The Void shimmered behind them, an unseen wound in reality, as the Landing Craft slowly emerged into orbit beyond the moon. Silence reigned but for the soft hum of systems adjusting to realspace. The Operator sat still and ready for anything in the body of Ivara Prime, the frame's senses expanding as their gaze fell upon the gray face of Lua, or just the moon as it was not the Orokin capital yet.
"Ordis, scan the surface of the moon. Anything unusual?" The Operator commanded. He figured scans would yield more promising results now that they were outside the Void.
The Cephalon's voice responded immediately, all traces of glitching gone. "Operator, detecting an irregular structure on the far side of the moon. Temperature residuals suggest long-term abandonment. Structure is incomplete. There are significant structural breaches—exposed segments to vacuum. Material composition is not consistent with suspected construction capabilities for this civilization's current technological era. Additionally, trace evidence suggests this was intended to be a self-contained biosphere. Strange."
"Thanks Ordis. Looks like we have our first clue. Bring us there." The Tenno responded, but internally their mind thought more on the subject, the questions piling on. 'What is humanity doing with such advanced alloys and a moon biosphere this far in the past and why is it abandoned?'
A biosphere, even in the Origin System, was not something to scoff at price wise. Not to say it was some long lost Orokin technology you could only hope to recover with the help of the void trader himself, but it was expensive to own one. Only the rich like the corpus elite and the Orokin could afford it. So for one this far in the past to just be abandoned spoke only ill omens to the Tenno.
Cloaking the ship, they maneuvered around the moon's curve, bringing the derelict facility into view within a minute. What greeted them was interesting: half-built domes and modular corridors scattered across the regolith like ribs. Wide gouges marked the surface, but no heat scarring, no impact craters, no known weapon signatures.
"Interesting, no obvious signs of a battle. So why was it abandoned?" the Operator murmured to himself. "Bring us in Ordis, I want to investigate further."
Ordis complied, slowing to a hover near a section of the ruined installation.
"Operator, the facility itself appears entirely without life support. Estimated operational time before recall required: twenty minutes."
"Understood. Keep the ship cloaked. I'll be in and out in quick."
After going through the Tenno's standard ejection, Ivara Prime dropped from the underbelly of the Landing Craft, diving silently down in zero gravity with the grace of a swan before righting herself at the last moment. The frame's feet touched the lunar dust without a sound. The Operator moved fast toward an opening in the derelict, not even bothering to cloak, as Helios twisted and turned at their side to analyze everything.
Inside the destroyed facility, crates were half-open, tools left mid-use. Advanced drones, seemingly used to help construct the base, sat dead beside support beams. Cables trailed into nowhere. There were hydroponic trays scattered in an organized grid, now filled only with frozen gray dust. Transparent wall sections meant to simulate sunlight lay shattered, broken from exposure to the elements and time.
But there were no bodies, no defensive turrets, not even a sign of a broadcast attempt to whoever owned this place about their intrusion. Just silence and lunar dust.
So the Operator kept exploring until Ivara Prime's optics caught sight of a terminal, long dead, buried in dust but seemingly intact enough due to being made of the same advanced alloy as the base. He approached, pulling out the Parazon and jacking it into the computer. Power surged, computer lights buzzing weakly to life as the Operator fed it with the warframe's own energy. The screen didn't work but that wasn't necessary when they could just extract the raw data.
"Ordis, I found a terminal, pulling data now."
The Parazon easily bypassed any security like it wasnt there, found, and accessed the data. Most of it was too corrupted to make any sense of, except for a single entry dating back a little over a decade:
Automated tracking system online. External anomaly detected. Gravitational distortion registering off the far side. Source unknown. Possibly a meteoroid—adjusting orbital sensors.
Then nothing. Cut off mid-entry before the computer could identify it.
"That's it?" the Operator muttered. "No alert protocols, no warnings, no confirmation on what appeared."
"Operator, the system terminated just minutes after this entry, and all other previous entries are too corrupted for even Ordis to recover."
"Not even emergency evacuation records?"
"Negative. Ordis doubts human crew members were ever used directly in the construction of the facility. I can detect no staff quarters or other signs of previous human habitation."
The Operator's gaze wandered upward, through the cracked dome. Stars stared back, twinkling like ayatans as his mind put together what might have happened here bit by bit.
Years ago, somewhere beyond that curve of the moon, something had appeared. What it was is currently unknown but given that no one had continued construction of the base after its appearance, it was safe to assume it was not a meteoroid. The alloy used in construction of the base should have been more than enough to stop any meteor that wouldn't outright destroy the place wholesale. Since the structural damage seemed to come from a combination of a lack of maintenance on the facility, exposure to the elements, and the occasional meteorite that might have hit it. Whatever appeared, hadn't attacked the place, just scared the people who constructed it away, for some also unknown reason.
"I don't like this," the Operator said, running a hand across the dust-laced surface of the console. "The mysteries keep piling on."
"I concur Operator," The Cephalong chimed in, voice low and slightly nervous. "Ordis has a bad feeling about what we will find when we reach earth."
The mention of Earth made Ivara look around the chamber again, optics taking in every detail once more. Even in ruin, and without being the greatest student of the history of the Earth of the Origin System, the Tenno could tell the architecture was made with design philosophies that didn't align with what he and Ordis suspected any current Earth-bound faction would or could use.
If not for the lack of gold and white, the Operator would have suspected it was early Orokin. Maybe precursor technology to them, but that was impossible.The suspected time period was nowhere close to the Lith Era. So what was going on in this timeline as to why technology had advanced so rapidly? Visitors from the Origin System maybe? Aliens? Or could this possibly be one of the many machinations of the Man In the Wall?
A dull pulse from their HUD reminded them of the time. Life support readouts blinking yellow. "Life support is approaching critical levels. Ordis recommends immediate extraction."
The Operator gave the empty room one last look before bullet-jumping up and through the hole in the roof, Helios floating close beside them. The moon's low gravity ensured they were carried further up and toward the cloaked ship they knew was hovering above them.
As they magnetized to the bottom of the Liset and reentered the ship, the Operator felt the faint pull of urgency deep in their bones. Not fear—never fear—but instinct sharpened to a fine edge after centuries of battles.
For a moonbase this far in the past to remain abandoned and incomplete after all these years must mean that whatever was responsible for its abandonment was still out there. But regardless of what it was, if it came after them, it would not find a Tenno wanting.
"Ordis," the Operator said, slipping back into the lotus position at navigation. "Set course for Earth. This place is a bust. Whatever's here won't answer our questions on how to get home."
Following his command, Ordis rotated the Liset on silent thrusters, angling smoothly downward toward the curve of Earth. A moment of stillness passed as the engines powered up to the max. Igniting, the craft disappeared into deep space in a burst of speed.
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Second chapter down! Sorry this chapter is short. I waned to do more with it when i realized, but time constraints and having no idea how to beef it up without putting in parts of next chapter in this or using flowery language to say a whole lot of nothing. Neither of which i wanted to do so this was the result. Don't worry though, next chapter and future ones should be longer.
Anyways, did you know I have a kofi? You can find it at https://ko-fi.com/inhumanman if you want to do a little extra supporting. That's all out of me for now folks! Have a good day. Author out!☮️