Quick author notes:
The following a cross-over fan-fiction combining the Half-Life and Assassin's Creed story-lines. At the end of Assassin's Creed 2 there are hints that Earth is about to face a global disaster. This fan-fiction assumes that the Global Disaster the First Civilization are trying to warn us of is in fact the Black Mesa incident and subsequent Combine invasion. The story takes place in America and revolves around the American Resistance (as opposed to the City 17 Resistance in HL2).
Chapter One: Red Shift
He could hear the sound of the engine, of the wheels sliding, pumping furiously along the track. His eyes, cloaked in shadow, watched as the serpentine form made its way around the curve coming toward the tunnel. He was perched there in the upper part of the structure balanced perfectly on a precipice awaiting his prey. The horn of the train blasted in his ears.
"Did you hear that Shephard? It's right on me," the cloaked figure relayed into his ear piece.
"Good kid," the gruff voice of Colonel Adrian Shephard replied, "What we want is in the third to last car."
Julian smiled almost imperceptibly picking the perfect moment to leap from his perch landing in a roll atop the speeding train. He didn't even hesitate racing right for the third car from the end and throwing open the trap door. Julian dropped down, with his fingers gripping the hatch rim, to find the car was guarded by a lone Combine soldier. The skilled assassin swung his legs around the guard's neck and pulled the soldier toward him letting go of the rim as he did to free his hands and driving his hidden blade deep through the soldier's mask. Julian hit the car floor with a thud but was on his feet in seconds finishing the screaming soldier.
"Poor bastard didn't even get his gun up," Julian smirked inspecting the crates the car contained. As their intel had told them each crate contained dozens of explosive mines known as Hoppers.
"They were likely reading his vitals," Shephard warned over the com, "they'll know you're there."
A sudden hissing sound split Julian's ears. It seemed to be coming from the com-device. Then he saw it, each of the hoppers in one of the crates lit up in the center as though awakening from sleep. With a look of incredulity Julian leaped up from the train car watching the trees on each side of the tracks whiz by at lightning pace and knowing he didn't have much time. With spring-loaded legs he leapt from the car-top opening his arms to embrace the massive branchless pine in front of him. He felt the tree bending forward, his body and the entire forest shaken by the intense shockwave as the Hopper mines exploded behind him. He turned back toward the tracks to see that the last cars of the train had derailed and that the caboose was flying toward him. He jumped from tree to tree avoiding shrapnel and certain death as the caboose fell to Earth a hundred feet behind him and lay a smoldering heap. The train itself had stopped, likely an automated emergency feature, most Combine trains drove themselves.
"Kid, kid," Shephard's insistent voice startled Julian from his thoughts, "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay but our cargo, not so much."
"I figured."
"Oh shit," Julian's eyes went wide as he watched what was now wading through the trees toward him, "Shephard, I'm gonna have to call you back."
The spry assassin shimmied up the tree he was in to get a better look at what he was dealing with but doing so only confirmed his fears. A Strider. Tall lumbering bio-machines modeled after insects and fitted with some of the Combines most formidable firepower. Covered with leathery tan skin outside but with an exoskeleton of extraterrestrial steel the Strider was a tough opponent to bring down even with the proper weapons and a whole squad of soldiers. Julian was alone.
Rather than allow the initial wave of panic to overtake him the calm-minded warrior sank within himself for a moment to determine the best course of action. His concentration was broken by the insistent cries of Colonel Adrian Shephard his friend and CO.
"Kid! Julian! What the hell is going on?"
"Shephard, is there a chance the train was carrying something that could take down a Strider?"
"Our intel said the key items of value were the hoppers but," Shephard's voice droned off and Julian could make out the sound of the grizzled old soldier's fingers tapping fervently at the computer terminal. Julian sat motionless in the tree eyeing the Strider warily as the seemingly sightless synthetic creature lumbered its way down the hill and began wading into the trees.
"But what Shephard?" Julian whispered.
"Looks like you were right," Shephard replied, not a moment too soon, the Strider was only a few strides away, "Possible cart full of explosive rounds on that train, might be enough to bring down daddy-long legs. Car is eighth from the bottom eighth from the top, right smack dab in the middle."
Julian wasted no time. He swung his body forward out into the open air latching on to the next tree over. He made his way across the forest diagonally, away from the Strider but toward the train. He had to be careful though, one false move, one bad grip or splintered branch, could alert the Strider to his location. The assassin slipped from tree to tree effortlessly before finally reaching the tracks and scrambling toward the train. He could hear the thundering steps of the Strider close behind him. Suspecting he'd been spotted by the gargantuan beetle he raced for the train scrambling atop the train and opened the hatch falling inside. He replayed the run in his mind as the thunder of the Strider opening fire toward him resounded in the car. The plasma bolts fired by the Combine Strider's wasn't to be trifled with, continuous fire would likely melt the train car wall and leave him vulnerable. Already dents appeared in the side of the locomotive.
Julian slipped out of the car and into the next one up finding it full of crates of food. Combine food, the kind that kept their soldiers obedient and was in all likelihood manufactured out of the soldiers who weren't so obedient. The Strider had stopped firing for now but had resumed its thunderous charge, this time in the direction of the train. Julian once again recalled his rush toward the train realizing that the car with explosive rounds was likely the next one up. With a calming breath he stepped out of the car and opened the door to the next one stepping inside to find two Combine soldiers ready and waiting. Despite their heightened awareness the assassin was fast, impossibly fast, lifting his hidden blade and jabbing into the gut of the soldier half a dozen times before his foe could retaliate. The Combine soldier lifted his AR2 rifle and punched the butt out toward Julian in a sweeping melee attack but the wary assassin avoided the attack by falling to the ground backward and lifting his foot to crush the Combine stooge's crotch.
The Soldier yowled in agony before being met by a throwing knife to the throat and collapsing dead. The second soldier, however, had been watching from behind a set of crates he had set as cover. His AR2 Pulse Rifle fired one round, two rounds, three rounds, and then stopped. Flabbergasted at how quick the hand of the assassin was the remaining soldier gripped at the knife protruding painfully from his chest.
Julian had more pressing things to worry about, he couldn't even stop to consider whether the soldier would live or die. The Strider had received a signal and begun opening fire on the car. These guards too were hard-wired into the Combine surveillance system. Julian jumped toward the crates and unfastened the crowbar from its perch on his back. He was amazed at how often the object had come in handy since the arrival of the Combine. Inside he found the explosive AR2 rounds tipped with unstable plasma that would detonate on impact. He grabbed the Pulse Rifle from beside the still flailing soldier he'd wounded moments ago and loaded the explosive plasma-tipped pulse rounds into it.
Suddenly the assassin's eyes went shut and his senses seemed to soar as though tuning to something around him. He knew the sound almost immediately. The Strider was charging its pulse cannon. The plasma bolts were bad enough but when a Strider wanted to create magnificent desolation it could just charge its pulse cannon and often level buildings with one shot Julian jumped up and out of the train car's hatch racing down the hill and away from the tracks as an incandescent and blinding flash split the air around him. He felt the shockwave send him forward and heard the crackling of the air as the remaining energy from the pulse cannon discharged. He'd come out of it okay, having been far enough away from the epicenter to avoid serious injury, though certainly flying head first into the trunk of a tree would leave its share of bruises. He couldn't dwell on possible injury now; the Strider was getting closer, likely inspecting the damage done by its cannon.
The assassin went over his options in his mind. He could probably make a run for it, escape the Strider and head back to base on foot or wait for the tripod to move off and then head back toward the bridge where he'd left his jeep. The other option was to kill the Strider. He hid in the woods for a few moments eventually deciding that undue heroics would more likely get him killed than win him the day. It was a lesson hard-learned for some. Julian's Mother, Lucy, was killed during the first phases of the Combine assault because she refused to bide her time. Her heroics and brazen courage were also her undoing.
Julian's quick feet moved him away from the Strider and toward the open wilderness ahead. Here it would be easy to hide from any Combine sweep teams sent to investigate the derailed train. A smile appeared for but a moment on the sprinting assassin's face as he watched the sun setting. Night was coming. Time of the assassin.
"Shephard," Julian whispered into his com a few hours later, "you there old man?"
"I'm here kid. You need to check back in more often," Shephard scolded masking his own relief, "You had us worried for a while there you know."
"I decided not to go after the Strider," Julian explained, "I broke line of sight and ran like hell."
Julian was seated in a broken down old log cabin, all around him the sounds of the forest resounded. The cabin had no ceiling leaving the stars peaking down at the assassin through the branches of the trees. Cicadas sang and the wind howled mournfully as it meandered through the woods. Already there was a chill in the air as autumn approached. Julian breathed deep and put his feet up on a rickety wooden table sitting in the center of the run down cabin.
"You're father's here," Shephard replied.
"Glad to hear he made it safely."
"Yeah, well I'm guessing he's going to have a few choice words about you going it alone again."
"Assassins are meant to work alone," Julian snapped, though the anger left his voice immediately when he remembered it was Shephard he spoke to, not his Father; not Desmond Miles. The anger in his almost eyes eased away.
"Maybe that's how it used to work kid," Shephard said, "but the lone warrior thing can't last forever. In this war we can't afford to be alone. All we have left is brotherhood, is the bond of our humanity, the Combine have taken everything else."
"Spare me the sentimentality Shephard," Julian sighed.
"Where are you?"
"Well let's see," Julian replied removing a map from a small pack he always carried and flattening it out on the table, "the map calls this area the Juno Forest. That makes the closest Resistance base to me Black Mesa, up in the mountains."
"That's Yakamoto's place isn't it?" Shephard asked recalling the equally gruff General Yakamoto, "Tough Japanese bastard. I imagine this means you won't be getting your jeep back or coming back here."
"Tell Dad not to wait up," Julian replied breaking the communication.
The assassin let the sounds of the forest envelop him. His tired eyes slowly drifting shut and sleep finally taking his fatigued body. Three hours later, before the light of predawn could fill the sky, Julian woke and prepared to move out. He surveyed the area before moving from cover to make sure no Combine or hostile of any kind had penetrated this deep in search of him. He pulled an energy bar wrapped in plastic from his pack biting into the bitter tasting bar and mustering all of his discipline to swallow it down. They were unbelievably disgusting but for energy there was nothing better and it certainly beat stomaching Combine brand Soylent Green.
Before the dawn sun had even appeared on the horizon the assassin moved out using a compass to make his way toward the distant base at the top of Black Mesa. In truth he doubted that was the location's actual name, so much of human memory had been lost to the Combine, so few of the species remained. The absence of advanced medicine and the tyranny of the Combine had cut the human lifespan in half and the Suppression Field that kept all mankind from breeding meant there were no children to teach. The youngest humans were, like Julian, in their early twenties. The Kelvin Mountains were in what used to be the American state of Oklahoma, at least as far as Julian knew that's where he was. For a child who'd grown up in the aftermath of the Seven Hour War Julian knew far more about killing than he did about geography. Still for an assassin knowing the terrain was important and General Yakamoto has chosen his land perfectly. Julian had been to the Black Mesa base as a teenager and he remembered the steep sloping walls leading up the mesa and the foreboding bunkers and buildings that Yakamoto had set up to keep the Combine out.
His feet ached as day turned to night and night back into day again. Still the stoic assassin had more miles to cover and he could not afford to slow even for a moment's rest. Night came again and he pressed on knowing that the base was only about fifteen miles away now and that he was on the threshold of completing the arduous journey. In the mid-afternoon of the third day the assassin finally gave in to his fatigue finding a safe place to rest in the hollowed trunk of a massive tree. Though he would have preferred to continue on, to stave off sleep until arriving at Black Mesa, his fatigue was weighing on him too greatly. Sleep deprivation was impeding his senses and if he could not assess danger or think clearly out here in the wilderness he was as good as dead. Six hours rest restored his body and within moments he was on the move again using the light of the moon to plot the path of his feet with the compass and map still guiding his direction.
As the sun at last rose on the fourth day Julian could see the mesa and make out the buildings atop the ridge. He was even more on guard now knowing that Yakamoto was no fool, the perimeter was no doubt laced with sensors and mines and possibly even sentry guns that targeted movement. The stealthy assassin moved from shadow to shadow, his footsteps so faint they could not even break the leaves he tread on let alone set off any landmines buried beneath the soil. To any who might have been in the forest he would have appeared as a blur passing through shadows cast by the leaves and branches of the trees or as a breeze dissipating almost before you could feel it.
Finally the young assassin reached the concealed path. A small trail that he knew would lead him to the front gate of the complex. Already he could see the guards coming toward him approaching with weapons drawn. He stood still then holding his arms away from him after pulling his cloak from his head and revealing his identity. The first guard, a gruff man in his mid-forties, did not recognize the assassin immediately but the other, a bit younger but with an already balding head, lowered his weapon.
"Julian?" The guard asked in his Italian accent approaching and shaking the assassin's hand, "it's been more than three years. I see you had that last minute growth spurt!"
"Giovanni," the assassin replied with a smile, "and who is your jumpy friend?"
"This is Theodore. Theodore this is Julian Miles," the assassin abstained from moving toward the guard afraid the clearly on edge man would take it as a threat, instead he just nodded, "You'll have to excuse Teddy, he's new to the guard, used to be the cook actually. So what you brings you here?"
"I was pulling a train job on a Combine supply rail about forty miles from here. Combine bastards were wise to it. They had a Strider trailing the train."
"You are lucky to be in one piece then," Giovanni replied slapping Julian on the shoulder, "what happened to the rest of your men?"
"Actually I was alone on this one," Julian said as Giovanni led him up the path to an elevator embedded in the side of the mesa.
"You tried to pull off a train robbery alone?" Theodore asked, his face openly expressing his incredulity.
"I am an assassin. Besides, other people tend to slow me down and end up getting themselves killed," Julian explained wiping off his hidden blade, still caked with old Combine blood, on a small scrap of cloth, "When its just me I can be responsible for only my own life. How's General Yakamoto these days?"
"Not so good to be honest," Giovanni replied as the elevator reached its destination and the three of them stepped out into the underground tunnel beneath the mesa where most of the activity occurred, "he's only sixty but already he's has his share of health problems. We're not getting any younger Julian, if we don't get the Suppression Field down soon we're all going to be too old to save the species."
"We better get on that then," Julian said noting the beauty of one of a female Resistance fighter, "because rebuilding the species sounds like a lot of fun."
Shephard paced to and fro in the com-room. It'd been several days since he'd received the last transmission from Julian. Shephard had tried not to worry. He knew Julian was a competent and intelligent boy, at least as far as survival was concerned. Assassins were masters of survival, their bodies honed to eat less and sleep less, their minds sharpened to make travel less tiring.
Something else was bothering him though. It had started the night before, flashes of memory he thought he had put from his mind, brought back to life. The vibrant resurrection catalyzed by two words from the lips of Julian Miles. Black. Mesa. Adrian Shephard knew that the Black Mesa Yakamoto had set up was far away from the New Mexico military base where all of this madness had begun but still those words spawned nightmares. On that fateful day so few of his fellow marines made it out of that cursed facility alive Shephard glanced over to a Vortigaunt friend of his. These brown-skinned bipedal aliens bore little resemblance to man, made further different by their singular massive eye. Their chief ability was creating an electric charge. It was part of their biology. The atmosphere in which they had evolved was filled with excess electrical energy created by the light of their sun. They had adapted to utilize this energy both subtly to revitalize and more directly as a weapon and defense mechanism. Shephard knew this all too well; back in Black Mesa he had encountered hostile Vortigaunts from Xen. After the Combine's arrival and the formation of the Resistance many of the Vorts, as they were often referred to, had defected and joined the cause of humanity. Even Shephard, who'd spent hellish hours combating them, had learned to respect their culture and understand the role they played in combating the Combine.
The steel door nearby moaned as it opened shaking Shephard from his reflections to see Desmond Miles standing before him. Desmond was in his mid-fifties. His hair was already gray and his face was covered with a beard that made his impatient expression seem all the more stern.
"Hasn't that damn kid checked in yet?" Desmond asked storming over to a computer console to check over the last incoming transmissions.
"No word yet sir," Shephard replied.
"We can't have him doing this anymore Shephard," Desmond explained, the anger in his voice changing to concern for his son, "if he'd taken a squad with him he'd be here already with six crates full of hopper mines."
"In these dark times shouldn't we be glad he survived at all?" Shephard asked though there was sincerity lacking in his voice.
"You don't have to defend him," Desmond said patting his friend on the shoulder, "You know as well as I do that what he does is fool-hardy. He puts the Creed above all else, he doesn't want to endanger any innocents and so he goes out alone."
"He will be okay," Shephard assured him, "he always is."
Julian rarely felt fear and when he did he often pushed it to the very back of his cavernous mind but as he walked down the hall toward the General's room his fear was not subsiding. He'd never met a General before, aside from his own Father and Yakamoto had a reputation of being ruthless and tough. Still Giovanni had assured him that the General was in too weak a condition to strike him down if he slipped up and did not show the proper respect. He pushed open the door and found the General inside working at a terminal. The battle-hardened but now aged General turned to face the young assassin. Julian noted the scars upon the General's face were many and that one of his arms was missing. Even with the limits of Resistance technology a suitable replacement limb could have been found or manufactured. Julian understood that the General was too proud for such a thing.
The two studied each other for a long time. In many ways they were they were opposite. Julian's eyes were a shimmering almond color, every step he took was light and his face was young and vibrant. The General's eyes were dark, his boot steps were heavy against the concrete floor and his face was wrinkled and scarred. Buried beneath Yakamoto's expression was the pain of the situation, of seeing the world prosper and then fall from Grace. A man who had lived to see a time when nearly seven billion men, women and children had walked the Earth but now there were no children and the last estimates of population put the human race far below one billion and aging far too rapidly.
"You are the assassin's son?" Yakamoto spoke at last, his breathing was labored and he wheezed with each word.
"I am," Julian said with a bow. The tension still hung between them brought on primarily by Yakamoto's intimidating demeanor. Even in failing health the man carried an aura of strength.
"My men have told me your situation and your story. What do you want of me?"
"A vehicle of some-kind, to get back to Clear Water Base," Julian began, "and ample supplies to survive the trip."
"You were trying to get hopper mines, why?" Yakamoto inquired, Julian thought it odd the man had changed the subject.
"Our perimeter defenses," Julian explained, "we use Hoppers to keep the Combine out. During the winter an attack came, the hoppers did their thing but now we're running short of them."
"There is a communications station not far from here," Yakamoto began, "The Combine have been using it to jam and intercept our com-transmissions. They cannot be allowed this advantage. We need com-devices to organize a direct assault on the station."
"So you'd rather go for something less than direct?" Julian replied nodded his understanding.
"If you get in and disable the station's capabilities I will spare twice the number of hopper mines the train debacle deprived you of and send you back to Clear Water with a squad of my best men."
"If I refuse-"
"You'll be walking to Clear Water."
"When do I leave?" Julian asked, shrugging in defeat.
"Yuki, my assistant, will brief you. You will leave tomorrow, before dawn."
"Yes sir," Julian stood at attention and saluted though he worried the overzealous nature of his salute might give the General the false impression that he was being sarcastic. In truth he had great respect for the man but as he shut the door behind him he wondered how on Earth he ever got himself into these types of situations. Giovanni led him deeper into the mesa complex to a room where an Asian woman stood with three Vortigaunts on either side of her examining a map.
"Well here we are," Giovanni said with a sweeping motion as if presenting the room to a possible buyer, "That's Yuki."
"Hello there," Julian said as charmingly as he possibly could.
"Have a seat Mister Miles," she replied coldly without even looking up from the map, "we don't have all day."
"How does she know your name already" Giovanni asked.
"Yakamoto's been planning this little misadventure since he heard of my arrival," Julian guessed and Yuki's expression as she finally looked up at him told him he was right.
"General Yakamoto has need of your particular skills assassin," Yuki admitted, "No need to waste talent while it can be found. That will be all Giovanni, thank you."
"So, Yuki, do you have a first name?" Julian asked.
"Yuki is my first name Mister Miles, but you can call me Major. Now if you don't mind we can skip right to the important business and past your pathetic attempts at flirtation."
"Fair enough," Julian agreed.
"You're target is here," Yuki dictated pointing to a place on the map about seventeen miles from the base, "It is defended by Combine Overwatch soldiers, at least a hundred of them. We know that the troops guarding the place get rotated out every month or so via gunships, tomorrow will be the last night of the current shift if our intel is correct. Believe it or not Mister Miles you will not be going it alone, we have a man inside, disguised as a Combine soldier, his name is Jerrod Young. He will be responsible for temporarily disabling the turret defenses of the perimeter."
"Why doesn't Jerrod disable the jamming device?" Julian asked.
"He is not permitted to access that area of the station," Yuki responded, though the tone of her voice instilled doubt in Julian about her honesty. Her words could lie but her body could not.
"And what should happen if he fails to shut off the turret?" Julian asked with a smirk.
"For that we have a special solution," one of the Vortigaunts growled.
"Come forth the Julian Miles and we will show you," another of the Vorts said gesturing for Julian to follow them.
They traveled down the corridor until they reached the room at the end of the hall. The Vorts knocked at the door, the giant red eye of another Vortigaunt appearing in a slit about half-way down the steel surface of the door. The metal portal opened and in they stepped.
"Here it is," one of the Vorts said gesturing to some kind of body armor stored behind glass, "the armor of all men who seek to be free of death."
"The HEV suit," another vortigaunt explained, "it will help you tread into dangerous environments."
Julian pressed a hand to the glass and regarded the suit. Its orange and black coloration would hardly be ideal for stealth, although while clad in his own white-gray assassin robe he did already stand out. The armor almost looked ancient, despite being behind glass, as though he was staring at a relic of an age long past, of a war fought long ago. The Vorts opened the armor storage unit and allowed him to handle the HEV suit. To his relief it wasn't too heavy and he hoped that the material allowed enough freedom of movement to be his same spry self when it came time to battling the Combine. Despite being well-armored and trained in the way of the assassin Julian still felt as though something wasn't being told to him. Yuki's earlier deception about having a man disguised as a Combine soldier had left him on edge. Most Combine Overwatch had been robbed of their freewill and been the victims of cruel experiments carried out by the Combine. Julian could scarcely believe that someone had not only endured the mental manipulation of becoming a Combine soldier but that they had retained enough of their freewill to strike out against the Combine in such a way.
Julian made his way to a room that had been cleared for him in the lower portions of the dormitory complex. The Black Mesa Base was indeed a marvel of engineering. Julian had heard stories about its construction taking more than twelve years. The concrete bunkers above were generally absent of all but the base sentinels and sentries but they were built up to present a false façade and draw the Combine's attention away from the tunnels. In truth there were only three elevators that even led to the surface bunkers atop the mesa and those were rigged to explode in the event of a full on Combine assault.
The assassin entered the drab concrete room and lay in the bunk they'd provided. For most sleeping in the cramped uncomfortable concrete bunk would have proved problematic but for one so young that he could not recall what it was like sleeping in a real bed it was easy.