Ruby River shouldn’t be here. She didn’t need the archeological team’s procedure to tell her she didn’t belong down here; she didn’t need orders from the princess’s official commission. Ruby knew she was doing something stupid, yet here she was.

Her saddlebags were heavy with tools, tools the earth pony team upstairs hadn’t even bothered to bring with them during the last few days of excavation. Why should they bother, when their strength alone could open any barrier they found? But breaking through natural caverns and rockfalls isn’t destroying our ancient history.

If Ruby didn’t do something, Director Deep Silver would send the excavation crew in with sunrise, and they’d trample over who knew how many years of pre-Equestrian artifacts. Once a relic was destroyed, any information it might’ve shared about their history would be dead with it.

Was that your intention from the beginning, Celestia? Is that why you sent such a callus team to do this investigation?

Ruby had to crouch low as she passed through a tunnel in the rock, cut by the excavation team only yesterday. She moved slowly, using the light of her horn to prevent another painful bump. Whatever waited inside, Ruby needed all her faculties.

Then she emerged on the other side of the limestone tunnel and got her first clear view of the structure.

For something so old it had fused with the rock below Manehattan, Ruby expected primitive. Yes, the Crystal Empire school of equine development saw later societies as having degenerated from an ancient, more sophisticated form. But Ruby had spent her life surrounded by relics of Unicornia and Pegasopolis. She knew what to expect.

She’d been wrong.

The structure was thin and lean, with golden metal beams swirling in elegant curves. White panels swept between them, apparently each one a piece of smooth steel uncankered with rust. They reflected the blue light of her horn, as though this edifice hadn’t been buried here for uncountable years.

You should’ve been here, Lyra. Enjoy your boring tenure, I’ll be down here preserving history.

Ruby approached the ruin with deliberate steps—just because the cavern seemed solid didn’t mean it wasn’t as ancient as the structure itself. With each step she took, the thaumic field grew stronger. This was what had caused the expedition in the first place. A persistent, magical call for help, pulsing through the rock.

She could see an entrance, tilted slightly sideways. Some part of her wondered about that—what could the ancients have used to build their homes, that they could be rotated by geologic time and remain intact? If this doesn’t work out, I’ll have a few months to think it over while I’m flipping hayburgers.

Alternatively, she might be about to succeed. Maybe she would be the one to preserve priceless pieces of Equestrian history, which Deep Silver’s callus insistence on efficiency would’ve allowed to be destroyed.

She stopped beside the door, testing it with a hoof. A thick mineral crust had solidified on the metal. Either that, or the seal was so perfect she couldn’t find any sign of what was supposed to open it.

Yet… no, she had to be imagining it. Was something scraping along the inside? A persistent clawing, like an ancient machine tilted off its axis and grinding itself away. We don’t have much time. Maybe this is what called out in the first place.

Ruby might be about to rewrite the history books, assuming she could get in before the rest of the team did. She levitated a mallet and chisel from her satchel, settling them against the rock edge of the door.

Nice and easy. Let’s see what you’re hiding.

The corridors of the Maeldune hosted a sorry orchestra the day the Sentients finally came for Origin.

Her boots slid as she rounded a hallway towards the bridge, past an overflowing mound of shattered battalysts, slipping in the eerily red lubricant they used.

“Enemy weapons lock detected,” Cy called, his voice echoing over a distant electrical fire and the hiss of a hull breach. “Energy signature unknown.”

Tick tock, Tenno.

“I know!” She slowed, eyes widening as she saw another of the reddish metal abominations in the doorway. It faced away from her, blasting into the starboard gunnery bay.

A figure was held in the air there, suspended by the railjack’s gravitational turret. Outside, Sentient fighters went up in flashes of void-light, splashing against the shield. The one shooting didn’t seem to care as his massive body was half-melted by shots.

Catlin hesitated for one second more, then leveled her amp and fired. Light connected, and a moment later the damaged battalysts exploded into disconnected pieces. She shielded her face from the blast, though her armored jumpsuit was already bloody.

The floor shuddered under them as lasers sprayed against the Maeldune. The shield flashed one last time, then the exterior darkened as the armor charred and flaked away.

The gun made an angry beeping noise, ejecting the Warframe operating it.

Aldric couldn’t stand as she hurried over to him, even the heavily armored Rhino dropping right where he stood. Bloody oil leaked from within, and the eyeless head tilted up toward her. Not very far—this thing was massive compared to her.

“Your… Excalibur down too?” he asked. Apparently the vocal projectors still connected to her oplink, even if the biomechanical armor was too damaged to keep moving. “Damn.”

“No, he’s defending the Reliquary. Half the boarding party is in there.”

“Still… disturbing as hell…” he croaked, flopping to one side. He caught himself with his arm, drawing his kitgun. Before she could ask what he was doing, he’d fired over her shoulder, straight into another battalyst. “How about you… stay alive, Cat? I got this.”

He clearly didn’t, but he was right. Aldric would just be out hardware if the Maeldune was lost.

She dropped into a low run, through a melted airlock into the bridge.

If she was hoping to find it in better shape than the rest of the Maeldune, Catlin was disappointed. Half the access panels were open, many violently. Laurel crouched low near the artillery, her omni tool steaming as she sealed—something. The technical details had always been lost on Catlin.

More importantly, there was no one at the helm. The Maeldune drifted through space, through a sea of explosions and artillery fire.

Less than five kilometers away was the Sentient capital ship, a monstrosity larger than an Orokin tower. It bore some resemblance to that original stock, though where any human structure would be orderly the Sentients were creatures of pragmatism. It didn’t even pretend to aerodynamics, with protrusions like skeletal limbs reaching towards them.

Them and a cloud of debris. The other Coalition ships, though she mercifully could see no pieces of other railjacks.

Knock knock.

“Where is Tiriaq?” she asked, resting one hand on the controls. She would take them if she had to, but she wasn’t half the pilot by comparison.

Laurel’s frame lifted a delicate hand, pointing out the observation window. “Slingshot, right onto that thing. I think he wanted to stop it from firing.”

“I am no longer receiving his signal,” Cy supplied. “Captain, we must abort. Structural integrity is at thirty percent and falling. Multiple sentients aboard. We can’t stop this.”

He was right, of course, Catlin had already lost one frame in this battle, and from what she could feel she might be about to lose another.

The Sentient starship opened its maw wider and wider, interlocking limbs unfurling like a fern feeling the first touch of rain. Light roiled in those jaws of a weapon that would probably atomize the Maeldune in a single shot.

Instead of taking navigation, Catlin leapt into the pilot’s brace. It grabbed her, wrapping around her torso and arms and moving her into the window. Even without a frame, the Maeldune responded like it was an extension of her body, its damaged engines surging forward at her lightest touch or banking sharply to another side when she wished it.

“We can’t run,” Catlin said flatly. “If we don’t destroy that thing here, there’s nothing to stop it from tearing through the solar system one planet at a time.”

Tactical readouts appeared on the glass in front of her, grim reading indeed. The coalition—a loose alliance of anyone from Origin who was willing to listen—was in utter disarray. That was probably the only reason they hadn’t been killed yet—the Sentients cared far more about the half-dozen Fomorians behind them, or the fleet of Corpus Asset Protection interceptors.

All the Origin system had united for a brief, desperate truce, just long enough to stop themselves from getting slaughtered—and it wasn’t enough.

What few Tenno ships she could spot in the maelstrom were under just as much fire by their erstwhile allies as the Sentients themselves.

We’re supposed to be the brave flagship? This stops the Old War from becoming new?

“What are you thinking?” Laurel snapped, her voice sharp and indignant. “Cat, I know you don’t want to lose the Maeldune. Your friends don’t want to lose you.”

The drive will detonate. Get close enough, and that ship goes up with it. You’re nothing without me.

She leaned sharply forward, engaging what little juice was left in the gravitational capacitors. The boost barely lasted for a second, and was just enough to get them around a massive hunk of molten Grineer debris.

“If that thing rampages through Origin, everyone loses everyone,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Cy, radio the retreat. Maybe some of them can get far enough away.”

“Message sent,” he responded, faster than Laurel could keep arguing. “Inquiry: what does the captain intend? Forward artillery has already proven ineffective against that vessel’s shields. An impact at ramming speed would not be advisable with human crew aboard.”

“We won’t make it that far,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Cy.”

A hail of energy rained in through the ruined airlock, showering the bulkhead nearby. Laurel took to the air in a moment, buzzing away to engage the advancing sentients with a swarm of razerflies.

Catlin listened to the comforting sound of Laurel’s pistols until they went silent in a little explosion, followed by a hiss from another hull breach.

It didn’t matter, she was almost there. Catlin kept her hands firmly on the controls, then vanished—making the helm and all its hardware phase one-step into the Void. Its alien energy roiled in her, calling to her—and hiding her from the eyes of the Sentients that came buzzing into the bridge.

They circled right past her, perhaps assuming that the Warframe they’d just destroyed was the pilot. She didn’t look away.

She could hear Cy’s voice even now, echoing through her oplink. “Exfiltration is no longer possible,” he said, as the capital ship loomed large ahead of them. “I will be destroyed.”

“Me too,” she answered, though she wasn’t sure the AI would be able to hear her. The Sentients seemed to, and they blasted the air all around her with more shredding lasers. But the helm viewfinder was tougher than just a few hits, and its surface only briefly melted. “For the Tenno.”

“I hope this accomplishes my purpose,” Cy said. “If the invasion ends here, I can be… content.”

Red light glowed ahead of the Maeldune, so bright every star had faded. Catlin couldn’t hear the distant radio chatter of the fleet, couldn’t hear the hissing of atmosphere as the rest of her life-giving oxygen trickled out into the void. Couldn’t even hear the alien screams of battalysts as they slashed at the air in vain, desperate to kill her.

Knock knock, Tenno. Time to borrow.

Her eyes saw the flash, even cowering in the void. Catlin’s senses were momentarily overwhelmed as it struck the Maeldune, shredding it like the lens might a Corpus crewman. In a fraction of a second it reached the reliquary drive, and two unfathomable energies collided.

Catlin was torn screaming into the abyss.

Next Chapter: Chapter 1: Ruby Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 12 Minutes