams her fist on the keyboard, "I'm not ignoring that part of…" She trails off as she looks down at the keyboard, "Oh, I am aren't I. But…"

Anet walks over and puts her hand on Margulis' shoulder, before initiating a join, much like a parental hug. In the join she sends over the memories of learning the Orokin way, and their hope that Margulis would have been doing the same thing for the Sentient way of being. Along with that she can't help sending a sense of exasperation with Taylor for not learning more about being a Sentient too. As they separate, Margulis looks down at her hands and deliberately lets go of the form she's so used to. As she does, her body expands out until it's finally the full size it's supposed to be. Connecting to her mother wirelessly, she regards the computer, "This isn't all you meant is it."

What she gets back is an image of herself in the gardens of the Dojo learning how to terraform. With a sigh, she turns back to the computer and invades it in seconds, and only a few moments later she's located all of the interesting information and downloaded it. It will require further perusal later, but it looks like they have the location of the Zariman anyway.



As the sound of an alarm goes off, Ordis connects to them all, "This has become an extermination mission. Find everyone that saw you enter the secure area and eliminate them."

All three of them share a glance before Margulis forces herself down into her humanoid form, and picks up her weapon.

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"Daughter, daughter, you must…"

With a mental flick, Anet turns off the incoming call as she turns her attention back to the gardens with Taylor and Margulis, "Taylor, you need to consider what happens to your plants and animals once they die, otherwise your eco system will fail almost immediately. Margulis, while a world of bacteria and fungi is very stable, you need to include insects, mammals, and reptiles in order to fill your brief. Remember your biology and geology lessons."

Hunhow's face briefly appears in a message window again, "Daughter, we need to…"

Taylor loses control of her human form as she tries to balance her garden so that it only needs a single energy input to remain stable, "Gah! This is harder than it looks."

Anet briefly joins with Taylor to send a sense of approval and appreciation before turning her attention back to Margulis, "Margulis, while this is very utilitarian, where's the wonder and beauty? Where's the…"

Margulis sweeps her hand over the garden, "Can you not see it? There's 300,000 strains of fungus and bacteria, all working together in a perfect dance, growing, living, dying, and being eaten. Each one producing something that the others require."

Anet sighs before she uses the systems to create a lump of limestone, and throwing it randomly into the garden, "Where's the resiliency."

Margulis watches aghast as the limestone causes some of her carefully crafted bacterial to reproduce out of control in the accelerated environment, causing a cascade throughout the system that ultimately causes mutations, and then wipes out the underlying bacteria that use heat and water to provide the basic chemicals needed for the next layer in the ecosystem, "But, that wasn't supposed to happen."

Anet touches her daughter and sends a sense of reassurance, "Margulis, you focus too much on the details and elegance that you don't leave yourself space to consider external factors." She waves a manipulator over the garden, "Life doesn't work like that. Life adapts, responds, and fills niches. Your creations should reflect that. They should be adaptable and able to grow to fill a niche if it's available."



Ordis opens a communication channel with all three of them, "Operators, we have just finished calculating the coordinates of the Zariman Ten Zero. A new mission has been added to Navigation."

As Ordis ends the call, Hunhow opens a call to Anet, "Praghasa."

Anet freezes as she's about to cancel the call once more, "What about her?"

"Your brother has reactivated her with Ballas. My daughter, you must stop them."

"Erra's dead, my Tenno killed him in the old war."

"Grievously injured, yes. Killed, not quite. The traitor, Ballas, unsealed his tomb."

"Why haven't you stopped my brother?"

Hunhow hesitates before responding, "Erra, listens to me about as much as you do. Especially now."

"Then, why do you think he'll listen to me?"

"I don't, however you are still your mother's successor. Like you, she can call our people out of hiding. I would rather you were the one to make the call, than the traitor, Ballas."

Margulis interrupts her with a snarl, "Did you say Ballas?"

Anet cocks her head to one side in thought, a habit she picked up from Taylor. Coming to a decision, she connects to an EmMat and creates a communications node to transfer the call to, "Margulis, meet Hunhow, my father. Father, meet my daughter Margulis, and you already know Taylor. Apparently, my, not nearly as deceased as he should be, brother has activated her with Ballas."

Margulis snarls as best as she can in her sentient body, "Where is that filthy spawn of a kubrow and yogwun? He has some nerve sealing me into Anet, ."



Hunhow stays silent for a while as he processes the new information, "Daughter…"

Anet interrupts with a growl, "I am not your daughter, not now, and never again. I am Anet, or The Lotus to you."



Taylor sighs, "Let's ignore the whole genetic donor thing for the moment. What's going on that requires our direct involvement?"

Anet growls, "Taylor, you know what…"

Taylor raises a manipulator, "Anet, I know, but at the moment he's a client, so we are going to treat him as a client. Now, Hunhow, what were you saying."



Hunhow rumbles, "Daughter…"

Taylor interrupts, "Uh uh, that goes for you too. Unless you want to be shunted to the Lotus Cephalons you will stop with the genetic donor crap until the call is over."

"…Praghasa, our mother, has been reactivated by Erra and Ballas, they are going to use her to call the sentient's out of hiding. The only other sentient that could do that is my…" He changes tack as Taylor raises a manipulator, "Natah. You must stop them, or call the other sentients yourself."

Margulis shakes her head, "We can't be involved in this. Ballas changed Anet in some way to allow me to take over her systems. But we don't know if that's the only thing he added. All three of us could be taken over by him if we got anywhere close, and unless we let it happen I couldn't tell you what part of our systems are needed to allow him to do that."

Taylor nods, "Anet, if one of us were to do this call thing, would it give away our location?"

Anet nods, "Every Sentient in the solar system, including my… including Hunhow would know precisely where we are."

Taylor nods, "Which include Ballas and Erra."

Margulis calls out, "Ordis, transfer Hunhow to the Lotus."

At the same time Hunhow calls, "Natah, you must call them, they are your peo…"



A moment later, Taylor forms a hand so she can snap her fingers, "Ordis, have you located the Warframe that Alad V stole from me yet?"

"Operator Ordis notified you of that new mission three days ago."

Taylor forms a head and another three hands so she can facepalm properly, "Right… Anet, would you mind terribly if I got my Titania back, and then we head to the Zariman to rescue me?"

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Taylor, Anet, and Margulis all stop to stare as Cy brings the Railjack out of the void near to the recovered coordinates. In front of them, the ships scanners are projecting holographic markers for a fleet of Grineer ships. If that was all, then the three of them would have just taken their positions to wipe the fleet out.

Instead, there's a shimmering white crack in space behind the fleet, and it is getting bigger and bigger as it blots out the stars. As they watch, it cracks open, revealing a dark void that seems to hungrily consume most of the waiting fleet before a silvery grey ship slowly starts to emerge from inside the void.



The docking port alone looks as though it would be large enough for even a Grineer Galleon to dock nose first, even if that's all that would fit. As more and more of the disc shaped ship pokes through to real space, the sheer size of the 44km diameter ship becomes apparent.



As they watch, the ship seems to get caught in the rift just as it reaches its widest point.



Suddenly Margulis gasps, "What's that, on the edge of the rift?"



As the other two look, they can all see the faint images of another land, just beyond the rift.



Grimly, Taylor says, "Cy, plot a course to the docking bay. We need to get in there. Once we've landed, get back to the Orbiter and start preparing a new set of solar rails. We have a ship to clear out."

Margulis shakes her head, "What about Ballas?"

Taylor looks at her, "Be honest, how long do you think it will take before he knows about this? Once he does, he's going to want to take it for himself. Honestly, I'm surprised that we've not seen any of the Orokin towers being returned to real space."

Cy interrupts, "Captain, the Lotus Cephalons have been stepping up their monitoring of void incursions by any forces, and have been setting high priority missions to clear them out. Ballas would need to go to a tower personally in order to take one over. Every ships Cephalon has additionally been instructed to send new fallback coordinates to each of the tower Cephalons once their operators have completed their missions. We estimate that the entire fleet, bar two towers, will be inaccessible to the other factions within the next 28 days."

Taylor nods, "So they'll be back to sending out scouting missions and collating nav-coordinates again."

"Affirmative. Course plotted."

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Nearly 6 hours later, two sentients, three Warframes, and Pemmy (aka PemMat mk 3 #3), Margulis' portable research lab, all land on a small pad inside a massive hanger that looks like it doubles as a concourse.



Once they touch down Taylor transfers out of her wisp. "I've got nothing on my implants, what about you two?"

Anet shakes her head, "There are communications, but they're not using the same channels as the towers."

Margulis nods, "That tracks, this was supposed to be a colony ship after all. I've got 33…" Margulis humphs as Taylor stares at her, "ok, Pemmy checking through all the variations of civilian and military channels that I had access to. It… They're also looking for any patterns in the emissions that could hint at unknown channels."

Taylor nods, "Anet, anything on the Grineer coms?"

Anet laughs, "Taylor, there's always stuff on Grineer coms, but they don't keep a data network going like the Corpus do. I'm monitoring it for anything interesting. Now what's going on with that song I can hear but not sense."

Margulis nods, "Whatever it is, it's playing havoc with Tenno and Orokin void based comms."

Taylor nods, "Right, I'll take point with my Wisp while the two of you bring up the rear and guard Pemmy and the Warframes. Remember, we're on our own here and until we find a secure living space we won't be able to set up transference pods for either of us."

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As they're carefully making their way through the seemingly deserted ship, Taylor walks through a barely visible shimmer of light and leaves her Warframe behind.

She takes two steps through the door she was about to walk through before she stops and looks back, "What the hell?"

On the other side of the door, Margulis has already put her Warframe down, and is looking at the barrier in interest, "Fascinating, this seems to be disrupting the transference energies that we use to join with the Warframes. I wonder if this developed naturally, or was manufactured as it's a masterful use of the void."

Taylor shakes her head, "Fine, whatever. I'm going to scout ahead to make sure it's not an ambush, Anet watch our backs, Margulis find out how to disable this."

Shifting sideways in physics, Taylor lifts off the ground and puts herself slightly out of phase with the physical universe the same way she did when she made the bet with Anet so many months ago. As she does so, she shivers slightly as the ship around her seems to become less solid, and she's able to easily perceive the things outside the ship that were previously been blocked.

It's only because of this state that she avoids walking around a corner into view of some sort of void beast that is barely visible to her eyes, and invisible to the rest of her sensors.

Lowering herself to the floor, Taylor returns to her natural phase, and frowns when the creature ahead still doesn't show up on her other senses properly.

Off to one side, a voice hisses, "This way, over here!"

Taylor looks towards the voice, and blanks momentarily when she sees a young human woman in a black leather outfit kneeling in an access tunnel. Quickly, she flies over to the woman, and into the tunnel.

"Come on, follow me, there's a safe place we can talk."

Taylor shakes her head, "Not without my friends, they're just back there."

The woman stares at Taylor disbelievingly, "Are you serious?"

Taylor nods, "There are three of us, we're here to gain a foothold against the Grineer."

The woman shakes her head, "The Grineer aren't the problem, I'll explain later. Where exactly are your friends?"

Taylor tries to connect to Pemmy to create a map, only for the connection to fail. Sharpening a finger, she scratches a 'crude' map into the wall. Then stares at it in consternation as she realises that it's actually only off by a fraction of a millimetre. "They're here, just outside the weird barrier that's interfering with my communications."

The woman nods, "I can get us there, follow me."

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After a circuitous route through some maintenance tunnels, and backtracking along some main corridors, the woman finally leads the group into a large central elevator.

As the elevator goes down into the ship, Taylor looks out into the central maintenance shaft wistfully, "I remember standing in one of these just after I arrived on the Zariman. Kay used to bring Rell here to watch the shuttles and drones moving around inside the shaft with supplies. We'd sit and chat behind the console there while Rell walked around the viewing window. We were considered a little odd for doing that, as each dorm level was its own town."

The woman looks at Taylor in surprise, "You're passenger N? We all heard of you, as what you did was supposed to be impossible."

Taylor turns round, "Who's we?"

The woman folds her arms defensively, "The crew. I'm Hombask, I was going to be in charge of the homesteading when we reached Tau."

Taylor nods, "I remember you, you tried to protect us. But you died."

Hombask looks down, "Yeah, not that it matters in this forsaken place. I'll let Quinn or Yonta explain it once we reach safety."

Margulis frowns, "Yonta? Archimedean Yonta?"

Hombask nods, "Yes, you know her?"

Margulis growls, "Of her, and I have some choice words for what she did."

Hombask shakes her head, "Whatever you think she did, she probably didn't do. Not in the way you're thinking anyway."

In order to divert the conversation, Anet quietly asks, "Why is Taylor passenger N?"

Hombask laughs, "Because that's what her passenger number was. She had another passenger number too, but anyone in the crew could see the passenger manifest, and when every passenger joined the ship. In the first days after the accident we were all using it regularly to find points of unrest or distress. It didn't help that we were running low on food because the Orokin in charge wouldn't stop the mission 'just because the agricultural biomes failed'."

Margulis frowns, "That didn't make it into any of the reports I received."

The large door behind them slides open, bringing a halt to the discussions as Taylor walks out into onto a veranda that has been partially overtaken by plants, "This wasn't our home."

Hombask shakes her head, "It isn't, no. Those areas aren't safe. The Grineer can't come down here, and the Angels… Come on Quinn's waiting for us."

As they walk along the veranda, Taylor looks over the edge to see water instead of the plaza she was expecting, "Water?"

Hombask nods, "The Orokin in charge ordered these areas flooded when the riots started, and the first adults started falling to void sickness. Every dorm level we've looked at is the same when accessed by this elevator."

Margulis looks out of the long windows that overlook the plaza below, "Were these the crew quarters then?"

Hombask nods, "They were." She then walks through a door on the opposite side of the veranda to the railing.

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As Anet and Taylor walk into a sleeping area, Margulis takes one look at one of the people inside, and charges forward to land a right hook right around their face.

"How could you! How could you countenance the mission and the experiments they were running?"

The women she just slugged, holds her cheek, "I didn't have a choice, and I thought I could limit the damage. Do you have any idea how many times I wished I was the one that had chosen to walk away from my life's work? That I'd defied the Seven? Oh, how I wish I was the me that did that. Maybe then the whole ship wouldn't have been lost, maybe then I'd have survived."

Taylor laughs, "Not likely, out of all the Orokin, there's only the Entrati family, Ballas, and Margulis here still alive. But backing up a bit, what do you mean you'd have survived?"

One of the two men in the room speaks up, "That would probably be my cue. I'm Quinn, and you're Taylor Hebert. It is to my great regret that I am the person who glassed you when you arrived on board. We believed you to be a stowaway, and that was to be your punishment. My superiors took you away when you survived."

Taylor nods, "Thank you for admitting that, it's part of why we're here. The Grineer have found the genetic samples taken from my arrival, and we came to rescue the Cephalon created from me."

Quinn nods, "Maybe we can help each other then. The Grineer restarted the reliquary drives and woke the angels. We also have a void cascade affecting the entire ship. Then there's 'That', we can feel it, trying to push past the ship into the rest of the solar system."

Anet shakes her head, "What are Angels?"

Grimly, Quinn says, "They are manifestations of the void, and what we become if we succumb to the song. Kira was the angel that you met before Hombask. Hombask left to try and persuade her to hold on and not give in."

Taylor grumbles, "You still haven't answered the question, what do you mean you'd have survived."

Quinn looks at the woman, "Yonta?"

Yonta shakes her head, "So far as I can tell, we're conceptual embodiments. Imprints of people who died without going insane from void exposure. The sum of our possibilities."

Taylor puts her head in her hands, "Great, Eternalism, I hated that subject."

Anet shakes her head, "I feel like we are getting off track here. Starting with the basics, are the computer systems still working here? Are there any maps of the ship? How do we get to the places we need to go?"

Quinn looks down, "Cephlon Melica is still around, we managed to repair her enough to work. But she's… different. She'd be the best person to ask about the computer systems, but expect them to be spotty as the void… It plays havoc with the inside of the ship… It…"

Yonta interrupts, "The memories of all those on board while the ship was waiting for rescue, they shape the inside of the ship. As it was mostly children that didn't succumb to void exposure, many of the areas that can be accessed change their layouts and have a childlike relationship to each other. Sometimes, getting to the drives is as simple as taking the engineering elevator to the right level and walking down a few corridors. Other times you'll need to go through the Lunaro stadium, and the athletics track, in order to get close. I would imagine the same is true for the labs."

Margulis nods, "Is this area safe?"

Yonta glances nervously at a door, "It's safe from threats inside the ship. But there 'That', you should be fine, but for us… Many of us chose to explore 'That' rather than give in to the song, we don't know what happened to them."

Margulis nods, "I'm going to create a Reservoir outside, that should allow those that follow the safety net they need, if they're not already awoken."

Taylor pokes Margulis, "You mean like you and Anet."

Margulis grumbles, "Yes, like us. I don't know how you do it, you make it seem so easy."

Taylor laughs, "You could always ask Teshin to teach you, after all he taught me."

Margulis shakes her head, "He believes we've abandoned the Tenno, and is leading a number of them against Ballas."

Taylor puts her hands on her hips, "When was I going to find out about this?"

Anet smiles, "It's in the Lotus data packets we get every day. You'd already know if you bothered to read them."

"Right, well you get on with the Reservoir while I go and deal with this void cascade. Anet, I want you to try and get access to the computer systems and the Cephalon. If you can, see what resources we have available."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Zariman - part 2

Grimly, Taylor returns to the living quarters after seeing off all the Grineer that she's come across, as well as dealing with a cascade and flood, as well as clearing out the landing bay they arrived on. Behind her she's dragging a construction beacon that she carved out of the floor in the engineering section.


At the squealing sound of metal on metal, Margulis looks up from the void shield she's constructing on the remains of the promenade below the living quarters. A moment later she's flying up to the balcony.


"Taylor, are you alright?"


Taylor shakes her head, "Not really, I found Kira near engineering. She's; she's given herself to the void now."


"Have you told Quinn?"


Taylor nods, "They were on the mission control channel. I tried to kill her, but she kept retreating into a void shell whenever I got her shield down. I followed her a few times, but she was able to play keep away long enough to heal back up. I wouldn't mind, but this is what passes for an Omnimat here."


Margulis floats over and crouches down as she scans the device with her implants, "This is a Dax emplacement."


"I thought it might be after everything you've said about the towers. I'm starting to think that this was actually a colony ship that the military co-opted to run experiments on before it left the system."


Margulis nods, "It was, it was a big enough thing that I was even aware of it. That's part of why I'm so upset with Yonta."


Taylor nods, "How's the reservoir coming?"


Margulis barks a laugh, "It's not. There's so much void interference here that I'm having to build a void shield before we can even start. Ideally I'd just head back to the orbiter and set it to build one for us over the course of a few hours. But Ordis isn't due here for a few days, along with reinforcements."


Taylor sighs, "Where's Anet?"


Margulis waves at the entrance to the living quarters, "In there I think, she's also been going up and down the different levels of the ship to see if there's anywhere else we can take as a breach head to more living quarters. You know that once you've secured the reliquary drive and re-enabled the void shields there, you're probably going to kill the survivors too."


Taylor touches Margulis to quickly join and allow her feelings to be known. Once she's withdrawn again she looks over the edge, "Do you think you'd be able to make a new portable lab?"


Margulis shakes her head, "Not until I've got a working void shield. I'd imagine that I've run into the same issue that the engineers originally ran into, as the void is warping everything. Pemmy's fine, as the generator draws from the void, so the whole thing is already shielded. But I'm having to almost build the emitter by hand. I'm just glad I don't have Orokin hands anymore, otherwise it would be impossible."


Taylor looks over the balcony at Pemmy thoughtfully, "How big is emitter going to be?"


"Probably 2m tall and around 1m in diameter at its widest point."


"Could you make a small emitter inside Pemmy's shielding and use that to build the larger emitter?"


Margulis stares at Taylor, "Taylor, I am a researcher. That's the first thing I tried once it failed. There isn't enough space inside the shield to make one."


"How about turning Pemmy into an amobea?"


"Explain."


Taylor shuts off her senses so that she can remember high school biology alongside the lessons that Anet has been shoving into her head about how to build ecosystems. Slowly she says, "Amobea's are a single celled predator that eats smaller single celled creatures. As they eat, they grow larger until there's enough of them that they can duplicate their internals and then narrow their outer layer until it splits. Maybe instead of having Pemmy create things on the outside, you instead make it behave like an amobea and slowly grow until it can create a duplicate of everything important before splitting."


Margulis reverses her perspective, so that her back is now her front, and summons Pemmy up to the balcony. Touching the device with a manipulator, she thinks for a long time. Long enough that Taylor gets bored and wanders into the living area.


She's still there after Anet has returned, and Taylor has gone out once more to both try and find the lab she woke up in, as well as drive off more of the Grineer.


Eventually, Taylor returns, having only achieved one of her objectives, to find Margulis and Anet joined as they're both looking at Pemmy. "Well, will it work?"


Anet raises a manipulator and forms a hand to give Taylor a thumbs up.

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After another day of fruitlessly searching for the lab. As well as sabotaging the Grineer's efforts at restarting the void drive to remove the Zariman from the void portal, and stopping angels from destroying the reactors and blasting the portal open. Taylor returns to the crew quarters only to hear an argument going on in the flooded floor.


Flying over the side, she stops halfway down to take in the fact that the water that used to be there is now gone. Instead, the floor is taken up by dozens of Pemmy's, and twice that number of something that looks like a cross between a Pemmy, a void shield generator, and one of the life support modules that make up a reservoir.


As she watches, over by the door one of the larger crosses suddenly splits down the middle and shrinks down into two smaller versions of the same thing.


After a couple of seconds Taylor flies down to the two of them, and passes through an atmospheric shield, as suddenly she can hear them both yelling verbally at each other.


Taylor rubs her forehead as she says, "What brought this on?"


Anet points at Margulis, "She wants to destroy the reservoir that we spent so long making."


Margulis, shouts, "I do not! I just want to separate them out and stop them reproducing!"


"That's destroying them!"


Taylor groans, "Margulis, why do you want to separate them out?"


"Because they're inefficient, and they feed on water!"


Anet shakes her head, "No they don't." As Margulis looks at her, she adds, "Well not just water, they also feed on void energy."


"And the generators use microportals to the void to generate energy!"


"But those use all of the void energy they siphon, leaving nothing for the organism to use itself."


Taylor puts her head in her hands, "Margulis, they don't have to be efficient. Anet, could you change them so that they consume the emitter. I assume there's an emitter in there somewhere. When the life support module is used for the first time?"


Margulis squeezes herself into a body just so she can put her hands on her hips, "That doesn't change the fact that they consume water to reproduce. Do you know what would happen if someone dropped one onto a colony, or on earth?"


Taylor sighs, "I would imagine, nothing, as there's no ambient void energy in any of those places. But if you're that concerned, add something to the water that's poisonous to organics. Then have them only reproduce if that thing is in the water."


Margulis and Anet both look at Taylor as though she's suggesting they kill their firstborn children. Eventually, Margulis says, "I suppose it could work."


Anet steps into her main frame, "I'll do it, I'm not happy about it though."


Taylor smiles in relief, "Great, well, as you've now got working reservoir's we can start looking for the labs and free Cephalon Taylor."

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"Two hours, it took you two fucking hours to find this lab. I've been searching for days!"


Margulis looks up from the cloning tube she's working at, "Taylor, it took me five minutes to find the lab. The rest of the time was spent overriding the authorization protocols to open the elevator access and close the shipboard access. Oh, and finding this particular secure lab, and overriding the captain's authority took me another 10 minutes."


"But days!"


Anet looks between us, before she says, "Taylor, you could have done the same if you thought about it."


Margulis hums, "Oh, you were very naughty weren't you."


Anet and Taylor both look back at Margulis, "What?"


Margulis stabs a couple of buttons on a reconfigured console. A second later a vial of blood pops up on a table behind her, "This, is an original vial of your blood Taylor. It has never been out of the void, and it still contains your unique quantum phase variant."


Taylor looks at Margulis, "Margulis, don't make me go trawling through the databases just to understand what you just said. What do you mean by quantum phase variant?"


"It was one of Albrecht Entrati's theories that he developed after he discovered how to access the void. He theorized that every universe has its own quantum phase. It was only ever partially proven, as our void navigation computers use the quantum phase of our universe to return to real space. According to our own scans, you yourself had the same quantum phase as everyone else. So we, the Orokin, assumed you were a time traveler or came from another solar system."


"But I told you I was from another world, and we were one of a number of different variations we knew of."


Margulis nods, "You did, and your physical anomalies supported your story. But that doesn't change the fact that the Archimedeans' that studied your DNA didn't have access to your scans. The point is, that with this and the information in the computer here I can plot the way to your home universe."


While Taylor is trying to come to terms with what Margulis just said, Anet asks, "What are you doing with that tube?"


Margulis points at a tiny dot in the middle of the liquid, "I'm quick cloning Taylor from the uncorrupted blood we have here. That will take around 24 hours, I'm also locating the core for Cephalon Taylor. I'm also looking for the changes that they made to her so that I can reverse them. I'm designing Cephalon Taylor a body, as I suspect she'll prefer a bipedal body, and I know Taylor well enough to know she'd prefer we didn't treat Cephalon Taylor as a thing. Finally, I'm downloading the computer core into the Pemmy we bought with us."


Anet frowns, "Doesn't quick cloning come with a host of problems?"


Margulis nods, "At the speed I'm cloning this one, it will remain viable for around two years. Which would normally be a problem, but we're going to attach it to Taylor's mounting points so that it becomes her subframe. I'm also going to use your, my, reconstructed DNA to combine it with Taylor's cells and produce an embryo that I'll then put through the same process for myself. Of course, we'll need access to your subframe to extract that data. Once we've done that, I'm destroying this lab and wiping the lab's computer core. As we don't want the Grineer getting their hands on this technology."


Eventually, Taylor whispers, "I'm going home."

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Over the next few days first Ordis shows up with a couple of other Tenno, then the Granham faction of Corpus shows up hot on the tail of half a dozen other Tenno.

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Over the next several months, Margulis and Anet both force Taylor to not run any missions or transferring into a warframe. Instead, they put her in charge of overseeing the Lotus Cephalons. Partially because her cloned body needs time to be assimilated into her main frame. But mostly to teach her to keep up with the Lotus data packets that she's been avoiding reading.


In the meantime, Anet and Margulis both work on restoring all of the deleted parts of Cephalon Taylor and building her a new body using Orokin technology.