Coming into the massive cafeteria, spotting Marko already at our table with his tray. Quickly grabbing mine and sitting across from him. Getting a head nod in return. Burns and Hale joining shortly after. Val walks up, gesturing with her hand for the other to remain seated, instead of getting up to salute. This is the first time since I arrived on that ship that we all were present for dinner. Some kind of banter went back and forth mainly focused on me beating Hales score in shoot house, and congratulating me on my CTF victory.
"Can't believe you got beat by a noob" Marko taunting Hale while laughing.
"He beat you too, he beat all of us besides Sarge." Hale defends.
"Yeah, yeah." He laughs it off.
Marko looking at me, "You ever thought about serving, no combat and the wage ain't bad?" Marko asks me.
"No, never really crossed my mind. This is the closest I have been to ever really thinking about it, to be honest. My older brother did enlist right out of high school into the navy. Other than that, none of my other family has served even before the exodus. Even with no war, there is still some danger, right?" I ask.
Burns pipes up to answer. "There is some danger, no matter what, you're in space, mostly space debris causing havoc to the ship, at worst we get attacked by an unknown alien which has never happened or we get boarded by fucking pirates," he said.
"Pirates?" I ask.
This turn it was Val who spoke. "There are bands of pirates both human and Uzal out here, though they're extremely uncommon. Especially to military vessels, but it has happened from time to time. Seems like they're getting more brazen as of late. Last week they tried to attack a battlecruiser. The battlecruiser was able to fend off and scare away the attackers."
"I never really thought of pirates in space before, it never gets posted on social," I say.
"Normally the government suppresses any talk of pirate attacks to keep the civilian population still using space for travel, especially now when we're making more and more pushes for terraforming Hellia and New Vista." Says Val.
"I suppose that makes sense," I say.
After finishing our dinners we head to our squads' assigned briefing room.
Val looking at us each, all focusing on her before she began. "Okay, this mission is pretty cut and dry. We take a dropship to our destination, Shepard will be our pilot as per usual. Once we arrive, I will escort Mr. Connors to the data mind to extract as much data as possible. The rest of you are on perimeter duty. We have never had any hostiles from inside or outside, and don't believe it this to change but either way, stay on your toes. Any questions?" Val finishes.
Raising my hand like a preschooler. Hale and Burns trying to remain straight-faced as they hold back from laughing at me. Marko just smiles. I don't really know Marko all that well at least not as much as the others. He has almost a reversed schedule than us. He works out late, when the gym is empty, other than that I think he sleeps like 12 hours a day, only getting up to eat and work out.
"Yes. Leo" Val says not giving in to the others antics.
"You said data mind, I am unfamiliar with this term, and what kind of data am I pulling," I ask.
"The data is classified and is encrypted. The egg heads back home are the only ones who can decipher it and the data hidden inside. The data mind is lost tech. We found a massive memory unit that the ancients had abandoned within the garden of moons. We honestly don't know any more than you. We just do a run to grab as much data as possible and bringing it back. It needs to be manually transferred to our data cubes. We have a terminal already there but navigating the code is difficult, that's what Clarice said anyways. Anything else?" Val asks, looking at me.
Looking around and no one else speaking up or raising their hands. "Good, lets do this by the book and head back home. The dropship will be departing at 0800. So check your gear, grab some rest and be ready to head out in the morning, dismissed." Val says in a commander's tone.
Hale, Burns, and Marko start heading out the door first.
"You guys wanna head to the rec room and play some poker before hitting the rack?" Hale asks.
"Sure," says Marko.
"You ready to lose even more money?" Burns says to Hale.
Hale laughing, turns around. "What about you Leo, down for some poker?" he asks.
Shaking my head. "Raincheck."
"Suit yourself," Hale says as the door closes behind them, leaving Val and me alone.
"What are your plans?" I ask.
Val looks over at me. "Was thinking of running a quick scenario, wanna join?" She asks.
"What's the scenario?" I ask.
She grins at me, "That would be a surprise" She teases while walking to her pod, I watch her as she makes her way to her pod, watching her hips sway back and forth.
Shaking off my thoughts, getting into my own pod. Ears popping like normal. Vision going black and instantly coming back in a dimly light space, slowly getting brighter. Looking around, I noticed I'm within a ship, obviously much larger than any I have been on before. Along the walls on both sides, they're lined with warframes of all different sizes, ranging from small 1.5 ton Bantam size to towering 70-ton assault class frames. Seeing Val materialize before me. She's wearing an all-black battle suit that still somehow shows off all of her curves. She has her hair up in a ponytail the color of it shifting from bright crimson red to a deep pure black.
"Pick a ride and let's go play, you did play with frames in Caliber one didn't you?" She asked.
"Yeah, was all I played at first then found some friends than did tactical game modes without, frames can get very expensive in competitive play," I say, looking at the Nebula - Atlas medium mech right in front of me, Top is wide and slopping similar to a crab. Two heavy arms with cannons instead of hands hang under, sitting on special weapon platforms. Missile slots line both sides of the torso all the way up. No humanoid head, just a large mono eye in the center of the torso right above the cockpit.
"Don't I know it, imagine running a squad of 5 of them, and paying all the munition and repair bills for each round of training, skirmish, and of course competition," she says.
Shuddering at the thought, "What do you normally run for this mystery scenario?" I ask.
"This" gesturing at a nearby heavy frame. It's shape and form begin to shift, taking on a more armored bulk with a completely different weapon loadout.
Looking at the new mech that took on a different shape "That's your mech from Caliber one" I say, looking at the massive silver mech.
"It is exactly, if you have a mech you can use it too, Caliber one and this VR space are linked through the net. We could play Caliber one if we wanted too." Val laughed.
Opening up my CO profile. Going into my inventory for warframes and I pick out my favorite.
Please select mech to alter
Gesturing at the Atlas. It's shape changes, similar to Val's but more than bulking up, it gained another 2 meters on top of Val's custom Iron Valkyrie heavy mech was.
A soft whistle pulled me out of my own thoughts. "Cerberus model, assault-frame 75 tons, little overweight. nice paint job too." Val says, admiring my warframe.
"Thanks, yeah this is my pride and joy, built him from the ground up after salvaging him on the battle for Hellia world event," I said, placing my hand on him.
"Impressive, especially since we ended up losing Hellia."
The mech stood with a mix of SRM(short-range missiles), and LRM(Long-range missiles) on its shoulders as well as a heavy carbine rifle held in its arms. "The weight isn't an issue at all, as for the paint my squad was the reapers so red and black were our clan colors." Along the torso was a red skull in blood-red paint.
"Well, how about we swap frames and make it a game," Val says.
"Sure, wager?" I ask.
"Whoever wins, has to take the other out for dinner when we get back to Gaian."
"You're on," I say.
Walking over to the lift next to the Iron Valkyrie. Climbing inside of its chest. The chair adjusting to my size. "Syncing" Zeros says.
"Ready to kick some ass Zero?"
"Yes, let's kick much ass, Leo" Zero says.
The cockpit seals around me, Hearing the shifting of armor plates against the hatch protecting me further. Displays appear around me in screens giving me a 120-degree field of view. Checking my weapons and munitions on the Valkyrie. It carried four sets of heavy lasers built right into the arms. Duel plasma blades held in its hands or able to be magnetically locked to sheaths on the hips, 4 sets of SRMs, or short-range missiles surround the back of the mech on either side of it. SRMs and LRMs are long and short-range missile pods that attach to the frame each one holding a set number, ranging from anywhere to 10 to 20 missiles per pod, different types of missiles can be loaded depending on the scenario but in most cases, it's high-explosive rounds. The plasma blade is exactly what it sounds like, the dagger-like weapons connects to the warframe's generator, allowing the cutting edge to burn as hot as plasma, being able to cut through most armor like butter. The blades had a short lifespan due to the heat generated and power running through them.
"Ready Leo?" Val asks through the mechs comms.
"Ready" I reply back.
Deploying in 3...2..1.
The mech land on a beach, the ocean sparkling and blue in the distance. Explosions and weapons fire surround me, blowing sand and other mechs into pieces into the air. Mechs falling out of heavy dropship's hovering in the sky. Some landing into the water, others exploding or getting hit from enemy plasma bolts melting through them. Dropships exploding or spinning out of control, crashing into the ocean or the beach, seeing one crashing to the ground crushing a nearby mech.
"Kill as many as you can before you go down, that's the scenario," Val says, running for cover in my Cerberus.
My HUD bringing Val up in blue indicating she was an ally. She breaks off from the pack heading headlong into the thick of it, pumping her mechs legs and using some of the many thrusters to gain increased speed.
"Wow, Leo this thing handles like a dream. An assault that handles more like a heavy, even with 5 extra tons." Val says over comms.
Sprinting up behind her, this heavy is equipped with jump jets as well but I save the fuel. Getting close to her, I finally see the enemy. Four-legged insect type spiders with multiple tentacle type appendages whipping back and forth on their back. They're thousands of them heading our way, most of them over 300 yards away.
Reaching the top of the hill, Zero automatically scans for long and close-range targets. hundreds of lock-ons popping up on my HUD showing me the horde of enemies in the distance.
Val's voice coming over the comms "Firing long-range missiles and short-range missiles," She shifts the Cerberus mechs legs and braces her footing. missile tubes in every slot opened up, released salvo after salvo of short and long-range missiles into the sky. The streaking fiery death, and ever-increasing cloud of smoke billowing up around her. Zero switching my view to thermal to see beyond the smokescreen.
In the distance explosions up close exploded first lighting up clusters of bugs. The long-range ones fan out and explode a meter above the horde, raining down shrapnel from above the bugs shredding them. All the missile tubes now empty, she drops the excess weight of the tubes and they crash to the ground. Shouldering the rifle she starts taking well-aimed shots.
Not wanting to be outdone. I run further ahead, slightly down the hill. Hearing the loud thumps of the mech's feet against the ground changing from sand to soil and rock. The vibrations of the movement taking me back to my days playing Caliber one. Spreading my arms out and blasting anything within close to mid-range with laser blasts indiscriminately. The plasma daggers in my hand slowly come alive. Cutting and slicing any tentacle or bug that's to close.
Each dagger is slightly over a meter long and burn at 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the edge of the blade glowing cherry red, using power from the core of the warframe itself, was originally used for underwater welding on earth but later adapted for combat with heavy modifications.
Dancing into the middle of combat, hacking and slashing away with the blades. On contact, the organics inside the chitin of the bugs explode upon impact with the heat of the blades before the force of the heavy warframes weight can truly pulverize them. Losing myself in the middle of the horde, small suggestions and alterations from Zero allow me to sustain the mad dance.
"Use jump jets straight up, and fire all SRMs," Zero says.
Slashing a lunging enemy with my right hand, killing it instantly. Another one tries to wrap its tentacle around my other hand. Grabbing and pulling it into my knee crushing it with the force. Leaping up and activating the jump jets I soar straight up into the sky. The jump jets aren't meant for prolonged flight, more of a controlled glide at best, even with the 40 tons of weight of the warframe with almost all of the fuel I can only sustain hovering for roughly 20 seconds at full thrust. At the apex of the climb, I can hear all of the tubes open with the aid of Zero being synced into the suit. "Fire," he says. Streaks of fire launching out and around my back. They launch in a specific pattern, tubes firing off salvos with delays between each round. Under me was the massive horde of bugs all trying to claw and climb over each other to get to me. Then the missiles started to hit. The 10 seconds sitting at the apex was glorious. 160 missile all with custom locks launched from the back of the Iron Valkyrie. Eliminating the battlefield. Off in the distance, Val stood on top of the hill in the Cerberus assault-frame leaning on the carbine lazily.
Scenario ended: Elimination of all arachnids complete
Calculating score...
Score:
Sgt. Arara, V. 1321 kills
Contractor specialist Connors, L. 3298 kills
Materializing back into the mechbay we first arrived in. Val already standing in front of me leaning against the wall. "Guess you owe me a date, a real one this time." She logged out, her character vanishing.
"Guess I do," I say before logging out myself. By the time my pod opened, Val had already left. Heading up to my room, showering then hopping into bed. Zero already having an early morning alarm set to get a small workout, a quick breakfast, and time to check my gear before heading to the dropship.
"Zero can you show me the garden on the wall," I ask. Almost any wall can become a tv since most of them are made of light panels, which is mainly used for illumination but can become a TV or projection at any time.
Across from me, I see the giant red planet taking up most the background of the screen at this proximity with only a little space peaking around the horizon. The floating debris that makes up the rings randomly lighting up with streaking arcs of purple lightning, each streak of lighting looks magical from this distance.
Hundreds if not thousands of moons ranging from very small to massive ones each rotating around the massive planet, most in a tight almost chaotic way. Learning the moons don't always have a set route since some of the larger moons float around some of the even large ones and being pulled into their own gravity. Creating almost a blender. Smaller satellite moons collide and crash with each other creating more debris. Meteors and asteroids join in on the fun from time to time joining the chaos.
Thinking that between the purple lightning and the moons of all different sizes each ranging from dull drab grays to colorful bright greens, blues, and even deep reds. It really does look like flowers from this distance.
Laying back in bed, slowly falling asleep to the beauty of the moons, thinking of the girl with the red hair with her piercing eyes, before finally nodding off.