The Eternal Storm

The Eternal Storm

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2 Files Recovered.

User C/Play File:002.

Synchronizing User Cognitive Relay Interface...

Accessing Memory Weave File...

- File 002: To Boldly Go -

*Thunk*

The Void.

It was a weird place, an enigma, an endless expanse of emptiness that defied the laws of reality. Nothing made sense there. Not like outer space, at least space had things in it like stars and planets and the odd comet that all followed an observable set of rules. The Void had no rules.

Even after decades of research, experimentation, and exploration by the greatest minds of an immortal generation no progress had been made to even answer the first question. What is the void? Not even the Tenno could answer that question despite their intimate past with the twisted hellscape. Mainly because none of them could remember most of their time there, and even if they did one certain Tenno didn't think they would be able to adequately form an answer anyway, and he didn't think he wanted to be able to.

*Thunk*

Tenno hated the void, the very idea of going back to that place was a sickening thought, and being there was never a good experience. His many missions across the Origin System had taken him to the strangest and most inhospitable of places but none had as sinister a feeling in the air as the Void. The many derelicts and abandoned towers that had been left adrift for millennia in that forbidden realm were the only places he had ever dared to go and even then it was out of necessity.

The monstrosities he faced in those places weren't direct products of their extra dimensional environment but they still had enough of a resemblance to his personal demons that confronting them gave him plenty of goosebumps every time he dived in. Even traveling via void jumps upset him.

*Thunk*

A void jump was a process of traveling a great distance by briefly entering the fold, the border space between the Void and the Universe humanity called home, a literal way of skirting around the laws of physics to allow for faster than light travel. A great convenience for space goers and ninja warriors alike. But whether it was an enjoyable experience depended on who you asked.

Sure some would say the colors and flashing images seen during a fold jump were pretty, made the experience mystical, even beautiful, but those people were not Tenno. None knew better than the Tenno that the dangers of the Void don't just affect the body but the mind as well. The Void had a dangerous corruptive effect on the minds of sentient beings, turning rational and peaceful minds into mad animals of malicious intent, no one could explain this sinister phenomenon. Even brief exposure of a small dose of ambient void energy could warp a persons perception and twist their personalities into any number of possible psychosis.

*Thunk*

Even from the safety of a shielded cockpit being so close to the Void would make Tennos stomach knot into a heavy iron ball every time. So seeing it up close and personal outside of his Orbiter, even while inside the walking fortress that was his warframe Rhino, was a terrifying experience for the space ninja. Especially while spinning so wildly out of control and that the veil seemed to be having the mother of all maelstroms at the same time didn't help his stress.

For even though he hadn't been physically harmed the maelstrom had did a number on his psyche. His mind felt twisted and torqued into gray matter noodles. The experience was harrowing enough that it had even caused him to black out.

*Thunk!*

He didn't know how long he had been unconscious but the pounding headache and lethargy of fog around his thoughts told him it wasn't too long. Not long enough to fully sleep off his ordeal. An while he would have gladly continued to sleep to regain his mental strength something was pulling at his senses in an aggravating manner he did not appreciate.

*THUNK!*

“Alright! What is that!?” Rhino opened his hidden armored eyes to behold a blurry giant light inches from his face. He stared with a blank mind, was this the light every one saw at the end of the tunnel? The light reared back and,

*THUNK!*

Smacked against his plated face. Rhino's clouded vision cleared a little and the identity of the antagonistic light illuminated itself to be a little blue and gold gourd shaped hand bag with a giant built in flashlight at the fat end. It was Carrier the Sentinel Companion.

The little portly machine was shining him right in the face and was apparently trying to revive him by ramming its large light bulb of an eye into his dual layered cranium. Which while it didn't actually hurt it wasn't helping the planet sized headache he was having. He swatted it away, or rather he tried, would his arms could move. He glanced about to see he was still braced spread eagle against the airlock in the Orbiter and that he had bent the metal grips he made around his hands so tightly his fingers had practically melded with the walls.

*THUNK!*

“Okay! Thats it!” Rhino reared back his head ready to headbutt the assaulting ammo pouch but then his skull exploded as an ear splitting shriek pierced straight into his brain.

“Operator!You'realive!Saysomething!Please!Whyaren'tyousayinganything?Didyourbrainturntomush fromoverexposuretothevoid?Ohstarsitdiddidn'tit!Ohwhydidn'tyougetinsidewhenyouhadthechance!Now youravegetableandtheonlyonesI'llbeabletohaveaconversationwithwillbethesentinelsandthepets!”

“ORDIS!” The bound Rhino roared! “SHUT! UP!”

The noise mercifully ceased, “... I need a minute.”

With some slow effort, and careful not to tear the walls anymore than he already had, Rhino wriggled his large armored fingers free from his metal hand holds. The metal easily gave and once free of his braces he shooed away the fat flashlight before it could strike again and with it out of his face he could see out the still open airlock door into the serene be-speckled starscape of space. But it wasn't the sight of the stars that brought him comfort but the giant round curve of a certain blue and green planet. Earth. They had made it, a bit of an overshoot from what he had intended but better this than winding up inside of the planet, or the sun.

He floated out of the door frame with wings and sentinel in tow getting a grander view of humanities birth place, half of it vibrant in the light of the systems sole yellow star and the other half falling under the curtain of night. His aches diminished with the growing comfort of beholding the majestic sight. But his warm feelings were then cruelly cooled as he took notice of his more immediate surroundings. Large pieces of burnt metal, twisted steel, and fried wires floated all around him in a miniature asteroid field. Spinning about he saw what looked like a spaceship but clearly was no longer a spaceship. The whole of his mobile star home was blackened and malformed into what resembled a charred piece of wood. And that was being nice in respect to his home, a more accurate description would be that his spaceship looked like shit.

“Operater are you alright? Please tell me your alright!” The minute was up.

“I'm fine Ordis,” Rhino calmly answered, “I'm at least in better shape than you. Give me a sitrep.”

“Well operator I have good news, bad news, and- TERRIBLE NEWS! -more bad news.”

The headache was already coming back, “Oh great, I think I can guess but whats the bad news?”

“The Orbiter is- F.U.B.A.R! -critically damaged, only 33.3 percent of my systems are online. At least I believe that is correct, I'm sorry Operator but I can't give you a more detailed damage report until my internal systems are fixed enough to do a proper diagnostic.”

Rhino mimed a silent sigh, “Okay, whats the good news?”

“You're still alive!” The Cephalon jubilantly answered.

Rhino's shoulders slumped as he fought down the urge to palm his face lest he send himself flying away from the mighty force of the hit. “I guess I can't complain.” He took a nonexistent breath to mentally brace himself then asked the dreaded question, “And what's the terrible news?”

“We're lost.” Was the instant and far too calm reply.

“… What?”, squeaked the mighty Rhino.

“We're lost.” repeated the frighteningly calm cracked cube.

Another pregnant pause, “What do you mean lost?” Rhinos headache was coming back with avengeance.

“I mean I don't know where we are. Are you sure your brain is functioning correctly Operator?”

“I know what lost means Ordis, what I meant was how are we lost? Earth is right there!” At this point Rhino was gesturing and flinging his limbs wildly about, the only thing keeping him in place was his archwings auto gyroscopic systems canceling his exasperated momentum.

“That is not Earth Operator.” Ordis answered in a quiet tremulous voice that froze Rhino mid pose.

“Again, what?”

“Just look operator. That planet, it is not the Earth. And the stars, they don't match up with my navigation charts. Even with my systems so damaged I can still see that we are not in the Origin system anymore.”

Not Earth? Impossible! That had to be Earth, what else could it be? Ordis must be more damaged than he thought if he was making mistakes like not being able to identify the very planet of their origin. But one thing got the Operators attention, something that had his spine tingling and his heart heavy with fear. Ordis sounded scared

Really scared, the kind of deep mind numbing scared that causes ones voice to tremble and break even when you're outer appearance was calm. Ordis only got that scared in two situations, when the Operator was in direct peril or heading into peril, or when Ordis himself was backed into a corner with despair. Tenno had only heard this fear in Ordis twice before and those memories still chilled him to the heart. For Ordis to be this scared it meant that one or both of those conditions was met.

But what Ordis said couldn't be true. Right? Rhino rotated around to eye the planet behind him. He surveyed the planetary surface looking for something, anything, that could prove Ordis was wrong. That he was simply suffering a malfunction due to damage. But the more Tenno looked the more dread creeped up into his mind. His warframes built in cyber enhanced neuroptics zoomed in and showed him something he was quickly wanting to deny. The continents, the oceans, they were all wrong! Nothing looked right.

The conjoined continent that should have been the Americas was split in two and smaller and they were so close to Europe and Africa that the Atlantic Ocean was half its size, the British Isles were nearly twice their size, and the ice caps of the planets poles were huge! But that wasn't even half of the strange differences that Rhino saw. The Gulf of Mexico looked like a giant horseshoe, the east half of Africa resembled a roaring lions head, the Netherlands were the curved horns of a goats head, Italy's booted peninsula looked like a horses leg, and Alaska was a moose head! The list went on and on the more he looked, until he couldn't look anymore and turned back around to face the burnt wreck of his vessel.

“No way. No. Way.”

He closed his eyes, reset his optics then looked back at the planet. Nope. Still not Earth. His head snapped back and he cradled it in his hands. Ordis was right, that wasn't Earth. They were in a completely different star system! But that couldn't be right, right? That was impossible right? What were the odds? Maybe the void exposure altered his perception, maybe they were still in the fold seeing an illusion or suffering a lingering effect of its energy. Just because the planets surface looked different didn't mean that wasn't the Earth- and then he saw it.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the angel herald of the night sky. Lua. The moon was beginning to peek out from behind the Earth. Only it wasn't Lua, not the one he was intimately familiar with. Not only was it bigger, it was whole, pure, in one piece. No arching ivory spires or encircling golden rings anchored to a torn shattered surface. But it wasn't what the Moon was missing that got his attention but what it had instead.

“Ordis, is that a unicorn in the moon?”

“I'm afraid so Operator.” The legendary face of the man in the moon had indeed been replaced by what looked like the horned head of the mythical equine of lore. This was beyond illusions or faulty eyes, a warped mind couldn't come up with something this specific or so many differences that were uniform in theme.

But how?! How could they even be here? They hadn't been in the fold that long had they? It may have felt like an eternity to him but no way were they in there long enough to travel such a great distance. Void jumping was fast but not that fast. No, if they were in there long enough to come out in another star system they would have needed an unfathomable amount of energy to keep them in the fold long enough to reach such a place. An with his ship in such a damaged state there was no way they could've had enough power to manage such a feat.

But the facts were adding up and the proof was undeniable. Rhinos cradling hands tightened around his helm and the massive hulk of metal muscle curled up in on himself. Unless the Void really had turned his mind to mush, and affected Ordis too, then this was reality. This was the truth. He was in an alien star system.

“No. NoNoNONO! Not again! NOT AGAIN! This isn't happening. This isn't happening. This isn't really happening! Nothing makes sense! This is impossible!”

Rhinos impenetrable head was quaking with pressure at this point as the Operators mind felt close to bursting. Old thoughts and memories buried deep were quickly rising to the surface. Ancient terrors locked away in the dark battered at their cages as the light faltered. Rhinos breaths were ramping up and his mighty unshakable frame was rattling like Ostron spirit chimes in the wind of a storm. His vision was going black, his heart drumming like machine guns in his ears he-

*Thunk*

He went still... then uncurled his head to look up into the shining starlit eye of Carrier.

*Thunk*

The little Sentinel was headbutting him again but with a much more subdued intent this time. A low sorrowful whine cooed from the little machine as its lighted eye dimmed and nuzzled his horned brow.

“Operator, are you okay? Is there a rupture in your warframe? Is your brain having a delayed hemorrhaging reaction??”

As the maternal cephalon began firing off questions Rhinos quaking mind began to steady and lull into a calmer state. Most of the time the mad cubes fretful ramblings grated on his nerves but in this case his frantic static was actually a great comfort. He uncurled and relaxed his frame as he let his mind go blank to the cephalons white noise while Carrier continued to rub against his helm. He reached up and patted its side and it beeped in a jubilant tone before rubbing against him even more.

The little drones weren't considered as intelligent as their more aggressive alien cousins but they were surprisingly perceptive. The biggest unspoken reason they were ever kept by the Tenno as companions was because of the fact that they seemed to possess the ability of social empathy. They could sense when another being was in distress and learn from their observations to form a response to appeal to the emotional needs of that being. They were like little animals rather than machines in that regard and Ordis' only choice of proxy to provide physical comfort to his Operator.

Some Tenno would often jokingly refer to their Cephalons and Sentinels as 'Deep Space Insanity Avoidance Companions'. Oh how underrated they had made that function sound.

“Ordis.” Rhino said.

“Yes Operator?” Ordis quickly replied, ceasing his string of inquires.

“Thanks.” Rhino said softly.

“Er. Um, you're welcome Operator.”, replied the off guard cube. “Uh may I ask, for what?”

“The usual.” Rhino answered with an unseen but audible smile.

“What?” Asked the perplexed program.

Rhino drifted towards the Orbiter.

“Ordis, deploy the rest of the Sentinels,” Rhino softly ordered. “Have them start collecting as much salvage as they can and gather all the larger metal fragments together before they drift too far.”

He sent a mental command to his golden decorated archwing and it detached from his lower back and sped away towards the front of the Orbiter to store itself back into the forward launcher. As he gripped the airlock doorway, much gentler this time, he said, “I'm coming in to survey the damage and see if I can get some of your systems back online.”

“Oh uh, very well Operator. I'll get them right on that and direct you on the proper maintenance of my system connections as best I can.”

But before Rhino could enter Ordis continued, “Operator? I can assume that once your done repairing my internal systems we'll start work on getting the Orbiter space worthy again. But after that, may I ask, what is it you are planning to do then?”

The golden white armored frame of war halted just before entering his mobile sanctum, pausing only for a moment before continuing on in.

“To move forward Ordis. To move forward.”

==*==

As the Tenno left the stars to survey his home from within several small starlit bodies scattered outward into space, the Sentinels, deployed as per instructions of their computerized commander set to their task. They beeped in super light speed to one another and coordinated their scavenging pattern to quickly begin collecting the smaller viable pieces of their home before they where lost in the vast expanse.

They zipped and whizzed about like dutiful celestial bees. Vacuuming up the smallest pieces around them while bumping or pushing the larger pieces back towards their metal body of origin. Only occasionally colliding with one another and devolving into short fights consisting of aggressive flashes and high pitched beeps and chirps before just as quickly breaking away from one another to continue their anointed task. Dutiful they were, but not the most attentive of entities, for if they were then they might have noticed something amid the nebula of salvage that didn't belong.

Hidden amidst the cloud of twisted metal was a small orb, dull and blackened as the rest of the material that had corralled around it. But this metals origin was not the same as the pieces of ship that surrounded it. As the small dutiful Sentinels continued their task unable to see it the orb pulsed a faint light. It dulled, then lit, then dulled again. Quick and subtle, in a rhythm akin to heartbeat. It drifted away from the central mass of the salvage mess no different than the rest of the debris, but then it began to move quicker. As its pulsing light began to pick up speed so to did its drifting pace. Soon its light became a solid glow as it removed itself from the rest of the metal nebula and streaked across open space. It rocketed towards the only place it could possibly go, the waiting world below.

Fire born of adiabatic heating quickly engulfed the plummeting sphere as it punctured through the atmosphere its own shining light mixing with the flames to give off the likeness of a majestic fireball. The dark alien sphere was camouflaged by the light as a shooting star in the night sky for many to see and make innocent wishes and hopeful prayers on what they thought was a messenger of heaven but was actually a sinister fraud that would bring no tidings of joy or peace. Even to one certain majestic rainbow maned individual who watched from the open terrace of her royal home it was a passing moment of wonder. Allowing one who is too wise to wish to indulge in a glimmer of hope that everything would work out in the near future. That the terrible evil she knew was coming would be vanquished in a way that would bring a happy ending to a sad story all the while unaware that the falling comet was actually a harbinger of more terrible things to come.

As the alien star streaked across the sky and down behind the horizon and peaking mountains towards lands of barren wilderness most wouldn't be able to see its fall from the heavens and many would just dismiss it after a glance but one young creature would see its final destination. All too close. As the sphere fell, hot and intense, to the waiting dirt below a small filly who was gray in every shade sat waiting to meet it. As the falling star got brighter and larger in her view her awe filled face quickly began to morph to one of terror at the imminent danger of the rapidly approaching fireball and wisely sprinted in the opposite direction as fast as her short legs could move.

*BOOOOOM!!!*

The shockwave of the impact and the accompanying explosion of dirt was enough to send the young filly tumbling and rolling head over hooves many times before coming to a grinding halt with chin firmly implanted in soil and hind legs with plot pointed skyward. Not a flattering pose to be sure. Dazed and dizzy for a few short minutes she soon corrected her bodies alignment to its natural poise and shook her shaken senses back into alignment as the dust fell off her furred body. After a moment of silence the disturbed cloud of earth drawn up from the stars landing began to settle and the filly could see her surroundings again and beheld a massive crater in the earth that would have been her grave had she not moved.

Now while most creatures would have obeyed their basic instincts and fled after such an event, this gray little pony obeyed her curiosity. And rather than backing away from the crater she began to tentatively creep closer. Clearly enticed by the now eerie light radiating from within the hole she crept closer 'till she had reached the sunken edge and peered down within. An there resting deep in the center of the bowled earth she beheld a glowing sphere.

Now being so young and her people having no knowledge of the things that dwelled among the stars she understandably couldn't have known of the many dangers possibly associated with a strange object that fell from the sky. So of course the foreign rock was a beautiful gem in her eyes, a rare specimen from heaven, and not an obvious threat to her life and the lives of everyone on the planet. So of course she promptly slid down into the crater, walked up to the glowing rock, pried it out of the compacted ground and picked it up to get a closer look by bringing it right up to her face.

…

Fortunately for her nothing else happened after that, the space orb remained an orb and the soft glow dimmed down and didn't relight. Not realizing the danger it truly represented she didn't think twice before trotting out of the crater with her prize towards her humble home. A hop in her steps as she was delighted to add this new wonderful addition to her growing collection of stone elements. But as she trotted on with a happy smile she failed to notice that the precariously balanced Orb upon her back had taken a shine to itself as a mysterious colorless gel had begun to coat its surface.

The Orb pulsed a faint flash as the lustrous gel layer grew just a little bit more.

- End of File -