*Huntress POV*
I kicked the metal grate out of the way and listened to it clatter to the metallic floor. I waited for a few seconds, making sure that no lancers had come to investigate, before slipping out of the air vent and falling silently to the floor.
I landed on the floor with a muffled 'thud' and slowly rose to my feet, two more grates clattered to the floor as both of my squad members landed beside me.
There was a chirp from my comm link as it displayed the incoming message. On my helmet's HUD the image of the sender of the message started to come through the static.
It was her. The one who released me and the others from our long sleep, the one who had helped us remember the ways of our kind, and the one who guided us throughout our missions.
"The Grineer have gone great lengths to conceal their operations on the planet below. We now know that they intend to conquer the planet and take its vast quantities of rare resources for their own usage. We must not allow this to happen. If it should, then they would be able to construct more advanced and destructive tech. Destroy the reactor and head to extraction."
The image of The Lotus disappeared from my HUD with another chirp of the comm link. I looked to my two friends, wordlessly asking them if they were ready to go.
Our squad of three consisted of; Shift, a Mag Prime warframe; Cynder, A Ember warframe; and myself, A Valkyr warframe named Huntress.
The nodded back to me, signaling that they were, indeed, ready to go. I pulled out one of my favorite weapons in my large arsenal: A Dread, the weapon of the creepy and deadly figure known as "The Stalker". Shift drew out her main weapon, a powerful Boltor Prime rifle, full auto and modded for power, speed, and stealth. Cynder on the other hand drew out her melee weapon, I watched as it slipped from its holster on her forearm and expanded from a little disc into a the tri-bladed Glaive.
I mentally smiled, as we set off to destroy the reactor.
***
Thanks to the added suppression mods on the louder rifles making them silent, the silence of The Dread's arrows, and Shift using her abilities when we screwed up, we made it to the reactor.
My comm link chirped again, and brought forth the image of The Lotus once more.
"Expose the core of the reactor and destroy the energy cells. Then head to extraction."
Cynder made quick work of the core's security system, hacking it in mere milliseconds. When she finished the reactor core was in full view, its energy cells exposed and ready for destruction. The three of us worked quickly to shatter every last one of the cells.
The core spun as Shift reloaded her rifle, and Cynder's Glaive started its return arc. I lined up a shot with my dread, and released the arrow.
The arrow collided with the cell, shattering it into tiny pieces. The core stopped spinning, the lights flickered out, and a green indicator appeared on the edge my HUD's locator.
Suddenly my comm link beeped signaling another message from The Lotus.
"Tenno, you must hurry the stability of the reactor on this ship seems to be deteriorating at a much faster rate than expected. Run"
An estimated countdown time appeared on my HUD as the message flickered out.
TIME: 1:00
I ran, the need for stealth no longer a priority. Shift and Cynder followed closely behind. We destroyed any Grineer that tried to stop us, our shields absorbing the damage we would otherwise be taking. I looked at the countdown, it had reached an alarming 00:15 and the extraction point was still a good distance away.
Over the sound of flame geysers erupting and Grineer crying out in pain as they were crushed, i heard the comm link beep again. This time though it wasn't the Lotus who appeared, but my ship's A.I. or Cephalon "Ordis".
"Operator you won't make it to the extraction point in time *BZZT* You should have ran faster you fa--! *BZZT* Shall I deploy Archwing?"
The shadow of three identical stealth ships, known as Lisets, passed over us. I looked down at my warframe, my energy claws disappearing and parts of my armor taking on a glowing blue color as It was magnetized to the floor to prevent me from being thrown into the void of space flailing about. A large chunk of wall was blasted away as the Famorian started to fly apart.
I glanced at my squadmates who nodded in silent understanding, and then we launched ourselves into the vacuum.
A few seconds later I felt the Archwing, Identified as: Odonata by my HUD, attach itself to my back and activate its life support system, and felt the huge Imperator gatling gun attach to my right arm. I oriented myself to a "upright" position and watched as my friends floated up alongside me.
The Famorian that we had been on mere seconds ago was destroyed, and debris now cluttered the area. But what grabbed our attention was the much larger ship looming in the background.
"A Balor Class Famorian" Shift said over the comm, the first of us to speak during this entire mission.
"We've got drones incoming, from the Balor Class" Cynder informed us as red indicators started to appear on my locator.
"Focus on the drones, once they're out of the way we can call in the Liset to pick us up" I said, readying my imperator. I felt the thrusters of the archwing respond to my will, allowing me to blast through space, leading our squad into battle.
***
It took us a while, but we finally managed to destroy all the drones, I activated my comm link and informed Ordis to come and pick us up, the other two did the same for their own ship's cephalons.
The three ships came into view as they disengaged their void cloak systems. A compartment on the underbelly of each craft opened to allow us in.
"Now get us out of here!" I ordered as soon as i was inside and the archwing was off my back. I felt the rumble as the engines fired and sped us away from the huge Grineer ship.
"Good work tenno, the Balor Class Famorian isn't fully equipped to initiate a full scale invasion or mining opperation, according to our scans, but it doe---
The transmission was interrupted as a large explosion rocked my ship. Then a second one occurred, this one scored a hit on Shift's ship sending it towards the planet below. The next sent Cynders down with one engine now completely gone.
I cried out to my friends through my comm, but no response came back, just static.
Then my ship was hit, and I blacked out.