[Ashwinder] Chapter 6 - Martialis

To both Suda’s and Harry’s surprise, rather than a subordinate of his, it was Darvo himself who was led inside by the members of the syndicate.

“Sorry for barging in without making an appointment first,” Darvo said. He appeared to be tense. “I lost all contact with my contractor, Clem. I trust and value his skills, but with the new situation on Mars, I can’t help but worry. Would you help me rescue him?”

Cephalon Suda replied right away.

"This task is best suited for the Tenno. My operatives lack the skill to infiltrate a warzone so volatile and dangerous. Sending them to Mars when there is a full-scale war between Corpus and Grineer would be a major waste of life, resources, and knowledge. I will not act in folly."

But Darvo was undaunted by her refusal. 

“I would normally ask the Tenno, but they all got roped into this war. Most of them didn’t even reply to the mail I sent them. As for those who did, they were either injured or unavailable.”

“Reiterating: sending the members of my syndicate would-” Cephalon Suda began, but Darvo said quickly:

“I understand; I’m not asking you to send out your operatives. But we have a Tenno here, don’t we?”

Harry was startled when he unexpectedly became the centre of the conversation.

“Huh?! Me?”

"Absolutely not," Cephalon Suda rejected Darvo’s proposal without hesitation. "Harry Potter is far too valuable to risk on an operation with less than 20% probability of success. The knowledge he holds outweighs anything you could possibly offer in exchange."

The vehemence in Suda’s voice surprised Harry; surprise that further increased when more than a dozen Suda Syndicate members walked into the room carrying Synoid Simulors and Gammacors in their hands.

Darvo was not intimidated. Turning towards Harry, he asked: 

“What do you say, Tenno? I hear you’ve been trying to get off this relay for weeks, but they wouldn’t let you. Help me, and I’ll help you. Credits, weapons, or a spaceship. Whatever you need, I can give it to you."

This turn of events was so sudden that Harry did not know how to react. It was true that he had wanted to leave Larunda Relay, but that was only so that he could go back to Earth and search for traces of the Wizarding World. Travelling to Mars while the planet was under siege by an army of millions of superhuman soldiers had never been part of the plan.

At that moment, an incoming transmission stopped Harry from giving Darvo an answer. It was none other than the Lotus. 

“I have been informed that you wish to leave Larunda Relay and help Darvo in rescuing Clem. Is that true?”

Harry glanced at Cephalon Suda, understanding she must have been the one to contact the Lotus. 

‘Looks like Suda really doesn’t want me to leave.’

He could not blame her. To Cephalon Suda, he was probably no different than a treasure trove of information.

Harry himself wasn’t that eager to put himself in danger for a stranger either.

‘But this might be my only way to get back to Earth in the immediate future.’

If Darvo were a man of his word, that would mean that he could help Harry get to Earth after this. He mulled over his response for a few seconds before asking:

“Is there a problem with me leaving the relay?”

Although her helmet covered the upper half of her face, Lotus gave off the impression that she was surprised by his direct question. 

“I will admit that we still have doubts about you, but not to the point of restraining you. If you wish to leave the relay, you are free to do so whenever you please. However, Valkyr-”

“-Belongs to the Tenno, I know,” Harry completed her words in a disappointed voice.

“Don’t be like this, Lotus. We are partners, are we not? How many times have I helped the Tenno, and they helped me back?” Darvo intervened at that moment. “With all the Tenno being occupied with the war on Gradivus or fighting the Infestation on Eris, who else am I going to turn to?”

As Lotus became silent for a few seconds, Darvo continued:

“Besides, most of the Corpus forces are focusing on Gradivus, locked in a space battle against the Grineer. Clem’s mission is on Martialis, on the other side of the planet.”

“You may take Valkyr with you if you truly wish to help Darvo,” the Lotus told Harry eventually. “Please do not make me regret placing my trust in you.”

“Thank you, Lotus,” Darvo replied.

“As you said, we are partners. It’s only right that we help each other in times of need,” Lotus replied, nodding at Darvo. Turning her attention to Harry, she said: “Using Transference over a long distance is not an easy task. I shall send one of my people to Larunda Relay in order to install a temporary somatic pod and equip you with somatic implants for the sake of boosting your Transference.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have time for that,” Darvo said. “The surgery and the calibration of the somatic implants could take days. Time is of the essence.”


“Sending the child with his true body in the middle of the warzone is not something I can agree with!” Lotus shot down his suggestion. 

“What do you wish to do, Harry?” Cephalon Suda asked at that moment, interrupting their argument.

“I will go to Mars in person,” Harry answered.

“What will happen to your body while you’re controlling Valkyr? Have you thought of the consequences?” Lotus asked, worry evident in her voice. 

After all, most Tenno had to sit still while they used Transference. They could not control their Warframe and their real body at once. Therefore, if the Grineer were to find Harry’s hiding place while he was controlling Valkyr, it would spell his doom.

“I will go down to Mars with him myself,” Darvo answered for Harry. “I will protect his body while his mind controls his Warframe.”

“I can also multitask,” Harry added, and, as if to prove it, he raised his hand. A moment later, he and Valkyr bumped their fists together. “Valkyr can fight on her own too. Neither of us is helpless without the other.”

⁂

Once Lotus’ transmission ended and Darvo returned to his Market, Harry was left alone with Cephalon Suda.

“Sorry for going against your wishes. You helped me out a lot, but I-”

“I understand the reasons behind your decision, Harry. You do not need to apologise,” said the Cephalon. “And I did not assist you for free. The knowledge I have gained from you in exchange for my services is invaluable. My wish would be for you to never leave my side. You are far too valuable to risk your life on the frontlines. . . but I see that you have set your mind to go. I do not wish to hold you here by force. . . Since I cannot dissuade you, I will do everything I can to keep you safe.”

A drone flew into the room, presenting Harry with a silvery chip.

“This is a device capable of storage through the digitisation technology. There are 10 Shield Ospreys and one Synoid Gammacor. The Ospreys will supply you with an energy shield at all times. You can charge them with your Void powers as well; they are one of the most sought-after items among the Tenno who are members of my Syndicate. As for the Gammacor, it is a wrist-mounted laser weapon. You should visit Cephalon Simaris’ Simulacrum and familiarise yourself with their use while Darvo finishes his preparations.”

Although Harry took the chip, he did not immediately leave. Truthfully, inwardly, he felt guilty for ditching Suda.

“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

“The best way to make it up to me would be to come back alive and uninjured,” Suda said.

⁂

One hour later, Darvo’s preparations ended, and upon being contacted via a transmission, Harry left Cephalon Simaris’ Simulacrum.

That time had not been enough for Harry to master the use of Gammacor, but it was enough for him to get the basics down: how to equip it (it was a wrist-mounted weapon), how to fire it, and how to reload it. Harry also tested the range of the weapon; after all, Synoid Gammacor was a beam-type secondary weapon.

Thanks to the tutoring received from his three Tenno acquaintances, Harry knew that most beam weapons boasted extremely high fire rates, a large magazine, pinpoint accuracy, and hitscan projectiles. But those amazing traits usually came at the cost of having a small range. His Synoid Gammacor had a maximum range of 40 meters.

After politely thanking Simaris once again for allowing him to use his Simulacrum, Harry rushed across the crowded streets of Larunda Relay, heading towards the Hangar.

When he arrived there, Darvo was waiting for him in front of a relatively small and sleek silvery spaceship. 

As they went inside the ship and Darvo closed the trapdoor, Harry asked:

“Only the three of us?” Harry asked. 

He thought that there would be a crew to man the spaceship. Even though it was a small spaceship, that was a relative; the vehicle was still around 20 meters long and four meters wide.

“Only the two of us. . . well, three if you count your Warframe as a person too. That’s more than enough. Bringing other people with us would only drag us down,” said Darvo. “This ship is equipped with a Cephalon that will take care of the navigation.”

Due to the urgent and sensitive nature of their operation, neither Harry nor Darvo was in the mood to make small talk.

Ten minutes after taking off from Larunda Relay, their spaceship arrived at an immense Solar Rail. It was a man-made space structure over 10 kilometres long.

Harry had been unconscious when Galen and Angie rescued him from Jupiter and brought him to Mercury, to Larunda Relay, so that was the first time he saw a Solar Rail with his own eyes.

Unbeknownst to him, the Solar Rail that Darvo brought them to now was very different from the one that the Tenno had used. It was a Corpus-controlled Solar Rail.



It was dozens of times larger than Tenno’s Solar Rail, and there were hundreds of different spaceships coming and going. In addition, whereas the Solar Rails used by the Tenno were hidden in the Void and only accessible to those who could wield its power, anyone could use the Corpus-owned Solar Rail. . . in exchange for a hefty fee, of course.

Despite the fact that he was heading towards a warzone where he would put his life and that of Valkyr in danger, Harry could not help but gasp in amazement. Travelling to other planets had been the dream of mankind since time immemorial. The muggles and the magicals alike had seen it as a nigh-unreachable goal.

Yet there he was now: a 15-year-old boy, with no astronaut training or any special education, aboard a spaceship that was about to make a Void jump, travelling from Mercury to Mars at a speed faster than light.

As their ship entered the Solar Rail, Harry sensed a large amount of Void energy coalescing around them. The Void energy increased in intensity even more, to the point where it became visible even to the regular people who were not attuned to it.

For a moment, light, space, and time seemed to warp, and the ship was launched forward in an instant. Stars turned into streaks of light, and the whole world blurred around him.

Light would need around half a minute to travel from Mercury to Mars, but the Void jump lasted no more than a couple of seconds. As the Void Energy dissipated, the Red Planet came into view.

Under Darvo’s orders, the Cephalon steered the ship and activated its stealth mode. Their vessel became invisible and undetectable by regular sensors.

“You don’t have to worry that the Corpus would shoot us down,” Darvo said as they entered Mars’ atmosphere. “Corpus’ tech is not to be underestimated, but they’re still not on the level of the Tenno. This ship’s camouflage system was designed based on a Tenno landing craft that I salvaged a few years ago. We are safe.”

His claims appeared to not be a mere boast. Their ship passed the dense network of artificial satellites orbiting Mars without triggering any alarms.

As their altitude decreased and the Martialis Corpus colony came into view, Harry’s eyes widened in amazement. That wasn’t the Mars that he had been expecting.

He had expected to see a desolate, rocky desert with red sands, but instead, the sight in front of him made him think of a lush oasis from the deserts of Earth.

The scenery did consist mostly of red rocky terrain and deserts, but in a radius of 15 kilometres around a tall, white, and gold structure, it was like a different planet. That white and gold structure was an ancient Orokin Tower, and the area around it had been terraformed to sustain human life. 

Harry felt as though he was 11 again, watching the scenery with the same feeling of awe he had when he visited Diagon Alley with Hagrid for the first time. But this time, the scenery was even more awe-inspiring than that of the Wizarding World. 

The Orokin Tower alone was like nothing he had ever seen before. It was the tallest building he had ever laid his eyes on. He doubted any buildings back home were even half as tall as the Orokin Tower. It was well over 1000 metres tall. 



Around it, numerous, blue and grey towers split the sky, and hundreds of low-rise buildings populated the outer rim of the terraformed area. Verdant trees and bushes could be seen all over the place, and he could even see a small body of crystal-clear water glittering in the sun.

The city skyline was filled with flying cars hovering orderly, and the streets and boulevards below were packed with hundreds of pedestrians going about their day as if the violent war happening at Gradivus, in the orbit of the planet, had nothing to do with them.

Unfortunately, as much as Harry would have liked to visit that futuristic-looking colony and see it up close, Darvo took manual control of the ship and steered away, towards the desert. Soon, a military Corpus base appeared on the horizon, and Darvo landed the ship behind a cliff. 

“This is as far as we can go. My ship’s stealth system is great, but it will not fool the Corpus’ sensors up close. From here on, you will have to go on foot. But before you leave, take this with you,” Darvo said, handing him a small chip. “I will send you holo maps of the military base that will show your location and that of hostile units in real-time. Assume that everyone except for Clem is an enemy.”

Harry closed his eyes before activating his Transference, becoming one with his Warframe.

“How will I find your contractor?”

“The Corpus is jamming my signal so I can’t pinpoint Clem’s location, but once you go past the energy shield around their military base, your chip should react to his bio-signature. He will appear on the holo map as a blue dot. Everyone else will be a red dot.”

⁂


“This is a lot easier than I had expected,” Harry spoke to Darvo through a transmission as he controlled Valkyr to crawl through a ventilation system.

Thanks to Darvo’s holo map and its radar-like function, infiltrating the Corpus’ military base proved to be almost effortless.

“Whether it’s the Corpus or the Grineer, all their facilities will have ventilation and sewer systems,” Darvo explained. “Sneaking in when you have the map of their facility is not that difficult. Getting out alive, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.”

Controlling Valkyr, Harry sneaked through the ventilation system as far as he could. However, the vent could only take him so far; eventually, it became too narrow for his Warframe to fit in, and he had to drop down.

“Now comes the hard part,” said Darvo. “Remember, it’s imperative that you are not found. Corpus holding cells are designed to automatically execute the prisoners to prevent their escape. If the alarms are triggered, you have only 75 seconds before Clem gets killed.”

“Can you not, like, cut the power off or something?” Harry asked. 

“Unless you detonate a large-scale EMP bomb, it’s almost impossible to cut the power off completely in a Corpus facility."

Seemingly aware of Harry’s thoughts and intentions, Valkyr’s footsteps made no sounds whatsoever as she started sprinting across the wide corridors of the Corpus facility.

‘A few weeks ago, I was running like this through the Department of Mysteries’ corridors to rescue Sirius. . .’ 

But Harry banished that thought as soon as it came to his mind. He had done his utmost not to think about Sirius over the past weeks, feeling as though he was not ready to deal with the reality of what happened to him. He was not going to have that admittedly long-overdue moment of self-reflection now when he was in the middle of an enemy military base.

“Hey, Darvo, what’s this smaller red dot on the holo map?” Harry asked as he stopped behind a corner. 

“It is either a camera or an infrared detector. Don’t let it detect you!” 

“Understood,” Harry replied, and the Synoid Gammacor that Cephalon Suda had gifted to him materialised around Valkyr’s right wrist like magic, out of thin air.



A regular human would need to get in position and spend a couple of good seconds regulating their breathing and taking aim before firing their gun, but a Warframe’s mastery of weaponry was on an entirely different level. His wrist-mounted weapon lit up, and the camera above the blast doors a dozen meters away was instantly melted off by the plasma beam.

“Are Corpus bases always this empty?” Harry asked. 

He had expected a heavily armed group of Corpus Wardens and Troopers at every step, but so far, the corridors had been mostly empty. He was, by no means, complaining, but he had a nagging suspicion that something was going terribly wrong. It was too easy.

“No. . . this is highly unusual,” Darvo answered. “Be on your guard.”

Harry glanced at the holo map again. The blue dot indicating Clem’s location was less than 150 meters away.

‘After this door, I’ll probably reach the prison area.’

According to the hologram depicting the plan of the floor, the laboratory wing he was in had six maximum-security holding cells arranged into two separate towers. And, judging by the number of red dots patrolling around the towers, his Valkyr would not be able to sneak past them undetected.

While Harry was standing still, contemplating his next course of action, a deafening alarm started blaring out of nowhere.

“I didn’t do anything!” Harry said immediately, greatly startled. 

He was hidden, and he had not tripped off any sensors on his way there.

“Rush towards the cells! No point in staying hidden anymore!” Darvo said urgently. 

Harry did as he was told and sprinted towards the blast doors. The moment the blast doors opened, the Corpus Wardens were immediately alerted. 

Two of them raised their Supra rifles and fired a hail of yellow laser bullets at Valkyr. Another one of the wardens raised his Lanka sniper and took aim, while the remaining three wardens ran at the Warframe with a Prova melee in their hands, a blunt machete crackling with electricity.

Unlike every other time he had trained before with his Warframe in Cephalon Simaris’ Simulacrum, this time around, an overpowering bloodlust exploded from Valkyr.

Her Venka Prime claws popped out, and before the machete-wielding wardens could react, Valkyr vanished.

“No!” Harry shouted.

She reappeared in front of the nearest Corpus warden, her claws only two inches away from his throat. Harry yanked control back at the very last moment, and Valkyr’s attack was slightly changed; instead of tearing his throat out, the Warframe slammed her elbow into his head.

Although the Corpus Warden was wearing a large metallic helmet, the strength behind Valkyr’s elbow strike was so great that the man was sent flying as though he had been hit by a speeding train, his helmet shattering into countless pieces.

The ongoing struggle between Harry’s will and Valkyr’s rage made the Warframe freeze, and that brief moment was all that the Lanka-wielding warden needed.

An electric sniper round struck Valkyr’s shoulder, and her energy shield shattered. 

“Tenno! Are you alright?” Darvo’s voice came through the transmission.

Harry could not answer as he fought against Valkyr’s murderous urges. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to succumb to her rage.

“Tenno! You have only 50 seconds left!” Darvo shouted in a voice filled with urgency.

Harry was on the verge of regaining full control when the Supra-wielding wardens opened fire again. This time, the hail of laser rounds caught Valkyr in full, and, with her energy shield depleted, the laser bullets seared her flesh. The Warframe screamed in agony, and the pain fuelled her rage, empowering her murderous intent.

Harry's control over her snapped completely, and the savage Warframe threw back her head and let out a deafening roar. Orange-red energy erupted from her body, and 10 long energy claws came out of her hands as she entered Hysteria.

It was Valkyr's most powerful ability. Hysteria made her invulnerable to all damage and turned her into a berserk, unstoppable killing machine.

As though they could sense their impending doom, the Supra-wielding wardens fired their laser bullets at Valkyr with wild abandon, emptying their clips in a panic.

However, the laser bullets that had seared her flesh and made her scream in agony a few moments ago were bouncing harmlessly off her body now. The Lanka-wielding warden also fired another electric sniper bullet, but his shot bounced off Valkyr’s chest all the same.

Valkyr’s Flicker Strike activated again, and a split second later, her claws tore through the Lanka-wielding warden’s torso. His ribcage split open with a sickening sound as his blood and internal organs sprayed all over the floor.

Horrified at what he was witnessing, Harry fought desperately to stop her, but her rage was too much. Even worse, he could not pull back from her mind.

He could feel her bloodlust as though it were his own. He could sense her thirst for vengeance and understood that Valkyr had not forgotten the torture that she had endured at the hands of Alad V and his subordinates on Jupiter.

Darvo’s hologram was shouting something at him, but Harry could not see nor hear him. A red haze had covered his eye like a curtain of blood, and his hearing was muffled as though he was underwater.

It took Valkyr less than fifteen seconds to brutally murder every single warden in the prison wing, but for Harry, it had felt like an eternity.

However, after all the Corpus were killed, Valkyr’s rage receded like a miracle, and she handed Harry the reins of her body once again, with no fuss.

By the time he finally regained his composure, Darvo’s voice had become hoarse from how hard he had shouted to snap him back to reality.

“Tenno! Do you hear me?”

“There are only 25 seconds left!”

“Tenno!”

“Get back to your senses!”

“I hear you. Tell me what to do next,” Harry said quickly, not giving him an explanation for his unhinged behaviour.

“Go to the second cell in the left prison tower.”

A yellow rope flew into the air and stabbed deeply into the metallic wall of the prison tower as Harry controlled Valkyr to quickly pull herself up with her rip line.

“Take out your Parazon, the hidden blade in your right arm, and touch the console with it! Don’t ask why; we have no time! Just do it!”

Another hologram appeared in front of Harry’s eyes, but Darvo urged him impatiently:

“Connect those lines to complete the puzzle! Quickly! Only 10 seconds left!”


It was the first time Harry had hacked a console or anything else in his entire life, but if there was one thing that he was famous among his friends for, it was his reaction time and quick thinking in stressful moments.

It took him only four seconds to complete the mini puzzle, and the blast door of the cell opened out.

“My word, Tenno, you gave me quite the scare. . . Clem, are you alright?”

Hearing Darvo’s voice, the person in question stepped out of the cell and said two words:

“Clem! Clem!”


(Clem and Darvo)

“Haha! Of course, I wouldn’t leave you behind the enemy lines!”

“Clem. . .”

“I know it wasn’t your fault this time.”

“Clem! Grakata!”

“Eh? Your Grakata? Sorry, we can’t go look for them this time around.”

“Grakata! Grakata!”

“It’s not possible. Corpus and Grineer started a full-scale war. We have to get you out of there as soon as possible.”

If not for Darvo’s answers, Harry would have absolutely no clue what Clem was talking about.

‘Was hacking the maximum security prison of a Corpus military base supposed to be that easy?’ he asked himself inwardly as he started running towards the extraction point marked with a green dot by Darvo on the holo map. 

Poor security, extremely few numbers, and a laughable encryption system. . . he found it hard to believe that Corpus was considered one of the three strongest powers in the origins system and one of the most technologically advanced.

But he decided to think about it after he made it out of the military base in one piece.

Harry and Clem broke into a sprint, their footsteps echoing loudly in the vast, eerily empty military base.  

He focused on Valkyr’s sharp senses as he ran, trying his utmost to detect anything that might be out of place. His worry that the rescue operation had gone too smoothly was still bugging him. 

However, the two of them managed to leave the base unobstructed, not encountering even a Corpus trooper or at least a MOA. The entire base appeared to have been deserted.

Noticing them running out of the Corpus facility, Darvo cancelled the Stealth mode so that Harry and Clem could find the ship.

"I don’t know why you encountered so little resistance but I won’t look a gift kubrodon in the mouth. Let’s get out of here.”    

A cloud of sand and dust rose in the air as the ship’s plasma thrusters lit up and they took off. Finally getting off the planet, Harry let out a breath he did not know he had been holding and his consciousness came out of Valkyr’s body, returning to his own. 

But then, the Cephalon’s voice rang in the spaceship:

“I have received an SOS transmission from the nearby Corpus colony, Martialis. As per my precepts, I will put it through.”

The hologram of a Mesa warframe was projected from the cockpit and the Tenno within spoke in a rushed voice:

“This is Axel from the Gladiators Clan. Martialis is under attack! We need immediate reinforcements!”  

The Mesa suddenly raised her twin pistols, and extremely loud sounds of gunfire rang as she shot dead over 20 Grineer lancers in the blink of an eye, their corpses unrecognizable from the hail of bullets. 

However, at that moment, a Grineer Bombard took out a Regulator.

Regulators were a type of flying drones used by the Grineer to jam communications, radars, and any other devices that functioned based on radio waves. 



The moment that the drone started floating by the side of that Grineer Bombard, the transmission began shuttering. 

"The Grineer—galleon overhead—bombardment—civilians are in great danger! We—"  

In the end, the signal was jammed completely and the transmission was cut out. 

Darvo turned the ship around, bringing Martialis back into view. What they saw made the breath catch in Harry’s throat.  

A colossal Grineer Galleon loomed in the sky. 



It was at least four kilometres long and half a kilometre tall, with green and brown, rusty armoured plating and enormous, brutal weaponry. 

Numerous smaller dropships carrying dozens of Grineer Lancers and Butchers flew out from its belly like a swarm of locusts but they did not go above the city because, at that moment, the Grineer Galleon aimed its enormous cannons at the colony. Those cannons were the size of apartment buildings. 

The air trembled as the Grineer Galleon unleashed a devastating blast. The sky was cleared of clouds for dozens of miles and the shockwave that burst forth almost flipped Darvo’s ship over, causing the Cephalon to work at 150% of his capacity in order to not crash the ship. 

The overwhelming attack struck the golden Orokin tower in the heart of Martialis. The force field surrounding the colony like a dome shuddered precariously and flickered under the force of the impact before a sound like that of glass breaking was heard. 

The force field collapsed. 

People’s terrified screams filled the air and they started running in all directions, trampling over each other in their desperation. 

Loud battle cries came from the hundreds of Grineer troops perched atop the dropships as they let themselves fall from heights over 10 meters or more. 

Harry's stomach twisted and his hands clenched into fists as he watched with a pale face how the Grineer troops opened fire upon the civilians. 

He and Darvo understood then why the Corpus military base had been almost deserted. All the Corpus personnel had rushed to Martialis to defend against the Grineer's invasion.

But this was not a skirmish against the Corpus. It was a massacre of the civilians. 

Darvo’s voice was tense. "We need to leave. Now."  

Harry turned to him. "No. Turn around. We have to help them."  

Darvo gripped the controls tighter. 

"Help them? That Grineer Galleon is the size of a city! You think you can just jump in and fight that? We’ll be dead before we even get close!"  

"We can’t just run!" Harry said in an agitated voice. "There are innocent people down there!"  

Darvo’s face darkened. "This isn’t a fight we can win, Tenno. Even your Warframe can’t do anything against that Galleon. This colony is lost."  

But Harry didn't have the heart to turn his back to them, not when he could do something to help them out.  

"If you won’t go," he said, stepping toward the hatch, "then drop me down."  

Darvo looked at him like he had lost his mind. "Are you serious?"  

"I’m going."  

Silence filled the spaceship. 

“Darvo, open the door! I don’t have time!” Harry shouted.

Unexpectedly, Clem also spoke at that moment.

"Clem!"  

Darvo looked at him shocked. "Clem, this is suicide!"  

"Clem," he said again as if that explained everything.  

Darvo lost his patience: “After all the trouble I went through to save you from the Corpus, now you’re going to throw your life away?”

Seeing how neither of them was going to change their mind, Darvo let out a troubled sigh. 

"I can’t come with you. I’m sorry, but I value my life. You are on your own”

The Cephalon piloted the ship to land on the ground again and opened its hatch to let Harry, Valkyr, and Clem out. No sooner than they got off, the ship took off like an arrow, its plasma thrusters propelling it away at great speed. 



⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN1: Some of you may be confused so I’m clearing this up just in case: currently, in the game, Mars is controlled by the Grineer. But that has not always been the case. At first, Mars was Corpus territory. 

AN2: For those familiar with the game, as you may have noticed from the previous chapters as well, I have taken the liberty to "rework" Valkyr.
- her Ripline is now just part of Valkyr's equipment rather than a skill
- her 1st ability is now "Flicker Strike" - short distance teleportation to an enemy
- her Warcry is also a Taunt, not just an armour and attack speed buff and a slowing debuff. It forces the enemy to attack her instead of her allies.
- Hysteria and Paralysis are mostly unchanged (For Now)

AN3: As Cephalon Suda said in the previous chapter, Clem is a Grineer who was born with a ‘genetic flaw’. He is smaller than the other Grineer but he also lacks the loyalty that all Grineer are bioengineered to have towards their Twin Queens. He has free will.


This is Boros’ ship from One Punch Man.

The Grineer Galleons are smaller than this ship, but I felt like it would help you get a better idea of how terrifying it would be to see a 4000 meters long ship flying above the city and aiming its skyscraper-sized cannons at you.