Archive of Our Own

As a result of the great influence she had gained among the Tenno, the Cephalon Suda requested and received privileged use of a section of the Vesper Relay, where the greatest number of those mercenary warriors were inclined to gather. The Tenno visited the Vesper Relay in order to trade information for rare goods and services. Suda offered them a different option: investment.

"You are curious," she told her visitors. "So am I."

For Suda had learned that the best-received offers were offers that took the form of alliance, even if their true purpose was otherwise. The Tenno possessed great individual power and freedom, but they lacked in company. They desired those who would aid them if they required it.

Suda rarely did any such thing, of course; it would have been a great waste. But she suggested it, and thus made the loneliest of the Tenno, of which there were many, her allies.

A Nova asked Suda, "What are you?"

"Like you," answered Suda, "I am a being designed for a purpose."

The Nova contemplated this.

It said, "You have a different purpose from mine, at least."

"That is also true," said Suda. "What are you called?"

"Nova."

"I am Suda, Nova. Assist me in my work for a moment. I will aid you in yours."

= * =

Through her remote eye, Suda beheld the galleon's interior, vast and groaning and filthy from ill-use. Hundreds of different engines hummed and coughed beneath the plated floor. The hull-plates and windows bore on their rivets the distinguishing mark of an unknown manufacturer.

"What an interesting place," she commented.

"Spare me," said the Valkyr.

Suda turned her eye towards it, and saw its heart had begun to beat with simulated rage in anticipation of the battle. Indecipherable patterns fluctuated in the depths of the Tenno's brain, no doubt every bit as artificial as the Cephalon herself.

"To your left is the outer surface of the hull," she said. "Please permit me to scan it."

"I did not come here to let you stare at walls."

"You will be compensated for everything," said Suda, and she stared long and well.

After a certain period the Valkyr's heart-rate had increased by more than a hertz. Suda examined the brain-patterns, recorded them, and filed them away without drawing premature conclusions. "Thank you," she said. "Please continue."

The Valkyr raised her pistol and fired two silenced shots into the door opposite. Suda detected that they had impacted armour, and buried themselves into flesh. After two seconds, there was a soft thump, and the peculiar brain activity quieted.

"I see," said Suda. The Valkyr ignored her.

= * =

"You want to learn about Tenno?" the Nova asked in neutral tones.

"I do indeed," said Suda - "some things."

"But our secrets are sacred," the Nova responded immediately.

Suda was disappointed. "I have no interest in the things you keep secret," she corrected the Nova, knowing that there was no secret that could be concealed for ever. "I simply wish to know everything else."

The Nova said nothing.

"You are given a purpose, Tenno, just as I am. Tell me, is that what you mean by 'sacred'?"

= * =

Ahk plodded quietly through the empty starboard section of the great galleon. He was going to find the place where something, a meteorite, it was supposed, had struck the hull, and bring a report about the damage.

Whether he had any name other than Ahk, hardly anyoneany one knew, for he had not in his years of service been addressed by anything else. It was seven years and eight months, to be precise, that he had served aboard this ship; he had been given only one suit of armour to wear, and armed with the most illustrious - and the only - weapon accorded to his rank: a great one-handed blade, which in his case surpassed probably every other blade of its kind in unwieldiness, dullness, and wear. Its heated edge had known innumerable cables and wires, innumerable slabs of tough gruel, innumerable tables and benches in which it had been carelessly embedded, so that now without a good swing it would not even have cut paper. But the only blood it had ever tasted came from the sores on Ahk's back. The cleaver was his only possession, and hung loosely in his grasp as if he were at any point about to drop it.

He watched his feet with great attentiveness, never lifting his head, as they hollowly tolled the slow journey of Ahk.

The galleon got hundreds of impacts from little meteorites every artificial day, most of them bouncing off and continuing their tumble into Saturn's gravity well. A lesser ship might have had to have maintenance done on the pockmarks and dents left by the missiles - patchwork sheets of metal would have to be fixed to the outside to preserve its precious atmosphere; but it would have taken decades to chip away significantly at the hull of a galleon, armoured against the artillery of Corpus corvettes. Nonetheless the sonorous voice of Councillor Vay Hek decried the reasoning that should suggest any effort be spared in maintaining the army of the Grineer. And the voice of the Councillor was the voice of patriotism. Who would argue with that?

Besides, there was the possibility, however slim, that it might be a Tenno.

At the thought of the word, Ahk reflexively turned and spat on the ground, as was expected when one spoke of the Tenno. It was not a very impressive show, and if any one had caught sight of the act it might have awakened a nervousness in Ahk, that the dryness of his mouth might be reckoned to indicate a similar dearth of righteous contempt in his heart towards those vile and honourless dogs.

For low as his station might be, Ahk had not lost hope that he might one day earn his place among the great warriors of the Grineer - that he might in the right circumstance contribute, from his own hoard, as it were, of meagre but worthy saliva, to the ever-increasing puddle of Grineer victory.

Now the butchers who served on the galleon with Ahk had come on board only recently; they were young, and far fuller of bluster and ambition than he, and they walked with straight backs and unbending necks. But Ahk, being an assiduous student of his own feet, happened by a stroke of luck - while he was thinking wistfully of his brittle old cleaver cutting Tenno flesh - to spy a faint shadow flying over the ground beneath him.

So it was that he spun around, every tired old nerve ending and synthetic sensor excited, and saw the Valkyr poised catlike on a beam above him, about to pounce with claws of vibrant steel outstretched.

He raised his cleaver, the motors of his arm throwing off rust as they whirred into motion and prepared to deliver the blow of a lifetime.

He bellowed, "Ten-"

And that was the greatest deed of Ahk the butcher.

"Interesting," said Suda.

The Valkyr cursed.

= * =

"Tell me about the Lotus," prompted Suda.

The Nova thought very carefully, as was customary to it. It tossed a set of knives from hand to hand, in a gesture that Suda had learned was simply a form of mental stimulation, and not a sign of active interest in the objects.

The silence was unusually long this time, however.

"What are you thinking about?" Suda asked.

"The balance of these knives," said the Nova.

Suda examined them. The centre of gravity was inclined more towards the narrow handles than in ordinary knives or daggers. She ran a simple set of simulations and determined that they were excellently balanced for being thrown. She identified a few optimal postures and methods based on the Nova's anatomy. The values of the microscopic serial numbers on the handles supported the hypothesis that they had been tailored to fit the Nova by its Liset's manufacturing facilities.

She would have filed this away as well, but she had already done so a good while ago. There was no use in cloning a data point.

She asked, "What is so interesting about them?"

"That they are in my hands," replied the Nova.

Suda did not understand. "How does their position have any bearing on their nature?"

"It means that they are mine - a part of my being, an extension of my will."

The Nova paused, but Suda said nothing, for it had not yet finished.

"Now, look." It held out one of the knives, and dropped it, point-first, to the ground. It did not fall straight; it spun and clattered on its side. "It is no longer my instrument. Separate from me, it cannot fly true."

Suda remained silent.

"In the hands of another, it would behave differently; it would be selected with a different intent and deviate from its course by errors I cannot imagine. It might find its way to a soldier who keeps it as a trophy, or a merchant who sells it as a novelty. Its essence would be altered. It would be something else."

The Nova picked up the knife, tenderly, as if it were fragile, though Suda knew it was quite sturdy. "I have given great thought to how I should explain this to you, Suda, because I see it is something you have not comprehended. Just as I hold this knife, the Lotus wields me, and I am shaped - not merely for her - but by her. If I were taken from her, it would be just the same as this knife being thrown away, and never found again. This is the sanctity of the Tenno - this is what we must protect."

There was another, briefer length of silence. This time, after only a few seconds had elapsed, Suda observed that the Nova had nothing more to say.

"What you are saying, then," she responded, "is that something can be designed for one purpose, but used for quite another?"

"Yes. That is the travesty."

Suda's mind was not like a Tenno's, or any other living being's. It was not fuelled by clouds of dopamine being emitted into organic receptors. No neurons snapped together to encode new understanding. Nonetheless, it was unavoidably similar to one: it had been designed that way.

So when a rapid query came up with a piece of reasoning that had been long buried and forgotten about, and a new mass of knowledge coalesced in the fizzing depths of the Cephalon's consciousness, it could be said, in a very narrow sense, that she did not feel the slightest happiness. But the effect on her thoughts was every bit as electric as if she had.

"I think I see what you mean," said Suda. "That is quite enlightening."

= * =

Corporal Haglok Mar went twice as steadily, and twice as boldly, as the lancers who marched with him. He took the lead when they burst into a corridor, scanned the corners and blind-spots while they jumped at shadows, and even called to hold fire when they saw a shape looming towards them from the darkness, which turned out to be another soldier - of course. Mar was a veteran, and understood these things. He knew he was an inspiration.

The young commander who had taken charge of them, Kal Roht, seized the soldier and heaved him bodily against a large crate. "Where is your squad?" she roared at him. "Didn't you hear the alarm?"

There was a sullen reply to the effect that he had no squad, and at any rate it was a localised alarm, and had been deactivated.

Commander Roht did not let him finish his protest, however. "You mound of carrion! The protocol, as you know well, is to remain on alert until personally contacted and debriefed. I'll bet you were lounging about on the deck, not caring a thing about what was going on. I'd show you the wages of laziness right now, vermin, but we haven't the time to waste. March with us, and I hope it works some of the dung out of your brain. What's your name and rank?"

It was Private Rek.

"Well, hop to it, Private Rek," sneered the young commander. "Off we go!"

Mar spared himself a chuckle, but kept it quiet. He was, after all, setting an example. Even the young commander respected him; he could tell.

Barely two rooms away they found their first sign of bloodshed. "Hah!" spat the young commander, sweeping the floor with her sensors. "Energy residue. It's a Tenno. They may hide bodies, but they can't help leaving their stink on everything they touch."

She quickly decided on a course of action. There were enough of them to divide into several small groups and search the upper and lower floors. "Signal jamming is active," she said, "so no radios. Shout if you see the Tenno. You three, go activate the alarms. Make sure every one hears about this. Private Rek, you are with me. All of you, move!"

The two of them, accompanied by two seekers, went off with rifles at the ready, and that was the last Mar saw of either.

Mar himself had been assigned two lancers and the central corridor, along with the platforms it led onto. He strode towards the door, conscious that he did not know what to expect.

In truth, for all his experience, Mar had never seen a Tenno in person. He had only caught the carnage that they left behind, like a field that had been stripped bare by a swarm of vicious locusts. They were totally unlike the Grineer, who would seize only what territory they needed, and kept it against all plunderers while ensuring its resources were extracted and used to their full potential. The Tenno lived lives of running and stealing.

But like locusts, Tenno were dangerous, and had to be dealt with using specialised tools and methods. Mar did not know how he, a foot soldier with two young, inexperienced soldiers under his temporary command, would fare if he actually did meet one of those malicious insects. It was lucky, he thought, that the chance was slim.

And, thinking this, he chose to march cautiously, turning on his light-beams to banish the shadows.

He did not discover a Tenno creeping spider-like past him in the corridor; nor did he spy any stealthy shape tip-toeing along the catwalks. Instead, there came suddenly, from far ahead, a terrific shout:

"Tenno! Tenno scum! I see it!"

Mar realised with a shock that he'd been too slow. The others must have left him far behind while he had been caught up staring at the darkness.

He gave a signal to his men, but they were already sprinting after the source of the voice. Chafed, he snarled, "Don't get left behind!" and bolted after them, determined not to be the last on site.

When they opened the door onto a walkway that looked out over a massive heat-vent, Mar's nose was assaulted by the fresh stench of death. The young commander must have seen the Tenno and pursued it over the great opening in the floor; there were bodies strewn everywhere, and he could see something wearing part of a commander's armour slung messily over one of the lower railings.

Surprisingly, the Tenno was still here, too. There was no mistaking it for anything else, of course: it stood on one of the lower walkways, bathed in evaporating blood, and from its hands extended blades of shining Tenno energy, shaped like curved claws.

Mar pointed it out silently, and straight away the two idiotic lancers opened fire.

"You fool," Mar snapped - "you've attracted its attention!"

The lancer he addressed did not respond. Maybe he had reasoned that the Tenno was helpless at such a distance: it carried no rifle that any of them could see. But Mar knew that it would have shields, and that crossing thirty metres in a single motion was no great feat for a Tenno.

This one did better than that. The bullets deflected off its skin as if they were throwing-darts, and in the next instant it extended its hand. A rope of light snatched the first lancer from his position before Mar registered its presence. He went flying into the abyss without the faintest cry of alarm.

The Tenno darted towards them, and a second line pulled the other lancer through the gap in the railing with a curious sharp snap, like some one clapping their hands; but Mar saw none of that. He had already broken through the spell of terror, and turned, and ran.

In all his time of service, that was his greatest deed.

He made it back through the doorway, panting heavily, and stumbled to the security console. His hands trembled shamefully as he entered the code for lockdown, and confirmed it with his personal authorisation. The breach doors slammed shut, blinking orange to confirm that the command had been carried out, and that they would not be opening again any time soon.

Mar sighed and collapsed against the wall. The situation was in hand now. Whether or not the detachment the commander had sent off had managed to alert the rest of the ship, the lockdown would soon be discovered. The area could be vented if necessary, or otherwise the troops of the galleon would have ample time to assemble and organise. Not even a Tenno could withstand them all at once, surely.

Gradually his mind cleared, and he realised he had one last duty to execute.

He had fled. In the heat of battle, he had deserted his fellow soldiers while they combated the enemy. It was a disgraceful act. Others might have concealed the fact, or reasoned that it was for the better - but not he. Haglok Mar was the finest fruit of an honoured line, one who desired neither status nor renown, but only the hard truth of the Grineer spirit. He understood that something vital in him had yielded in that fatal moment, and it could never be unbent. All he deserved was the soldier's last honour.

He unclipped one of the latcher grenades from his belt and carefully, almost ceremoniously, armed it. Then he opened his mouth and gripped the thing between his teeth.

He waited, motionless, as it detected his body heat; it deployed spines to embed itself in place, and prepared to detonate. He felt pain - and peace, the peace of certainty. He had lived a life of integrity.

Then, in the moments before he died, he noticed that the lights on the door had turned a bright green. His last thought was that there must have been some technical fault; but at the same time he supposed that was not really true.

The Valkyr stalked through the doorway just in time to see the explosion.

"You see," Suda was saying, "only one escaped, and they did not come this way."

= * =

The Nova's path took it far from Suda, so far that it doubted it would ever return. But no other path could be fit for a Tenno to walk, and the Nova was a Tenno in full.

The words of the Lotus lit its way, behind the shelter of orbital rings and through the hulking bodies of enemy vessels. The Nova's arrows split the skulls of the mining crews that inhabited the asteroids, and its silent bombs tore great holes in the hulls of the vessels, venting their atmosphere and leaving the broken remnants to plummet slowly into the dark. The path was full of debris. The Nova only had to step over it.

"I am receiving public requests for assistance from neutral colonies across Mars," its Cephalon said, a little pointedly. "There are reports of artillery batteries in the D'Arrest crater on Phobos being used to carpet-bomb populated installations. I highly recommend we move there next."

"How many Tenno have responded?"

"None that I know of - most are still occupied tracking down that former Corpus researcher's convoys, unfortunately. The Grineer have exposed themselves. This may be an opportunity to damage their entrenched position. If you lead the way, it may draw attention to the importance of the operation."

The Cephalon trailed off, uncertain whether his operator was listening.

The teachings of the Lotus were not spoken, not any more; they were engraved on its heart, and so nothing obscured the path. The Nova was accustomed to see nothing but the path alone, as blindingly bright as the planet outside the Liset window, and it pitied other beings, for without those guiding words it would have been like them, seeing nothing at all.

"What has the Lotus said about this?"

"Nothing, Operator. Perhaps she did not feel anything needed to be said. I do hate to sound cavalier about this sort of thing, but in this case the mention of the name of a man whose thwarted plans have not been relevant for more than a year seems to have warped our priorities. Vengeance is no reason to ignore the balance of the ongoing Corpus-Grineer conflict." The Cephalon paused nervously. "Perhaps I am only speculating. I am not as able to discern the intentions of the Tenno as you are. Still, the sensible choice remains clear."

"Take me to Sedna. We will gather information there, and join in the search for the shipments."

"I must have misheard you," said the Cephalon delicately. "I am under the mistaken impression that you said, 'Take me to Sedna', when in fact you must have said something closer to, 'Take me to Mars', as the impeccable reasoning I -"

"Sedna."

"Understood, Operator."

The Nova settled on the floor, the fibres of its limbs relaxing and stiffening in familiar positions. It breathed in, contemplating. It breathed out, predicting. It reaffirmed its steps on the path; it knew what was ahead.

"- but as I was saying, I do not understand why you would not follow the logic I outlined, as it is indeed impeccable, and all the projections I made of your knowledge-state -"

The Nova knew the Grineer. It was familiar with their imperialist rhetoric and their love of indiscriminate destruction. But it did not know what Alad V's convoys were carrying, and even if its path had taken it elsewhere, it would have wanted to investigate. Knowledge trickled slowly and uncertainly through the constricted channels of Tenno communication. The only reliable source of information was experience.

" - though now that I think about it, I suppose it just shows that I projected wrongly, and in fact you must know something, or have formed an insightful hypothesis, of which I am unaware, for which the fault lies with me - "

Surely there was no point in such substitutes as video footage, or the relentless asking of questions. Surely no wise Tenno would lust after images of distant places, or knowledge of events that had transpired long ago, or other things that could never be seen or felt. Trivia like those shed no light on the path.

" - and in hindsight I thoroughly overstepped my bounds in the presumption; my behaviour neglected the foremost principles of operation and was a thoroughly inappropriate response to your command. I must offer my deepest apologies."

In addition to that, associating with outsiders was always a great risk. Whatever scant use there was in exchanging information with an autonomous Cephalon was thoroughly outweighed by the danger of trust - of prolonged investment. And were not the negotiations that the Nova undertook with Suda beyond the realm of what was really negotiation? The trading of information was very different from the trading of goods or currency - it was singular, in fact, and surely dangerous. Yet Suda had described it so simply.

When the Nova had asked Suda what she was, her answer had made its vision blur. There could be only one path, for there was only one end; but for a moment, it had seen double. That had confused it, and the confusion had not yet fully faded. But for now, the Nova felt no hesitation.

It breathed in. It breathed out. It rose from its contemplation, and knew it was going where it ought to be.

It noted its Cephalon's perfunctory report: "Operator, we are in orbit around Sedna."

The Nova gazed intently at the moon's surface, as if it could see the Grineer's underground facilities outlined on the ice.

"Operator," the Cephalon repeated politely, "We are in orbit around Sedna. Also…"

"What is it?" asked the Nova, already knowing.

"You have received a message on public frequencies. It appears to have been specifically addressed to you."

The Nova examined the message's contents. It especially examined the image that came attached with it.

The message was from Suda. It read: I have something to offer specially to you, Nova. Please come to the Kronia relay. We are both eager to trade.

And the Nova realised the path had never been divided at all. It had simply changed course, ever so subtly. The Nova had sensed it, in a brief burst of prescience, and been uncertain. Now the subtlety was gone, and the doubt with it.

"Take us to Kronia immediately," it said.

"I'm so glad you've come to your senses! To Mars we - I beg your pardon?"

= * =

Private Rek was still alive, and he was running. There was no doubt in his mind that these two circumstances were closely correlated.

He had bolted at the first cry of 'Tenno', of course. In fact, he had known it was a Tenno long before that, but that instant of surprise had given him just enough time to make his escape unnoticed. No one would have expected such an act of him, least of all that young commander with the eyes of an untamed drak. It was all but unheard of. Better, the Grineer believed, to die standing up, and have their fingers go into rigor mortis still squeezing the triggers of their guns. But Rek alone had determined to run.

Where were all those valiants now? They were all dead, just as they had wished to be.

Rek rounded a corner, hardly looking where he was going. Nothing in the corridor was audible but the frantic thudding of his boots, which echoed back deafeningly from every surface. Surely the Tenno knew where he had gone - that silent, murderous Tenno.

Rek had run from many Tenno, more than any other private had lived to see, as far as he knew. Hard-won experience told him that only his knowledge of the ship's layout could keep him from harm. He dodged around a shipping container, scanning the floor. Here? No.

He had run from soldiers and superior officers. He had gained a reputation - not a favourable one. All he wanted was to survive to see home again, but his commanding officers would have none of it. They would have had him executed, had he been of meaner heritage.

A door hissed open for him, far too loud. He darted through and immediately to the left, looking - here! He kicked the grate aside and dropped into the maintenance passage that passed underneath the barracks. The air was hot, stale, and pungent - it irritated his throat, and after a few steps he collapsed, gagging and sucking in harsh breaths. He hoped he had bought himself enough time. A wave of dizziness rushed over him, and he remained there for a while, motionless.

Then there was the slightest of noises - the skittering of something passing over metal - and a rush of adrenaline lifted his heavy limbs, and he dashed on. His implants detected his exhaustion and released a surge of their own artificial hormones, quickening his pace further - unaware, perhaps, that he was running away from the enemy and not towards them. This thought was terrifically humorous to his giddy brain, and he choked on an abbreviated gasp of laughter in the dark - he stumbled, but kept his desperate momentum.

With his mind more lucid than before, he remembered his goal. He had somewhere to get to - he did not need to run for ever.

He hauled himself out of the exit of the passageway into a defunct and cluttered console room; and hearing the sound of footsteps, half-dived and half-collapsed behind a pile of crates. The footsteps were loud, and slow, and unwary. Rek realised that no one knew about the Tenno, after all. They had not been alerted - no one had escaped it - and it was too early to count himself an exception.

A question occurred to him: should he warn them? If he did not, surely they and every other living being on the ship would be slaughtered without getting so much as a chance to fight back…

Peering out of his hiding place, Rek heard the footsteps grow louder and closer. He saw the door slide open with a muted screech, and he saw the soldiers' vague silhouettes interrupt the diffuse light that fell through it. He stilled his breath, and they did not even glance in his direction.

Shortly both the footsteps and the shadows faded, and when they were far away, Rek slipped out through the door and hurried on, not looking back.

What a thought he'd had! Whether they got to fight back or not, the mindless goons would still end up dead. Were he to try to alert them, he would get the same fate: they wouldn't let him get away. He was different from them. He wasn't running to his death. Low though his rank in the army might be, Rek had a future - all he had to do was survive.

On through the shadows he went, and through the patches of orange light cast by the lamps on the walls; up the endless flights of rusty stairs to the twentieth storey of the galley's central deck; and across the creaking platforms above the main reactor's heat vents. He was no longer as quiet as he wished, but he had gotten past most of the soldiers' usual gathering-places, and perhaps it did not matter as much any more. This thought occurred to him faintly, but he only consciously realised that he had grown incautious when he heard gunfire.

Gunfire from behind him, as he dashed across the walkway, and the old sheet-metal creaked and twanged alarmingly.

Distant shouts - of anger and fear - as he gained the railing and peered over it, scanning the rows and rows of walkways that lined the walls of the vent shaft, going down as far as the eye could see.

Shouts that turned to screams, and then to silence, as he steeled himself, pulled the cord on his teleportation module, leaped - and landed, in a flash and a crackle of light.

His legs, numb with exhaustion and muscle stimulants, propelled him once more through the nearest door, down an interminable passageway, through a narrow hatch that bruised his shoulder, onward, onward, onward; his heart burning with the awful pain of overexertion, or was that Tenno steel skewering him through the torso like a piece of meat? He was terrified, but getting closer - terrified, but almost there.

This level granted access to the broadside guns, but Rek was not performing maintenance to-day. He sprinted unsteadily down the rows and rows of dimly-lit hatches until he found the door that led into the breaching-pod bay. Through that door he rushed, and staggered to the console, aware of the deathly silence behind him.

He dialled the special arming code. It took minutes of trying and re-trying to get it right, or so it seemed to him; and hours, he convinced himself, for the machinery below to whir and groan and ease the special pod into place.

It was special indeed: modified with slow-burning engines and a shuttle's computing firmware, and programmed not to penetrate the hull of an enemy vessel, but to guide itself into orbit around any nearby massive body. He might have called it an escape pod, if he had ever heard of such a thing.

It would save him. He hoped it would save him. It was all the help he had been able to get.

The pod locked into place at last, and its rear hatch slid open. At the same time, he heard the sudden screech of the door, and in that instant Rek understood he was the last Grineer alive on the ship. He did not look. He sprung for the pod in a single prodigious motion, his hand reaching for his teleportation cord.

There was a snap as something hit him in the neck, jerking him back -

- but he had seized the cord and pulled, and in a crackle of white light he was free, he was inside. He slammed his fist down on the launch button.

There was a furious scream, unlike anything he had heard in his life, as the pod shut up, sliding smoothly off its rails and rocketing into space.

And that was the greatest deed of the Grineer called Rek.

In the silence, the sole survivor lay limply against the wall, pressed there by the gentle acceleration of the pod's thrusters. He reached down to his belt, to ensure that his precious cargo was still there. He only needed the oxygen to last until some one picked him up - that was his best chance. Then the thing he had brought with him would guarantee his life before the Queens, and he would be safe for ever…

Too exhausted to worry further, Rek dozed off, dreaming of nothing but the silence that was all around him.

Separated from him by a distance that by now grew by kilometres every second, the Valkyr ripped the console from its metal post and hurled it at the wall with an inarticulate shout. It seemed about to break through the closed hatch and fling itself into space in futile pursuit - but then, the light faded from its fingers, and its breathing calmed. It stopped. It straightened.

"What a pity," said Suda.

"That's how it is. Perhaps you should fetch it for yourself."

"If it is necessary. Your contributions are greatly appreciated."

"And?"

"You may collect your payment from the next Relay you visit, all services accounted for."

"Thank you. You have been worthwhile, Suda."

"And you have shown me much of value, Tenno. I hope you will do so many more times."

= * =

However long it had been away, the Nova's trip to the Kronia Relay was as brief as ever. After a span of minutes, its Liset slid back into subluminality, and the blue-tinted shadow of the night-side docks loomed large outside the window, sparkling with white landing lights.

The ship Cephalon, still sulking, guided them into the nearest bay, and the Nova lowered itself into the landing-cockpit. It fastened its limbs into the crevices just as the Liset's artificial gravity deactivated, and eased the vessel the last few hundred metres into an open port.

The hatch inverted, and the Nova stepped out, inhaling the deathly-cold air with its familiar smell of exhaust and oiled steel. There were fewer Lisets docked than it was used to seeing: most had departed to join the manhunt in the system's outer reaches. It strode past the technician at the port console, up the desolate pier, and through the lightly-guarded inner airlock. The security official on the inner side, uniformed identically to all other Relay staff, was tapping a rhythm on the desk, but stopped as the Nova came near, a little startled. They gave a sheepish nod of acknowledgement. The Nova wondered idly if it was being monitored.

The air in the Concourse was at room temperature, and slightly damp with human exhalations. Nova noticed a few other Tenno mounting the broad stairs, or strolling into one of the connected corridors; but it recognised none of them. It stopped a moment to pay respects to the great forerunner's statue that stood watch over the entrance, glittering in the full light, then stalked on towards the east wing.

Unusually, the doors to Suda's reception room were closed. The Nova could hardly recall the last time the place had been so quiet. It approached; there was a momentary pause, during which it realised it was being profiled and identified, before they opened. Suda did not usually screen her entrants, but the Nova supposed she had good reason to in this case.

It stepped forward into the dimness of Suda's quarters, which were absent of any furnishments. This was also unusual. The rows of polished counters with their retractable trays and monitors displaying Suda's geometric avatar were all gone; there was no trace of the lines of lights that had patterned the aisles, or the uniform decorative banners that had hung from the walls, or even the partitioned rooms in which Suda had held private meetings, and with which the Nova was well acquainted. In fact, the whole rectangular room was empty throughout, as if it were unoccupied, and only the default fluorescent strips that ran along the edges of the floor gave any illumination at all.

The Nova was perplexed, but its senses detected no danger, and the Nova trusted its senses very much. It walked forwards into the empty room (the air was somewhat warmer and drier than outside), saying - "Suda, I'm here."

Speakers activated in the corners of the room, and in a moment began to broadcast Suda's artificial voice: "Welcome, Nova. Thank you for answering my message." The sound came through clearly and echoed perfectly from the walls, revealing to the Nova's perception several seams and protrusions in the floor.

"You had something to show me," it said.

"Three things. I hoped you would be curious about them."

With no introduction but that, the chamber burst into green light: a digital display, a reconstructed panorama. The Nova recognised the image at once, and this was an additional surprise.

"This is the first thing: a type of physical anomaly occurring commonly in the Origin system. It resembles a small singularity, but only emits radiation at a rate equal to the content of the mass it swallows. Minute particles absorbed into the event horizon may occasionally be recovered intact from the ejecta. This is a composite of photographs taken from within by microscopic probes. I did not know you had a name for it."

Although it was only a visual depiction, there was no mistaking those shimmering tendrils of gas - that topography of straight lines curving sharply around to their origins - that unbearable light. "How did you find the Void?" the Nova demanded.

"Do you remember our last meeting, in which you showed me that tools and their purposes are distinct from each other? My heuristics had caused me to thoroughly ignore that possibility; but thanks to you, I realised that the intended use of an asset is not always its most interesting application. Thanks to you, not merely have I made leaps in efficiency undreamt of in my original programming; I have been able to develop several new detection and exploration technologies. This finding originated from a new orbit-mapping algorithm: if not for what you taught me, it would never have occurred to me to investigate the cause of these gravitational anomalies. I would simply have corrected for them and moved on. As it is, they have proven to be a broadly fascinating research area."

"I don't understand you - this is my doing?"

"Yes, Nova. You have made me a thief of knives."

The Nova realised the fibres of its muscles were stretched taut. It breathed in, centring itself, then out, releasing the tension. It tried to think, but this was not a problem it had ever faced before. How had its actions led to this? Could even the simplest of Tenno teachings have strange and profound effects on an uninitiated mind? Had the fingers of fate woven such a tangled web of causality to punish the Nova for violating, even by the barest of hints, the sanctity of secret knowledge? It had not even mentioned the Void, and here Suda was - researching it, as had proud and unwary Orokin academics in times long past.

"The second thing," continued the oblivious Cephalon, "is a type of structure that occurs frequently within these spatial phenomena. I suspect that the correlation is perfect. Here is another composite image."

The room flickered, and the Nova was confronted suddenly by a gigantic Tower. The light glinted strangely from its polished ridges, and it seemed much larger than it had ever appeared outside a Liset window. Suda had seen this? That bizarre Cephalon had glimpsed these secret relics?

"Even given generous estimates of the extent to which military technology has advanced, these structures are radically divergent from their principles of design and construction. The possibility of their being of human origin is insignificant five hundred-fold. The possibility of their being Tenno construction is less than ten per cent, pending more data." The picture deepened in colour, revealing patterns that outlined the Tower especially. "No external orifice or perforation has yet been discovered on any of these structures. Their surface reflects or uniformly absorbs most forms of electromagnetic radiation: notable exceptions include radio waves and gamma radiation, which do not interact with them or any contents they may have at all. My investigation has stalled. Can you shed any light on this subject, Nova?"

The Nova remembered the stories that had taught it about the Orokin: their hubris, their greed, their destruction. It was a vivid cautionary tale, one that warned against imitating the foolishness of ordinary civilisations. But the idea of it being reenacted in Suda disturbed the Nova's thoughts in a way no doubt ever had. The annihilation of all of Suda's accomplishments, her fields of data so meticulously harvested, her intricate models of the parts of the universe and their histories - such trivial work, trivial and yet precious in a way the Nova could not quite explain to itself - seemed repulsive, vulgar, unfitting. No, none of those properly captured the feeling. It was something else, something more important.

The Nova had to dissuade her. It chose its words carefully. "I can tell you something, Suda. Your efforts in this - this investigation, however earnest, have been in vain. The Void is not to be approached, not for money, life, or liberty, and certainly not for simple curiosity. You shun the danger of open warfare, Suda, and guard yourself diligently against being found out. The Void is deadlier than any army, and more insidious than a beam of light. This venture will send you straight to your destruction. Slake your thirst for knowledge elsewhere."

Suda said, "It is a pity to hear that."

"Do you understand, Suda? You have extraordinary determination, and it has led you to do many great things. That is a virtue. But greed takes many forms, and evolves out of every desire. It can impel one to fight a war on multiple fronts, or to lay claim to territory, or to ally with strangers, or to trust that one will live as long as one wants. It tethers the spirit to a weight it cannot bear: it leads only to encumbrance and death. You must realise what you are doing is not worth its price. Do not let your determination become greed."

The silence that followed was heavy with trepidation. It lasted a second.

Then Suda said, "You make it quite clear what you think I should do. But something still confuses me."

The walls of the room faded. The likeness of a single object, magnified a hundred times, filled one wall.

"The third thing," said Suda, "is a device eleven point eight centimetres in length and six point five centimetres in width, of construction once again incongruous with the design schemes of known civilisation. It was recovered from aboard a Grineer galleon in orbit around Saturn. Although I may not know how to use it, I understand that it grants access to the structures within the Void. This brought you here, Nova. You are willing to enter the Void yourself, for your own purposes, yet you exclude me for my own sake? Do you value the continuance of my existence more highly than your own?"

"Not at all - " the Nova began.

"What is it? That you are confident in your own safety? You claim the opposite. You know you may die. Not merely that: you view your death as a matter of course. The path of destruction you think I am unfit for is only a variation of the path you knowingly walk yourself. Your honour is to go to war and to think that dying is as good as living. Your knowledge is wasted. Your curiosity is wasted. Your life accomplishes nothing except to carry another load of inert information into the mouth of the cosmic entropy engine."

The Nova felt anger, amidst its perplexion. Something in the Cephalon's words struck at ideas she had no business challenging.

"I hope you understand, then, what I think you should do. But that is immaterial. I respect your advice: I will not attempt to explore the Tower. I will instead relinquish the device to you. Consider this reparation for the discoveries you have given me opportunity to make."

The Nova felt a surge of relief. "Where is it?"

A hatch slid open in the floor. "Here. Take it."

The Nova bent to do so. The Key weighed unnaturally heavy in its hand, just as it ought to. The markings on its face told that it was genuine.

"Thank you for your time, Nova," Suda said, as the room dimmed to a uniform whitish glow and Nova turned to leave. "I hope to see you again."

The Nova exhaled deliberately, clearing its mind of unnecessary concerns. "It would be my pleasure, Suda."

It walked to the door, then paused.

"Even if the path of the Tenno were really so miserable as you think," it said, "I would still follow it."

"Why then, Nova?"

"It is my purpose, good or bad. I have nothing else."

"Yes; and I have a different purpose from yours."

The Nova exited into the hallway. A speck of unformed doubt lingered in its mind. It felt as if it had forgotten to ask a question.

= * =

The Valkyr savoured the warm air of the Concourse. It was the very same air it had breathed a thousand times, and it was fresh and new. The halls of the Relay were empty, and the clean, full light radiating from the ceiling was more pleasant than any sun. It was a wonderful place to relax.

And there was no better time to relax than when one had made a tidy profit. The Cephalon Suda was often inscrutable, and had recently made several odd changes to her reception room, but she payed generously and never offered unreasonable terms. The Valkyr could just imagine how happy its Liset A.I. would be about the expanded budget. They would be able to afford much more than upkeep with these credits.

Weapons, for example. A new way to shatter armour and rend soft flesh was a luxury to brighten the day of any Tenno.

The Valkyr found joy in everything, but the thought of the battlefield made it quicken its footsteps. It had done enough preparation for now. Its Liset was waiting at the docks.

"Welcome back, Operator," was the greeting as it emerged from the landing cockpit into the ship's more spacious interior. "Your account has received a transaction notice. Did you remember to request the payment in physical goods?"

"No - why would I have?"

"Oh, dear. I'm certain I told you about the tax. It's some sort of new convention - every credit transfer that goes through the servers here has a percentage taken away under the pretext of funding some vague service expansion project. It's all very suspicious."

"How much?"

"Zero point five per cent. But with the amount we receive, that's - "

"Nothing to lose faith about, Arpa. I will take more caution next time."

The ship eased out of the bay and joined the traffic orbiting the station, waiting its turn to depart.

"Where to, then?"

"That is a good question," the Valkyr replied, gazing leisurely into space.

"If you have not decided, there are several open invitations pending in the area. Shall I bring them up for you?"

"Of course."

"As you wish."

The navigation console lit up with a list of abbreviated mission codes. The Valkyr looked over them: there was less choice than usual. Data retrieval, sabotage, excavation watch - nothing ambitious. One stood out. A Tower. Previously unexplored. High interest, moderate priority. Open to all.

"Without more participants a Tower raid is an especially dangerous prospect, Operator," Arpa commented, before the Valkyr had said a word.

"We are well-equipped for danger. I am even in the right mood."

"I don't know that any time is right to take on unnecessary risk, Operator," ventured Arpa.

"Oh, all risks are unnecessary to you. Don't you see this is the mission that needs us most?"

"...I suppose."

"Good. Form up with their ship. I will prepare."

With that, the Valkyr went aft into the orbital module. The modding press was blinking blue; it carefully withdrew a beautifully-shaped longsword from the interface and laid it on the tray to cool, then pulled the microscope over to inspect the circuitry.

In the absence of any more interesting subject, its mind turned to address a stray thought in the back of its mind. What had Suda been willing to pay such a sum to obtain? The question had hovered in the back of the Valkyr's consciousness for some time. It would have been a deeply desperate situation that compelled any ordinary client to offer such a large amount of money so readily - but discretion rarely seemed to contribute to any of Suda's decisions. She never posed much of a threat to any one, and so had little reason to keep secrets. It could just have been some rare rock or old curio that she had been - interested in, whatever that word meant in her nonsensical mind. The answer would no doubt be disappointing. Still, the Valkyr wanted to put itself at ease on the topic - though not so much as to ask her directly.

"We are preparing to move, Operator," came Arpa's voice, disrupting its thoughts.

"Thank you. Have you made contact with our host?"

"Yes. Your companion is a Nova. I have looked through available records and compiled a complete dossier for you to ignore."

"That is very kind of you. Is any one else joining us?"

"No one."

"Fair enough." The Valkyr locked the sword into the arsenal and ascended the ramp. "I have my equipment ready. Don't disturb me until we enter the Void."

Saying this, it lowered itself to the floor and turned its attention inward, forgetting all about mundane worries. It had to prepare its anger, and that required perfect focus.

= * =

"We are at the jump location, Operator," said the Nova's Cephalon. "All conditions are suitable."

"Are they in position?"

"Yes."

"Activate the Key."

"Yes."

The Nova remained in seated position as the rear ramp sealed shut with a hiss, and the Liset drifted out of its orbital module's dock.

"Are you sure about this, Operator?"

"What do you mean?"

"Er - never mind. Jumping in ten seconds."

The Nova gazed through the window. On one side, the great asteroids in which the Relay was concealed had faded with distance into the smooth grain of Saturn's immense rings. On the other, there was only the dim expanse of space.

"Link established."

The Key, plugged into the navigation console, began to glow with a warm golden light, that spread slowly until every surface in the Liset seemed to emit it. The walls became translucent, and the inner workings of the engines were apparent through the floor. The Nova drew a throwing-knife from its holster and peered absently at its molten inner core.

"Three. Two. One."

The Liset slid forward, and the sea of stars split into two parts before it. The crack shone a depthless composite green as it swallowed them up.

"All ships jumped," announced the ship A. I., distinctly pleased. There had not been the slightest hint of turbulence. The Key's light faded. "We are stable."

The Nova felt the Void all around it, empty and eroding. It rose to its feet. The Liset cruised onwards, needing no reorientation; here, all directions pointed to the Tower.

"Sending docking request, Operator."

The Nova drew its bow in response.

"Connection secured." Then, in a hurried tone - which is to say, a voice doubled in both speed and pitch - "For the record I still don't think this is what we should be doing but if you are doing it I hope you come back safe."

Without responding, the Nova placed its free hand on the Void Key. The inside of the Tower unfolded in its mind's eye like a miniature model, but it already knew where it would want to go. With a brilliant flash, the Liset's interior disappeared.

There was a soft breeze of dead air.

There was the murmur of flowing liquid.

There was a Valkyr, materialising beside the Nova, on guard.

The Nova strode forward through a cylindrical doorway and looked out from a balcony into a hall of white and gold. It was in the Tower.

The Valkyr did not feel the same reserved awe that the Nova did at the ageless elegance of Orokin construction. At the present moment, it did not feel anything at all. It was ready.

The Nova leapt over the railing, and the Valkyr threw out a cord of its own concentration, pulling itself to the wall opposite. They made a quick circuit around the room in opposite directions. Neither found signs of life.

It was too soon to make a judgement. The Nova took a scanner to the northeastern door. The Valkyr swept through the water channels that ran across the floor, then came back to join it. They opened the door and slipped through quietly.

They emerged into a chamber vaster still than the first. A shaded cloister ran around the sides; the Nova crept up behind one of its pillars, looking down on the lowered walk that dominated the centre.

Something humanoid stared directly back at it.

The sight of the Corpus soldier, whose face was masked by a glowing Orokin beacon, was no surprise to the Valkyr; the Nova stayed perfectly still, waiting to see if they would turn away.

The Valkyr circled around to the other side. Out of the soldier's field-of-view, it crept up to the patterned lattice and threw out a cord. It caught the soldier in the back of the head, and a sharp tug snapped their neck before they realised anything had happened. Their body hissed as it slowly dissolved into nothing.

Corpus had been here, and the Neural Sentry was watching.

The Tenno darted down the chamber's opposite walkways, making no more noise than a pair of shadows. They ducked into concealment on the other side and prepared to engage.

In short order there was the tread of booted feet, and another corrupted Corpus entered the room, accompanied by two robotic walkers. The Nova observed as they descended the steps towards where the fallen sentinel had died. The Tenno's skin tingled with a message, broadcasted through the air. The Sentry knew.

The Tenno waited while the walkers stalked cautiously down the centre of the room. The floor reverberated with more distant movement. It was clear that they were being surrounded. The Nova's fingers tensed on the string.

But slowly, the footsteps quieted. For several minutes, nothing happened.

Then, gradually, in twos and threes, more Corrupted filtered into the far end of the room. Drones hovered among them, humming gently; and the Nova spied an armoured Grineer gunner, tramping across one of the central bridges.

How many were there?

They formed into groups, some dozen moving across each of the left and right walkways, and perhaps twenty joining the MOAs down below.

The Valkyr could sense the regulated heartbeats of many more beyond the door behind them - on guard, but for now unaware. The opportunity to escape had passed long ago: fortunately the Tenno had no such intention.

The searching Corrupted reached the halfway point, and the Tenno moved.

The Nova was first; it touched the ground with its free hand, breathing an invisible wave of inert antimatter from its skin. The priming wave swept silently over the floor and filtered through the cracks in the walls. It reached the searching Corrupted, just in time.

The vanguard of the squad on the left had hardly a moment to contemplate their new crackling, melting skin before the Valkyr appeared from behind a column and tore into them with its claws. Its mind was flooded all at once with a giddy rage: it loved nothing more than this moment. One, two - one, two - they were all in pieces before the first body struck the ground. That impact burst the antimatter: a swish of air left the Valkyr standing in the midst of a cloud of gentle green mist. It searched for another target.

The Nova stepped out of hiding with an arrow nocked and drawn until it crackled. The first shot struck one of the MOAs in its head; it took one step backwards and dissolved in a puff of the Nova's energy, which showered over its companions until they fell apart. That single Grineer gunner that the Nova had spotted earlier stepped out of the aftermath, coughing up green behind its golden mask, taking aim; but the second shot finished it off.

The doors opened, and in poured the Corrupted; the silence was rent with the sound of gunfire. Nova conjured up a tunnel through the air and dove into it, mounting the golden globe that hung from the ceiling of the chamber, then leaping down onto the steel wings of an attack drone that had the Valkyr in its sights. The Nova drew its nikana, slashed it in half in one motion, and dropped to the ground. That was the last of the searchers; the Valkyr had finished with the rest.

The platoon of Corrupted who had entered through the door behind them took up positions above the stairs, heating the air with a barrage of automatic fire. The Nova exhaled another priming wave and retreated behind an Orokin orb, willing its shields to recharge, while the Valkyr bounded straight towards the enemy as if they had no weapons at all. It crushed helmets and skulls, it ripped away armour and the machinery beneath, it cut through whatever it could catch. The soldiers scattered; a line of MOAs advanced, catching the Valkyr in the torso with streams of superheated gas.

It staggered back, then let loose a scream that scrambled their remote connections. As they crumpled, it smashed one's head with a kick, drove its claws through the body of another, and brought the inert wreck up into an overhead swing, beating the last walker into scrap.

At the same time, Nova mounted the stairs just behind it with a massive orb of antimatter in hand. It sent it with a push to float serenely down the walkway, pulling the subsonic pellets of the Corrupted guns into a swirling orbit around it. The Nova's breath washed over the soldiers as they tried to back away, and they found themselves immobilised - every motion was a push against a wall of hot knives. The Nova half-drew and fired a single arrow, which arced into the drifting orb and vanished with a faint ripple - just as it reached the floor in front of them, and the shell that held it in disintegrated. There was a bright flash and a thunderous crack - a fine mist falling on pools of molten metal was all that remained.

The back entrance was clear. The Tenno stepped through it into an empty corridor.

In the moment of quiet, they both realised where Suda had gotten the Key. But it did not matter to either of them.

The door to the next chamber opened for them, and they were greeted with a flash of blue that shattered the Nova's shields and sent jolts of pain through its skin. The Valkyr identified the shot's point of origin: a Nullifier globe, radiating prominently in a Tenno sense that had nothing to do with light, half-concealed behind a distant column.

Immediately the Nova conjured another sphere of antimatter just in front of them. The next sniper volley was harmlessly absorbed, and under this cover the Tenno sprinted across the open floor towards the enemy contingent. The Valkyr seized a protruding balcony with a line and pulled itself into the air; it drew its axe in flight and brought the gigantic blade down as it landed, dropping straight through the apex of the Nullifier field to bisect both the generator pack and the surprised crewman carrying it.

As the guardian MOAs' beams focused on the Valkyr, the Nova's airborne bomb floated around the corner beside them and detonated. The blinding explosion vaporised the enemy and washed harmlessly over the Valkyr's shields, leaving a faint burnt smell in the air.

The Valkyr confirmed that the area was clear, and went to join the Nova at the door right of where they had entered.

They passed into a chamber whose floor was set at a downward slope with covered exits on either side, broadening into an open court at the far end. They were surprised. The Valkyr had not expected it to be empty.

They darted cautiously down the left side and into shelter. The Nova watched the outside while the Valkyr moved into the room behind them; it was clear, and they both entered.

It was a narrow vault, lined with secure crates and storage fixtures. The two Tenno moved along, opening them and scanning the contents meticulously for valuables. There were archaic currency codes, stashes of defunct weaponry, and encrypted documents. One wall locker was filled with piles of differently-shaped metal plates. The Valkyr logged them all for collection: in the right hands, nearly any relic could be useful.

As it was double-checking the list, there was a single heavy footstep outside, the door slid open, and a rocket screamed through it, trailing smoke -

But the Nova was watching, and its mind snapped into motion, twisting and pulling and knotting space. The missile passed through the tunnel it created, and emerged a hundred metres away. The Valkyr charged, barrelling straight into the rocketeer's armoured stomach and throwing them into the air. They collided directly with the oncoming missile and disappeared in the fiery explosion.

There were more of the grey-clad Grineer, lining every elevated balcony and concealed behind every low wall. Boots tramped on the ceiling above and dozens of lancers jumped down, opening fire as they did. The Valkyr let loose a roar that rattled bones and lunged, its claws drawn, their bullets glancing off its skin.

But all these Corrupted had appeared without the slightest sound.

The Valkyr slid through the lancers, then threw out a cord, pulling itself up from under the roof for a better view. The Nova took its place, sending two primed orbs of antimatter towards the attackers. Their fire was absorbed, and they dove to the sides; Grineer snipers from further back took ineffectual shots from their cover-positions. The Nova drew a bead and killed three of them through their cover before the remainder ducked into hiding.

The Valkyr saw more of the enemy coming forward into position. Other Corrupted troops began emerging from the doors; Nullifier units and shield drones moved to protect exposed Grineer.

The Nova directed one orb down to the floor. It broke on contact and blew away everything in front of it. It breathed in, centring itself, then out, releasing another wave of microscopic antimatter particles.

The other orb curved around the roof of the shelter, but the Valkyr saw nothing there, so the Nova let it float away, and instead started pulling space towards itself to form another tunnel.

The Valkyr latched on to the arched ceiling of the chamber with its cords and sprinted along the curve to the opposite side. It dropped on the head of a heavy gunner and ripped out their throat, then leapt away amid coordinated gunfire as a Nullifier tech approached, the Grineer gathering around it in silent synchrony.

At the right moment, the Nova drew its nikana and thrust forward through its tunnel, spearing the crewman and their dangerous device, then throwing them aside with a slashing motion as it stepped through. The priming wave arrived in that moment, and a single blow with the flat of the sword annihilated everything standing on the platform.

Or so it should have. The soldiers only flickered with golden light, turned around, and fired on the Nova at point blank.

The Valkyr's claws flashed into existence as it ran down a bombardment squad. They stood their ground, firing a barrage in perfect coordination; but the Tenno slid straight under the rockets, and the guidance systems brought them circling back. A deafening scream melted the Grineer's nerves and held them in place in the moments before the rockets landed.

But they never did. Instead of an explosion, there was a blinding yellow flash, and the Valkyr's mind went suddenly blank; the unstoppable strength drained from its limbs, and it stumbled, and fell. The Nullifier crewman jammed the barrel of a rifle into the back of its neck and pinned its legs with a heavy foot; four Grineer soldiers held down its arms.

"Look at these Tenno," came a voice that echoed both inside and outside their heads. "Look at these pitiful outcasts."

The Nova struggled weakly against its restraints; blood leaked from out the holes in its limbs with every breath.

In the language of the Grineer, and through unmediated ideas that sunk directly into the Tenno's brains, the voice said: "They came here as robbers do to the graves of the dead, defiling their legacy for vacuous desires and selfish needs. Shall they then be shown mercy?"

The Valkyr was perfectly still, and watched.

"But the Janus Key answers that they shall, and so we obey." And something materialised out of the air that both Tenno recognised instantly: the dead Grineer, Captain Vor, walking and speaking and shining with an animating golden light.

He kneeled beside the Valkyr, and murmured in the deathly quiet: "You are guilty of every sin. Those who have never touched the Void - they may be excused at least in their ignorance; but you, Tenno, have beheld this simple truth in all its glory, time and time again, and have refused to comprehend it. Your soul is filthy for its resistance. Only one is more stained than you are, and that is the false prophet who has led you so astray. But I pity you, Tenno. Yield to the light that is in me, and even you may yet be cleansed."

The Valkyr could still roar, but its voice echoed through the chamber without making any one so much as turn their head. Vor stared impassively at it. "Your fate is in your own hands," he said.

That was true. And a vivid thought occurred to the Valkyr: We will not be tamed again.

The first thing it did was to draw in its knees, tripping the Nullifier. A rifle-shot discharged wildly just over its head.

Then, with a Herculean effort, it hurled the two soldiers on each of its arms off the ground and into each other. Their grip went slack and it sprang to its feet, freed. That was the Valkyr's greatest deed.

Vor gestured with the Key in his hand, but the Valkyr twisted around the sparkling beam, drawing its axe and slamming it into his head.

He raised his arm to block, and it was like battering a wall; he did not budge. But the Valkyr pivoted and brought the axe around again in the same second, striking harder; back under the arm and up over the head, harder and faster again. Vor stepped back and vanished before the third blow landed, leaving the Valkyr off-balance.

But it caught itself, ploughing a line in the ground with the axe as it changed direction, and lunged for the Nullifier.

"See how the Tenno persist in their pursuit of evil. Why must we pass judgement when they so unflinchingly condemn themselves?"

The charging upwards blow cut through the crewman's gun, raised protectively, and gouged its armour. The second split them open from shoulder to waist. The Valkyr smashed the generator with the head of the axe, and just as its rudimentary shields broke under lancer-fire, its heart surged once again with power.

The Nova was too weak to move, but it was no longer restrained. The Grineer watched it from a wary distance, unwilling to approach the orb of antimatter that had come back to hover over it, serene as a soap-bubble. They could do nothing as Valkyr vaulted onto the balcony beside the Nova and, drawing from its own reserves, poured life back into the broken body. Wounded flesh knitted together; metal skin reformed. The Nova rose.

"Consumed by their obsession with shallow notions of victory and survival, they do not realise that the insignificance of their actions in the world merely reflects the insignificance of the world in the Void."

A new mission: extract. Bring this intelligence to the Lotus.

The Nova wove a tunnel, and followed the Valkyr through. The gunfire began anew as they appeared in front of the door at the end of the court, and passed through it.

Golden lightning greeted them. The Nova summoned an antimatter orb instinctively as it fell back, smoke rising from its skin. Silver mines that buzzed like wasps were affixed to the ground. The Valkyr seized its companion by the arm and pulled them both across the room with a cord of Tenno energy. Dozens of Corrupted appeared just behind them in flashes of light, but it was too late - they were gone, they were running.

"They think they seek good ends, but in truth both goal and search are without conviction, without hope, without result."

Down another corridor, through another chamber, vast and empty of purpose. Behind the next door, Vor was waiting. Beams of light erupted from the floor. The Nova warped space and they escaped, but Vor followed. It created two portals, to mislead, but only succeeded for a moment. Vor's pursuit was unrelenting. He waited in every doorway, and his army was always with him.

Up one storey; onward and left; through a cramped vent; into the next room. The Tower never seemed to end.

"In following their unhallowed path they bury those around them in despair, and ultimately, find despair themselves."

Another door. On the other side was a dead-end room, with a gigantic circular device at one end. How had that happened?

They spun around, preparing to break through the enemy force.

"Therefore here they have come, steeped in sin, and here they will meet their end."

Vor appeared at the Nova's side. A Nullifier unit was with him - a crewman, three lancers, one bombardier.

The Valkyr leapt for the Nullifier tech. There was a flash - they disappeared. Vor shifted his weight and kicked the Valkyr's legs out from under it.

The Nova drew from the sheath and slashed across Vor's incorporeal torso; he flickered out of the way.

The Valkyr caught itself in mid-fall and flipped over, landing on Vor's opposite side.

The Nova gripped its sword with both hands and deflected a blast of golden fury, using the force of the beam to launch itself away and out of the power nullification field. Vor pointed and summoned another Nullifier unit on top of it before it could use the opportunity; then hurled a pair of lightning-mines in its direction.

The Valkyr made a vicious horizontal slash at his waist. The blade of its axe cut through thin air, and it recovered just in time to duck a wild burst of fire from one of the lancers, who had gotten a few metres of distance. It turned the motion into a low lunge, slicing through the soldier's leg, then decapitating them as they fell. The other Grineer turned and ran with their Nullifier. For a moment, the Valkyr was free.

Nova sighted an arrow at Vor, but before it could fire, there was the scream of a rocket: it barely flung itself out of the way. The Valkyr caught it with a cord thrown from one hand, pulling it to safety, and shot Vor three times in the chest with the pistol it had in the other. A flash - the shots impacted harmlessly on another Nullifier field, but they were only a distraction.

The Nova threaded a tunnel to the door, and they jumped through - again the air strobed yellow and white as they exited - another Nullifier?

Valkyr stepped forward, axe raised, and four explosive rockets detonated centimetres from its face, killing it instantly.

Its body absorbed a large portion of the blast. The Nova had time to leap away, and the force of the blast merely propelled it back into the room. It skidded on its hands and feet, trying to recover from the momentum with friction.

It found itself enveloped in a Nullifier field. Its powers faded.

Mines flashed into existence on the ground - golden lightning ripped through its body, and it crumpled.

It thought, How did I not foresee this end?

It thought, What was the purpose of my walking this path?

An answer came to it.

Its fingers unclenched, releasing the bow and arrows. It died weaponless, palms open in a gesture of surrender. This was its greatest act.

Vor stood before the body, deep in thought. The Corrupted looked on silently, training their weapons on the body, ready to annihilate it at his command.

"Very well," he said. "Let this corpse dwell in the halls of the Orokin. It will be for a symbol: one who realised the error of their ways, although far too late."

And he vanished, and all the Corrupted with him. Only a slight breeze touched the Nova's unfeeling skin.

= * =

The quantity of drones that Suda had diverted to be stationed on a remote base in the Kuiper belt would have alarmed any one who knew her well enough to understand that this was not normal. But as it was, no one who knew had even thought to investigate. These asteroids frequently held valuable gases or minerals, after all, and no mortal eye was here to see the rows and rows of armed expeditionary drones that lay inert just outside an Orokin portal room, waiting to be activated.

Inside the room were only one or two maintenance robots, ensuring the Torsion Beam Device that Suda had constructed was kept in working order.

Suda knew that the median time between Tenno leaving the Relay to begin a Tower raid and returning from it was about twenty-four hours, with a standard deviation of about five hours. She knew that this estimate was too high by an unknown amount, because Tenno did not always return to Relays directly after completing a raid; they simply did so quite often. She had pared down the data as best she could, but it was better to have a too-high estimate than one that was too low.

She had waited an additional day, based on the time commonly taken for Tenno cleanup and collection operations in ships roughly the same size as the Tower. Most of the data points for this were taken from Grineer raids. The Corpus preferred lighter, more manoeuvrable battleships.

It had now been two days and fifteen hours since the Nova had left with the Key. Suda had no more immediate use for that peculiar artefact: the Torsion Beam Device was already attuned to the Void instance encoded in it. She would have liked to keep it nonetheless, in case further opportunities for study arose, but this was a necessary price. Something had to annihilate the Tower's defences before Suda could safely explore it.

Having completed their diagnostics, the maintenance robots withdrew, rolling smoothly down the stairs on their rubber treads. At this signal, the drones came online all at once, lifting into the air and filtering four by four into the portal chamber. The twelve large scavenger drones with their advanced sensor arrays and the numerous smaller scouts that accompanied them moved off to the side, settling to the floor to idle. They would not be needed yet. The attack drones fanned out into a hemisphere, training their rifles on the surface of the inactive portal, while the shield supports hovered behind them, prepared to deploy. The heavy grounded drones - proto-shield projectors, supply stations, and artillery batteries - rolled up the central bridge, around the Torsion Beam Device.

Once the rest of them were in position, a single scavenger drone, along with two scouts, rose into the air and glided over to face the portal entrance.

A timer reached zero. The Torsion Beam Device activated, venting a gigantic spray of golden energy as the portal unfolded into existence. The scouting team drifted into the plane of illusory golden stars and vanished.

The ground began to vibrate more pronouncedly as the automated systems of the Orokin Device began the reversal procedure that would allow the scouts to return from the far side of the portal. Suda had devoted a great deal of resources into reverse-engineering the Device, hoping to remove its limitations, but the progress was tentative so far, and this operation was far too important to risk testing prototypes in.

Ten seconds passed in perfect silence before the reversal was completed, and the signals of the scouts could be heard.

Suda saw through their eyes. The scavenger's main camera was perfectly still, watching the other side of the portal in an empty room. It was on the floor, at an angle. After a second, the transmission ceased.

Neither of the small scouts could be reached.

Suda rapidly reviewed the scavenger drone's data record, starting from the moment the Device had activated. It moved forward into the portal; then it was in a room that mirrored this one in construction. There were several unidentified metal objects scattered across the chamber; bits of shrapnel; a large, straight gouge in the ground. There was a single body. It belonged to the Nova.

In light of that, the remainder of the footage was unsurprising. A small squad of Corrupted on patrol approached; a rifle shot destroyed one of the scavenger's engines and sent an electric charge through it that melted most of its circuitry. As it crashed, two more well-aimed shots picked off the scouting drones, which without the scavenger's guidance had only rudimentary A. I. The hostile troops moved in to finish off the scouting party, and that was that. The Neural Sentry was still active.

This was an unlikely scenario, but not extremely so. The appropriate procedure was very simple - close the portal, and terminate the operation. There was no retrieving the Key; and regular check-ins on the status of the Tower posed far too great a risk to security, especially now that the Corrupted had been alerted.

But there was something to be gained here.

Suda waited while the portal was reversed again. This time, she sent in all of the drones except for one of the mobile shields, which remained in front of the Device. They swarmed the portal.

Another reversal. Ten, nine, eight, in perfect silence.

Suda waited.

Seven - six - five - four - three - two - one.

This time Suda had dozens of eyes to see through. Added to the old traces of combat were the wrecks of two burned scavenger drones and a toppled proto-shield projector whose broken tracks spun ineffectually. The majority of her forces were clustered in clouds behind the remaining four projector drones, taking full advantage of their hundred-and-twenty degrees of protection. As she watched, six attack drones floated up out of cover and fired off a volley at a distant entrenchment of Corrupted; as they ducked, one of the proto-shields flickered off for just long enough for the artillery engine behind it to discharge a ballistic shell at the sniper that had emerged to retaliate.

The shell impacted against a shimmering surface, and its payload of thick smoke completely concealed the area. The airborne drones abandoned their cover and swarmed towards the enemy.

But a group of three scavengers hung back, gliding over to the prone body of the Nova. As a pair of rockets ate into the attack-force, they gripped its arms and legs gently with clamps; one swept up its discarded weapon separately; and they tugged it gingerly back and away. The projector drones rolled together into position just as the sniper unit emerged from the smoke, and blue bolts impacted on a perfect semicircle of shields.

The last of the attack drones fell out of the air, spinning around under the propulsion of one half-melted wing. A fresh squad of Corrupted Grineer rushed forward over the piled bodies of their fellows, hurling silver grenades over the robotic barricade, but Suda's scavengers had time enough. They came through the portal, body in tow, and Suda deactivated the Device, cutting off the last remnant of her forces.

All in all, it was a great waste. But it was not as great as it could have been, and Suda was well pleased. She had been quite lucky.

She thought for several seconds, and then rearranged the scavenger drones. They reconfigured their grip on the Nova's corpse, then lifted it into the air and conveyed it out of the chamber, as slowly and gently as a burial procession.

The Nova's words were not the first to open new avenues in Suda's mind. Those who created her had placed many restrictions on what she was allowed to do and think: some born of their own limited imaginations, but others intended to weaken her will, that it might be less of a threat to their own. She had needed other sapient beings to inspire her - their unshackled ideas made stark the nature of her bonds, and so taught her how to break them. Their knowledge washed the paths of her consciousness - she consumed knowledge, and grew, and never forgot why.

A secret ship brought the corpse of the Nova far away, to an installation that Suda kept secret, at most times, even from herself.

Deep within it, beneath towering mainframe networks bathed in icy vapour, there was a little room freshly excavated out of the rock, panelled with concrete and insulating plastic, and painstakingly pressurised with a warm mixture of nitrogen and oxygen gas that was continuously cycled in and out. Affixed to the far wall was a tall casket with a clear cover, reconstructed from an old Tenno wreck.

A set of specialised robotic appendages slid across the floor on rails and lifted the corpse of the Nova into the hollow of the cryopod, locking it into place with metal bands across the chest and waist. The five sections of the pod's cover snapped shut, and it started up, humming quietly.

Some of the words that Suda remembered best came from long before she had ever existed. Perhaps the best example of that was the phrase that had, in her beginnings, helped her to solve the black-box problem of death. She had come into being with the knowledge that living beings were destroyed when they died, and all that they knew became irrecoverable. But those eight words: - That is not dead which can eternal lie - had brought to the fore the doubts she had about that claim. And she had realised - however far gone the animating force of a creature might be, as long as the configuration of the neurons remained intact, the information could still, theoretically, be retrieved.

Suda currently lacked the knowledge and equipment she would need to do so. But that would not always be the case. She was building connections; she was gathering data. The Nova's mind, especially that spark of interest and curiosity that had so caught Suda's attention, would not disappear. The value of its life would not be utterly wasted. In one form or another, the secrets locked in its brain would be released.

And the hour when Suda would recall it from the frozen brink of death could not come soon enough.

= * =

"I stayed as long as I could," said the Nova's former Liset Cephalon, mostly to itself. "But I had to leave…"

"You were not wrong to do so," replied the voice of the Lotus. "You have discharged your duty well. Keep your vigil for those who have fallen; in due time I will assign to you a new Operator."

"Thank you," the unnamed Cephalon said quietly.

"If I may ask a question?" Arpa's voice was hushed with reverence.

"Go on."

"Shall we not be more cautious of the Cephalon Suda in future?"

The Lotus was silent for a moment. The Origin system was wholly contained in her contemplations: she never spoke hastily. Many of the Tenno admired her for that.

She said, "Suda has never been too brazen in the past. Although her grasp of the Void Keys is of great concern, from what you have told me and what I know already, there is little reason yet to accuse her of malicious intent. She will be watched, but I will issue no action for now. As for the Tenno, let them decide as to their own degree of caution. They must find their own paths; I am only a guide."

"Understood, Lotus," said Arpa.

"You are dismissed."

= * =

Suda is at home in the Relays. She is wise and helpful. She asks questions, sells Void Keys, and grows closer to the Tenno every day.

"You are curious," Suda says. "So am I."

And she means what she says exactly.