(Spoilers for Deadlock Protocol)

Desire

"This is not what I expected." Juil said very quietly as the Edmund led the way into the hangar of the Corpus facility. The rest of the group followed, two of the other liches beside the floating platform (coincidentally behind the gaggle of humans) and Bop Vikk bringing up the rear, wary for any pursuit.

Her code was flying here and there, tasting every computer system around her as the group made its way towards a smaller Corpus ship that had landed. In size, it was similar to a Crewship, but that was the only similarity. Whereas the Grineer ships were bulbous, almost organic looking with their bulky armor that made up almost all of their aesthetics, the Corpus ship was pure lines. To her not so expert eyes, there was no thought given in Corpus architecture to form, it was all about function. The ship Edmund was leading them towards was not one of the Corpus' massive transports. Everyone had seen the massive, blocky things around the Solar system. With two large engine at the top and a huge rectangle of payload near below, they were immediately recognizable if not always welcomed. This ship, however, was not a one of the regular Corpus lifters. It was larger and instead of being vertical, the rectangle was laid out horizontally. With a lifting engine at each corner, the design was clearly for landing in places like this, but what did it carry?

"What kind of ship is this?" Juil asked as Edmund led the way up the ramp.

"This is a proxy carrier. The Corpus equivalent of a Grineer crewship." Edmund replied as he strode tot he inner hatch and hit something. Juil had her code in the systems and noted what he did for later perusal. "They cannot carry the resources to make them or do more than basic repairs aboard, but they can carry a lot of them into the fight. Vacuum or atmosphere, they can deploy."

"Interesting." Juil felt something odd from the ship systems, so was wary. The oddness faded, but her worry did not. "How many crew aboard?"

"Ten to twelve, usually." Edmund paused, looking at Juil. "What?"

"I am not sure." Juil admitted. "I have never dealt with this type of ship before, so I am not sure if this is normal or not. But I am not reading any human crew aboard."

"What?" Edmund asked, confusion rising. "Procedure is that there should be two techs and a couple of guards aboard at all times while the ship is docked." He stared at the lich and then blanched as all of the liches raised their weapons. "A trap?"

"Alad V would likely try to trap us, but he hadn't come back yet from wherever he fled." Juil said as her code flashed here and there. "It wouldn't do him any good against us, but you? Or the pods?" She nodded slightly as Edmund frowned.

"He will be waiting for notification that you have left before he comes back. I am sure he has multiple telltales set for such. He values his skin after all." The odd crewman replied, thinking hard. "You showed exactly how much chance regular Corpus have against you when you disabled every proxy so easily. The others are just added scary. No offense." He said to the other liches who ignored him. Juil just looked at him and he sighed. "I will go first, trip any traps." He started forward, but paused as Juil held up a hand. "What?"

"Wait." Juil sent her code through the ship and found thing at all that seemed out of the ordinary except the fact that it held no human life. No bodies. No residue of combat. Nothing. "No life aboard, but no signs of battle either. Would the troops have been called to our fight?" She asked carefully.

"No. That is not procedure. If they were here, they would have locked down." Edmund said instantly as all of the others looked from him to Juil. "I assumed the ship was closed down. We need to get out of here and your code can take control of this ship. Any proxies?" He inquired.

"Lots." Juil said absently as her code swept through the systems. "But they are all dormant. This doesn't make any-"

She broke off as the airlock at the top of the ramp opened without a command from either of them and something appeared in a flash of gold in the airlock. In form, it was a human, but the figure was odd. For one thing, it was flying, surrounded by golden energy and for another? Its left hand was glowing brightly golden. Not human or Tenno or Grineer. Her code swept around it and was rebuffed.

"There is no need to be rude, my dear. I mean you and yours no harm." The voice from the thing was calm. Cultured. Polite even! "The crew of the ship have been sequestered to facilitate your escape. None have been harmed. I respectfully suggest that you leave as quickly as possible since the Board Member who you tweaked is sending a fairly sizable reaction force including several large proxies."

"Who are you?" Juil demanded over the sights of her Karak. "Why are you here?"

"My name is Parvos Granum and this is not really me." The thing bowed to her in mid-air! "The Board have really messed thing up, haven't they, soldier?" That was to Edmund who had frozen. "I am not your enemy, Grineer. Nor yours, Company man."

"Parvos Granum." Edmund said very softly, his face pasty pale. "That is not possible."

"Nothing is impossible." The floating thing bowed to Edmund! "Improbable? Incredibly hard? Insane to contemplate? Yes. Impossible? No." He paused as one of the other liches snarled at him. "Temper."

"Are you here to help or hinder?" Juil demanded.

"Honestly? Neither. I am curious." The thing replied, focusing on Juil. "You have incredible power, but are not acting rashly with it. You are not acting like Grineer or anything I know of. You went out of your way to try and prevent violence from happening. Why?" He asked.

"You were watching?" If anything, Juil's tone turned frostier.

"I have eyes everywhere the Corpus go." The other replied. "They cannot hide from me. That said? I am not their enemy either unless they make me such. They probably will. They don't know any better now." He heaved a long suffering sigh. "As for you? I wanted to talk to you. Seeing through machines is all well and good, but even the best surveillance cannot match an actual conversation. The ship is empty except for proxies. The crew will wake in a disused storage compartment on this station in a few hours. Consider this ship a token of my esteem for one who thinks instead of blindly reacting."

The thing bowed to Juil again and vanished!

"Um…" Juil turned to Edmund and stilled as the awe on the other humans' faces registered to her. No, more than awe. Almost rapture. "Who was that? What was that?"

"I don't know." Edmund admitted, his own face worried. "But I do know the name. Parvos Granum was the Founder of the Corpus." Juil stilled and he nodded. "He died a very long time ago. Before Orokin fell. That cannot have been him."

"As he said, nothing is impossible." Juil lowered her rifle and frowned at the human. "I have died many times. I come back." All of the humans stared at her and she shook her head. "It never gets anything but unpleasant."

"That is… creepy." Edmund allowed and Juil snorted at his understatement.

"A mild way of putting it." Juil retorted as her code swept up into the still ship, finding nothing at all except deactivated proxies. "Whatever that was, it seems to have told the truth. All the proxies are deactivated."

"Okay." Edmund steeled himself and strode up the ramp. He passed the lich and stepped to a panel where he hit a series of commands into the console. Juil stared as the ship came alive but then paused in whatever she was going to say as he turned to her. "The ship is yours as a spoil of war. I know better than to try and steal from you." His grin was wide as the other liches all snorted in unison.

"You have dealt with Grineer and others before." Juil mused as the odd cavalcade started up the ramp after her. "What is it you wish, exactly?"

"What I wish, I cannot have." The sudden coolness in Edmund's voice had Juil tuning to look at him. The hate on his face was not directed at her. "The vengeance I wanted, I can never have. The one who I sought it from is dead by other hands. I am lost, but I am not directionless and I do know right from wrong still. You could have killed me. You should have killed me. You did not and I wish to aid you if I can. I am sure it will hurt the Company and right now? That is all I wish. To hurt them."

"Who?" Juil asked after a moment. "Who do you seek vengeance for?" She noted that the other Corpus gave Edmund wide berth. She understood and all of her peers would as well. Such rage was the hallmark of many Grineer.

"Her name was Maureen." Edmund gave himself a shake. "She was…abused by one of Alad V's subordinates." The pause before the word 'abused' said much. "She survived until she was taken by a Grineer raiding party and wound up in Rathuum. There she met the clone that I knew as Captain Peter and the rest as they say is history."

Edmund relaxed just a little and the liches did as well. None of the humans had noticed that all of the liches had been aiming at Edmund. None of them were stupid. He was the greatest threat among the humans at the moment. Edmund knew. She could see it in his eyes that he knew what he was now and feared it. A wise man.

"So you came here to kill that subordinate and die in the doing." Juil said softly as they entered the ship and the hatch sealed behind them. Her code had control and nothing seemed out of place but she was not about to relax. Something was off, but she had no idea what.

"Yeah." Edmund shrugged as he guided the floating platform to a side will where is latched into place. "He was already dead. Killed in a Tenno raid. I had no idea what to do after, so I just did what I do. Hid." He made a face as he looked at the small form that mimicked Alad V. "I had no idea about this."

"This is forbidden." One of the techs said as the other Corpus moved to stand by the platform. They still gave Edmund a wide berth. Even Grineer knew about how insane people acted. The Grustrag 3 were a good example of how to stay far away from such. "Cloning is forbidden to us. We have to report this."

"We will." Edmund reassured the woman who did not relax. "From what I have seen, these are unlikely to kill us unless we do something dumb. So don't, okay? I planned to die, but now? I have no idea what to do. I cannot lead you. I am lost. You are not."

"You are not lost to madness yet, human." Juil said as the other liches fanned out, leaving Bop Vikk to guard the group. "I thought I was lost when I started to flare uncontrollably, but Esther saved me. She taught me how to control my emotions." She smiled, just a little sadly as she looked at the pitiful remnants of the warframe. "That is not something that Grineer generally have to learn but I did. We did. I think we are the better for it."

"We are." Bop Vikk interjected and then shut up.

"There are how many of you?" Edmund inquired and froze as Juil's face hardened. "Never mind. That is none of my business. We need to leave." He paused as the ship's engines rumbled. "That was quick."

"That wasn't me!" Juil snapped as she darted for the hatch that led further into the ship. The other liches who had stayed materialized around her, minus Bop Vikk who would remain on guard. Edmund looked at the male lich who ignored him. Edmund sighed and then the human soldier followed the liches at a distance. Wise human.

The trio of liches slammed into what was clearly the bridge of the small ship and came to a sudden halt as the female form that stood at the controls nodded to them. All of them tensed as the fully armed Nova warframe did not react to the sudden appearance otherwise. The female human nodded to them as well. She seemed unarmed. She wore Corpus attire, but no helmet.

"Hello Juil." The woman said in a conversational tone. "Sorry for not calling ahead, but Alas V's reaction force is a minute out and if we want to vanish we need to do it now." She looked at Edmund and her face fell. "We all wondered where you had gotten to, Edmund. We should have known you would come here."

"Violet…" Edmund had stilled, almost painfully so. "I…"

"Sit down, Edmund. Now. And keep your hands in plain sight. Don't make me kill you." The woman ignored the liches, her eyes on the human soldiers who had paled so much that for a moment, Juil thought he would faint. "As soon as we are clear of the station and in the traffic streams, I will disarm you. If I have to drop you, I will. I would rather not."

"You…" Juil paused and then she sighed deeply. "You didn't have permission to come here, did you, human?"

"No, he didn't." The human female replied. "When one of ours goes rogue, a lot of people get nervous."

"I am not rogue, Violet!" Edmund snapped. He did not sit and his hands were painfully still. "They would have let that scum walk away! He had to be stopped!"

"By you? You of all people know that there are a lot of ways to take care of such problems, Edmund. You are going to make me do it, aren't you?" Violet was just sad now. "I am about to draw a pistol, Juil. I will not aim it at any of you. Please move away from him. I want no more collateral damage than he has already done."

"Do what you have to, Violet." Edmund said softly as his hand slowly dipped down to his belt. Juil and her fellows had searched him, so…. What? They did move away, weapons ready, but to aim at which?

"You need help, brother. I know where you are. That is why I am here." Violet all but pleaded. "You know how I felt about that scum who hurt Mikey and all those other kids! How I still feel! Killing him was the best way but of course, they had to be 'merciful' and the scum was 'Profitable', so he got away with his life, if not his memories. You know how much I wanted him dead. How much I still want him dead. Don't make me kill you!" She grated those words out as if in pain. The pistol she drew was odd. It was Corpus in design, but it seemed organic as well and it resonated peculiarly to Juil's sense. Sentient tech?

"Shoot me, Violet!" Edmund said sternly as his hand flashed to his belt and a Detron pistol simply appeared in it. Juil stared. Where had that come from? His hand was coming up to aim at the woman! "Shoot me, dammnit!"

"Just did." Violet said sadly as a silent puff came from her weapon. It wasn't aimed at Edmund! Something caromed off a wall nearby to slam into Edmund from behind. She took careful aim with his pistol as he gasped and a cloud of noxious looking gas enveloped his face.

"You…" Edmund stared at her and then smiled faintly as his Detron fell from nerveless fingers. "That is not a Grineer weapon." He said clearly as he fell to lie still.

"What?" Juil demanded as Violet shot him again and again! Each time, he jerked and gas spread around him. "What are you doing?'

"Don't move!" Violet snapped as Edmund jerked once, twice and then lay still. "His augmentation is running his body right now and if you try to access that, either his escape and evasion protocols activate or the self destructs will go off. Both are hardwired into his brain. Either one could kill you. I am not sure what he has for 'last resort boom', but I bet it was augmented by whatever Alad V did to him."

"What is going on?" Juil demanded tightly.

"Edmund vanished six months ago." Violet was quiet now. "We knew he was going after the scum who hurt Maureen, but he was one of our best and we could not track him. We could track the trail of bodies he left in his wake. Not all were combatants either. Said trail led here to Alad V's base and then it stopped." Juil stilled and Violet nodded. "No sign of him. No body. No nothing. We think Alad V captured him somehow. We have no idea how."

"Who is 'We'?" Juil demanded tightly.

"That would be us." Juil stilled anew as a hologram appeared beside the still working Tenno. The human woman wore a nun's habit. She knew the face from various Grineer records as well as another. Esther had told Juil about this woman. Warned Juil about not trusting her or underestimating her. "Hello Juil. I am the Reverend Mother of the Clergy and as I am sure you are aware, we have big problems."

"You don't say?"