Chapter 1 The Escape (Edited)

Chapter 1 The Escape

Location: Saturn Region, Origin System

“Ordis, I got the artifact, let’s move.”

“Yes Excalibur.”

My name is Excalibur Prime, I am a Tenno, the first to be exact, and my mission is a simple one, protect those who can’t protect themselves and kill those who wish to do harm to the innocent.

As I work my way through my Liset I examine the small Orokin artifact in my hand, it looks like those old Matryoshka dolls. It had a large round base and a small round head with what would appear to be ears and a circle on its face that looked a lot like an eye. It was white with grey lines accentuating its curves with gold outlining the “eye” and the ears.

“What would the Grineer want with this thing? It looks like a child’s toy.”

BOOM!

My ship began to shake violently as I stumbled to keep my balance. I attached the artifact to my hip and prepared myself for the chase that has begun to ensue. Generally I’m the one doing the chasing, not the other way around.

“Excalibur the Grineer ship has opened fire on us!” Ordis said with panic in his voice.

“Gaaah, and here I thought I got away with it,” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my voice. “Ordis evasive maneuvers, get some distance between us and that Galleon!”

“Yes Excalibur.”

I watched the space in front of me as we began to create distance from the Galleon. I was just about to give Ordis the command to open the void portal and make our final escape, well as luck would have it.

“Excalibur three Grineer Galleons are coming out of hyper drive directly in front of us!”

There was only one good response in a situation like this.

“SHIT!”

I watched as three large ships came into view; they immediately open fire on us. Multiple tracer rounds begin to fly at us, impacting on the forward shield of the ship. Everything began to shake violently at the ungodly amount of fire we began to take.

“Ordis bank to right, 90 degrees NOW!” I said with haste in my voice.

“Yes Excalibur.”

With a swift 90 degree bank, we shot for open space. I heard the engines roar as we began to accelerate away from the incoming fleet. I began to tell Ordis, “Ordis open th-” but was rudely interrupted by him saying.

“Three class five Corpus Frigates are exiting hyper drive directly in front of us!”

“WHAT?!” I said with anger and confusion. “Ordis head for the Galleon we got the artifact from! We’ll let the Corpus and Grineer kill each other off!”

The situation turned into hell in a handbasket fairly quickly. Now we were surrounded by seven heavy class ships. And I have no weapons to defend myself; the Liset was designed to be a light class infiltrator, with speed and stealth in mind. This is when I wish the Orokin were still around, they had heavy ships that could face this threat, but alas they have been gone for a very long time.

“Ordis I want you to hug that ship, the last thing we need is to take any more flak.”

“I will do my best Excalibur,” he said with hesitation.

We approached the ship, basically playing a game of chicken, except I’m a mouse facing a tank. Ordis oriented the ship to the left and huged the hull of the massive ship. I watched as we glided alongside the mass of metal…and evil.

“Ordis once we reach the end of this ship open the void portal,” I said with a relatively calm voice

“Yes Excalibur.”

Were just about to reach the end of the galleon when my ship shook violently, I fell to the floor with a definitive thud. Ordis screamed over the comms.

“Excalibur we’ve been hit!”

I rose to my feet and yell, “ORDIS OPEN THE PORTAL, NOW!”

In a panic he said, “Excalibur the portal generator is badly damaged, along with the hyper drive and the cloaking device!”

‘Oh right the cloak… I can’t believe I forgot about that.’ thinking to myself ‘Now I feel like an idiot’

Well, were dead in the water and I have no means of escape. I begin to weigh my options, ‘either we keep running and get shot out of the sky, circle back toward the fleet and get shot out of the sky, or take my chances in the void.’

“Excalibur, what do you want me to do?”

For the first time in centuries... I hesitated.

“Excalibur?!”

I snapped out of my thoughts and I give the order.

“Ordis open the portal set the coordinates to anywhere but here,” I said with authority.

I watched a small beam shoot in front of the ship, making a large white hole. Generally we would enter the portal into the space between space, spend a small amount of time in there and exit through another portal back into my universe. But that only works when the generator is fully operational. We slipped into the portal with ease, now coming out the other side, was an entirely different story.

THUD!

“Excalibur we’ve entered atmosphere I suggest you strap in *BZZT* THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN! *BZZT*”

I screamed, “Ordis that’s hard to do when I’m SUCKED TO THE CELEIING!”

Evidently the sudden entrance into the atmosphere at the speed we were at, and with the miracles of gravity, created enough g-force to lift me onto the ceiling. I forced my head to look out the window to see that the ground in beginning to get really, really big.

“Ordis… transfer all power… to the… forward thrusters,” I could barely get that order out with the amount of force that was pushing me to the ceiling.

Ordis replied, “Yes Excalibur *BZZT* THIS IS SO MUCH FUN! *BZZT*”

I listened to the forward thrusters as they began to roar with the large influx in power. THUD! But all that power makes me hit the floor like a sack of potatoes; sometimes I hate my life. Anyway, Ordis leveled off the ship just above the tree line, making the leaves blow in the wind.

While rubbing my head I slowly rose to my feet with a good long moan.

“Excalibur *BZZT* DID YOU DIE?! *BZZT* I mean are you alright?”

“Ugh… yeah I’m fine, but Ordis what was that?” I asked, wondering about the mix of questions he just gave me.

“What do you mean Excalibur?”

“You wanted to know if I died,” I responded with a hint worry in my voice.

“I don’t know what you mean, my systems say that I’m fully operational there is nothing to worry about.”

“If you say so,” I said, using the typical response in a situation like that.

“Ordis I want you to run a systems check.”

“Yes Excalibur,” after a short moment of silence he said, “The void portal generator has been severely damaged, the hyper drive is unresponsive, the cloaking device is unresponsive, and the radio is severely damaged, everything else is in excellent condition.”

“Thank you Ordis,” I said with a hint of joy in my voice.

I took a deep breath while taking in the info I just heard. ‘So I need to repair all the damaged equipment on board’

“Excalibur *BZZT* WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO!? *BZZT*”

I looked behind me and said, “Ordis, are you alright? You’re acting a little… off.”

He responded with his cheery voice “Everything’s fine Excalibur, why do you ask?”

“Because I’m worried about you. I want you to run a diagnostic scan on yourself,” I asked with a hint of worry.

After a moment of silence he gave me his report. “My systems *BZZT* ARE BLEEDING *BZZT*... oh dear, maybe there is something wrong with me,” he said with worry in his voice.

“Ordis, I want to take a look at you,” I said while walking over to one of the consoles in my ship.

“Yes Excalibur,” he answered with sadness in his voice.

I watched as a little blue cube came out of the console. It’s three inches by three inches; this is Ordis, my ships cephalon, and one of my closest friends. I picked him up and begin to examine the small cube and notice a pretty definitive crack on his casing.

“So Ordis I’ve got good news and bad news, which do you want to hear first?” I said.

“The *BZZT* GOOD NEWS SO THAT I CAN ENJOY THE BAD NEWS *BZZT*”

I jerked my head back and my eyes widened, I couldn’t believe I just heard that, he’s never this… “violent”.

“My apologies Excalibur, I don’t know what came over me,” he said with an extremely depressed tone.

“It’s alright Ordis.” I said with an apologetic tone, “Well the bad news is you have a pretty wicked crack in your casing, which is probably the cause of your… “Mood swings”. The good news is you are still intact enough to operate the ship without much problem.”

He responded with something that was so out of the ordinary, “Excalibur I can understand if you do not want me anymore.”

An awkward silence filled the ship.

“Ordis you are my friend, you’ve been with me since the beginning. I’m not going to throw you away like a used tissue, I need you bro.”

“Thank you Excalibur,” he responded with happiness in his voice.

“Your welcome my friend. Look I’ll get you to Vauban when we get the ship repaired, as of right now it’s just something we’ll have to live with,” I said while placing the small cube back into the console. I looked at the foliage below.

'If there’s plant life here, than that most likely means the planet is inhabited.'

“Now Ordis, lets scout out the area and see if we can find a town or anyone that could possibly help me repair the ship.”

“Excalibur, I have located a town 50 miles away, should I set a course for it?” he asked

“Please do, but take us up to a high altitude. If this planet has surface to air missiles or anti-aircraft weapons, I don’t want to be on the receiving end of them.”

“Yes Excalibur, it would be quite unfortunate if *BZZT* WE DIED IN A FIREY EXPLOSION *BZZT*”

“Well Ordis if that were to happen, I need an American flag fluttering in the background and a Bald eagle flying overhead,” I said while giving off a light chuckle and a smile.

I listened to the engines kick on as we began our ascent into the lower atmosphere. I decide to take this time to think about today’s events. ‘A simple mission to retrieve what is rightfully mine, and I end up facing four heavy Grineer galleons and three class five Corpus Frigates, today was not my day, and now I’m stuck on…’

“Orids what planet are we on?” I asked with confusion.

“I don’t know Excalibur, the coordinates I set should have sent us near the Orcus Relay. But with the *BZZT* WONDERFUL DAMGE WE TOOK *BZZT* to the portal generator has evidently thrown us off course, it looks as though we are no longer in the Origin System.”

“Hmmm” I grabbed my chin with my hand, ‘so were no longer in the Origin System, not a big deal the other primes and I have explored the solar systems surrounding our galaxy and have found a plethora of advanced life. This may go well, I can map a new planet and possibly gain a new ally, than again this may be difficult. I hope the local population isn’t dangerous. Last thing I need to do is piss them off and end up in an unnecessary fight’.

“Excalibur, we are approaching the settlement now,” Ordis said, nocking me out of my thoughts.

“Ordis pull up a holo feed, I want to observe the town and check for any possible threats to our wellbeing.”

I’ve learned that will new planets, come new threats. When I was mapping some of the galaxies near the Origin system, I was nearly shot out of the sky and was almost arrested when I landed. That was a hard day; it took a lot a explaining and negotiations to calm down the inhabitants. Eventually I left in peace and promised that no more Tenno would ever set foot there again. That’s when I learned to observe from a safe distance and make a decision from there.

As I looked at the live feed I saw these little black dots hovering over the city. I couldn’t figure what they were, so I zoomed in the feed. I saw… horses; no they were smaller, ponies?

…

Well I’ve seen stranger, anyway there were these black creatures flying around. While I looked at the feed I felt a sense of urgency, but then again this could be a celebration of sorts, so I decided to continue watching. That’s when I noticed a pony take a hit to the side nocking it to the ground, which was all I needed to see to get into the fray.

“Ordis, I want you to do a flyby of the town while I look for a good insertion zone,” I said in a serious tone.

“Yes Excalibur, were making our descent now,” he stated.

I worked my way to my armory and geared up. The apparent enemy doesn’t look very lethal but there are still a lot of them. I grabbed my Soma Prime. It's a 200 round magazine weapon with a high fire rate of 15 rounds a second for maximum ammo output. It is a powerful weapon known for taking on squads of enemies without having to reload. Next is my Lex Prime, a heavy caliber pistol with long range capabilities and an eight round mag.

Most Tenno prefer ammo output over stopping power, but even before I became a Tenno, I prefered to drop my target with one shot instead of multiples. The Lex Prime a force to be reckoned with. Last were my blades, I attached my Venka Prime claws to the back of my hands, and grab my glaive prime and sheath it on my right wrist. I drew my Skana Prime and give it a once over before putting it back in its home, the thing never leaves my back, no matter what.

I sprinted back to the front of the ship and looked out the window. The town was pretty elegant, it had ivory towers, with golden spires, and hadvarious rivers and waterfalls running through it. A little too flashy for my taste though, looks aside, it was set up much like a standard grid pattern back on earth. As we circled the town, I took notice that it was full of long streets and alley ways, except the courtyard, near what I assume is a castle.

‘I don’t want to be caught out in the open I need to be able to access cover if need be.’ this is where the soldier in me begins to take over. I looked down to see a long street headed straight for the castle.

“Ordis, you see that street perpendicular to the castle?”

“Yes Excalibur.”

“I want you to drop me five blocks from the courtyard and get to a safe distance,” I sais, giving him stern order.

I headed to the end of the ship and opened the door and jumped from the moving ship. I watched as Ordis taked the Liset out of the hot zone. I heard him over the comms in my helmet.

“Excalibur please come back *BZZT* COVERED IN BLOOD *BZZT* safe and sound," he said.

Looking to the street in front of me I said, “I’ll do my best.”