I am Carradine Sphorin, from Cydonia. I am a member of Steel Meridian. I’m just like any other colonist; genetically optimized for the Martian cities, light cybernetic augmentation to do my job better - foreman of a Imperial weapons factory. Or I was. Before I heard the call to fight. Before my chemical leash to the genetic stabilizers was cut. Before I saw the Tenno.



That’s what I’m here to tell you about. The Tenno. You know why I fight, or I wouldn’t be in this cell. You know I stole the blueprints for the Twin Grakata and bombed the factory. But you don’t know about the Tenno. You’re alive to interrogate me, after all.

Last time I was captured… I was held at Tharsis Rise. Beaten, weak, locked in a tiny cell. Waiting to die. I think, then, I might’ve broken. Told you everything. Sitting in that cell trying to override the protections on my implanted drive, wipe all the memory I could… Honestly, anything you could do after I purged my own memories would be nothing. Like taking a sliver of glass to amputate some deep part of myself.

There was no drama, not then. The door opened and I jerked my senses outward, autonomic responses throwing me into the corner. Fear. It saved me, but I fear it, and all its kind.

Silent. Regal. Eyeless. And the teeth! Wreathed in smoke, armed only with a sword, as near as I could tell.

It didn’t say a word, just threw a pistol down at my feet - a beautiful thing. Bright in gold and ivory, craftsmanship you’ll never match. I couldn’t match. By the time I looked up it was gone, and two of my brethren had found me.

“Take the gun,” said one. “He’ll want it back.”

“He?”

“We think. The Tenno,” said the other as she hauled me to my feet. The gun felt warm in my hand, lighter than I expected.

“We have to hurry. He wasn’t here for you, or us. This place’ll be a tomb before long.”

So we ran. I saw the Tenno only twice, but his handiwork was everywhere. The first time was him sprinting along a wall in absolute silence, around a corner, out of sight. The corridor between us and that corner was strewn with bodies. Grineer Marines, a dozen of them, dead. Without a sound. I stopped to look at one, and I could hardly see the damage - one clean stab, right through every vital organ and subsystem.

We found more, as we went ahead, following the sound of gunfire. I saw it again, armed with a… I couldn’t identify it, an arch of material that launched long projectiles, nailing Grineer to walls and floor, punching through armour like it was cloth. He soared through the air, killed three in a single shot, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

I lost the left arm on the way out - we were caught by a Marine with a Miter, and he was wounded but… well, you do put up a fight. I dropped the pistol, but I’m told our terrible benefactor got it back.

We saw his ship leaving as we arrived at the extraction point. Such a tiny thing, by comparison. One of my comrades said we were safe from anti-ship defences because another Tenno had hit the targeting satellite at the same time. I wasn’t listening; adrenaline out, pain in.

So no. They don’t work for us. We can work with them, though. Why else would I have spent all this time talking like I expected to get away? He’s right standing behind you.