Somewhere on Mars
"Who is this?" Sgt. Nef Anyo said.
"Lotus." The Lotus responded.
"What kind of sick joke is this?" He scouled at the blurred, yet slowly forming hologram. "Why would the eyeless slag willingly contact me, giving her location!?"
"You know as well as I do that you would need a lot of help to get into this dojo, even more so getting to me." The Lotus had fully formed in the hologram. A woman in a purple frame of some sort with a mask, covering her eyes.
"You have a point. So why is it you're contacting me?"
"One of my teams has gone missing after a mission on a Corpus ship near Pluto."
"And you think I have something to do with it?"
"No."
"Then why contact me over the council?"
"A missing team would not be on their list of priorities, even if they got their hands on a certain key."
"I'm listening."
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Grineer Recon ship near Pluto
"Captain, I'm sure they were killed in the explosion."
"Then you have never seen what a Tenno agent is capable of." Captain Vor said to his subordinate.
"How could they have possibly gotten out?"
"That Corpus ship was carrying more than supplies. They had found abandoned warframes on Pluto. They would need cryo pods to ship them off-world."
"You think they went to sleep?"
"They did, if you had properly analyzed the debris, like I had ordered you to," He grabbed the void key from a slot on his armour and charged it, "you would have seen them." He turned to the scout, and fired a beam of golden energy at him. With a scream of agony, he was gone.
"Track the Tenno, and follow them." Vor ordered another scout.
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"So if I get your little team in contact with you, you'll arrange for that key to get to me, and if I don't help, you'll send it to Eris."
Anyo recapped
"It's your choice, help, or good luck dealing with that infestation."
"Tough choice, help the betrayers, or deal with Phorid, the biggest damn guard dog in the Origin System, not to mention the psy abilities."
"By the way, I got wind of a Grineer recon ship near Pluto at the time of the explosion."
"Consider your team found." Anyo concluded.
"One more thing Sargent," Lotus added, "I mean contact, as in, no body bags."
"Alright, now if you'll excuse me, I have some dogs that need to pick up a scent."
"Do you really need hyenas to find four agents?"
"What? No! I'm just gonna follow that Grineer Fomorian that left Ceres about a minute ago."
"Well then, I need to upgrade my scanners."
“Was that a hint of jealousy I detected?”
End transmission.
Anyo called his pilot as soon as the Lotus disconnected.
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Unknown location
A Tenno agent was kneeling at his star chart watching four cryo pods get blasted out of the system. Rewinding and using infrared to see if there was something in the pods, though it would be faint. Zooming in on each pod, he saw that there was someone in them.
“Damn” he said to himself, punching his knee, “They always find a way to slip out. Perhaps I’m simply losing my touch.” The dark agent got up and walked to the cockpit of his shuttle and sat down in the pilot seat. “I have failed to eliminate the Tenno near Pluto.” Suddenly the agent felt a sharp pain in his head.
“You’ve failed one too many times, Stalker” A voice boomed in his head. “You will come to me immediately for your punishment.”
“Wait! My plan’s flaw was the lack of knowledge of the ship’s cargo. They survived in cryo pods. If you could just grant me more time to hunt them-” the Stalker tried to explain, but the voice interrupted him.
“Silence! You’re lucky that I’m in a good mood. I will give you two weeks to kill them. This time, you will not leave another one of your traps to deal with them, you are to kill them your self. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Master.” The Stalker was clutching his head from the pain that lingered for a moment longer. “Now, where have you gone off to?” The Stalker went back to his star chart to calculate the trajectories of the pods. “With that angle, they would fall into nothingness, forever drifting in the dark. I should be able to cache them all within a week. This should be fun.” Stalker set the coordinates and kneeled in a meditative position for travel.
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Near one of Jupiter’s moons
The Golem was in the process of consuming the matter of the remaining Corpus crew that dared raid the derelict. He understood a faint memory from the corpse of the commander; the Tenno had gotten more aggressive to take Pluto from the Corpus. They had sent a team to destroy a supply ship that was sending food and ammunitions to an outpost. That was the same ship he had placed a spore pod in not a month earlier. (We must recover the power of the Tenno matter. Get the Tenno frames of ice, sound, strength, and trickery.) The dark voice blasted on a psionic level. His mistake was sending the message with so much force. Someone was bound to hear it.
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Tenno dojo, Night Guard
"Shadow, Get Blade and Ferna!" Espa, the Nix operator, called to her team, "We've got ourselves a little search and rescue!"
Three more Tenno entered the star chart room, Falling Shadow with Ash, Silent Blade with Excalibur, and Inferna with Ember. "Who's the target?" Shadow asked.
"An old friend."