Ontarom, damn hot planet... There were four of us sent here as an infiltration unit. The communications hub had been overrun by geth, and our team objective seemed simple enough. Get inside the installation, deal with the enemy, and search for survivors, all with minimal casualties on our part. I didn't plan on losing anyone, not even that damn egghead engineer sent here with us. He was some ex-mercenary from the Blue Suns, dismissed from the Alliance a couple of years back for his own stupidity while on shore leave. Apparently, he was impressive during his last assignment and the Alliance decided to give him a second chance. He was a waste of space, if you ask me. Damn coward, I've seen it in his eyes. The rest of my unit was top notch. Corporal Eve, a brilliant demolisher and one hell of a woman. She was absolutely mad with her grenades and we needed a lot of supplies to survive this mission with only four people here. I was one of two snipers and the commander of this unit, Gunnery Chief Montgomery. The other infiltrator with us was Corporal Mayson; she was as deadly with a Widow sniper rifle as I was. The Egghead was Private 2nd Class Deckard.
HQ had been silent for the last three hours and the weather wasn't going to be very friendly. It was barely after dawn and the temperature crawled slowly to reach forty degrees centigrade, even in the shade. Environmental suits were giving us some protection, but still I could feel the warmth of the world outside the suit. The communications hub was about four miles away from our position, so we didn't have to look for sentry drones yet. Synthetics were very predictable, almost always using the same tactics to set up their perimeter. That egghead engineer was offering me some scans of the area with exact positions of the geth forces. I preferred old school enhanced binoculars to spot them with my own eyes. I had already noticed several groups of enemy inside the base, lurking around. Not many patrols; geth relied on drones to protect their borders. Suddenly Egghead picked up a transmission from HQ with our new orders. Initial sweep for survivors was now a secondary objective. The whole hub was transmitting reaper signals to the surrounding system. Our priority was to disable those communications, retreat and await an air strike. Easy enough, my Spectre-grade Black Widow rifle was ready for anything.
There was a four mile walk before us, across open plain, not much viable cover to protect us. We had been provided with some tactical cloaks but our engineer decided he would try to jam the geth proximity sensors to get us through their line of drones. It was time to move out, at last. I was bored of waiting. We marched west towards the installation, keeping ourselves low and cloaked at all times, with Ontarom's sun on our backs to provide additional cover. The heat waves shimmering above the planet's soil concealed the flickering of our cloaks. We should pass undetected.
At the two mile mark from the hub, Egghead detected geth drones in front of us, just as I expected. Now it was time for him to prove his worth and work that tech-magic of his. It took him a few minutes to provide additional radar jamming in about four meters around him. Now we kept ourselves very close to each other. We maintained radio silence for the rest of the march and I ordered engineer to keep his gizmo on while we were inside the base. Poor bastard had a hard time under my command, but I had no time for useless soldiers in my unit. He had to adapt to whatever was in front of us and whatever our orders would be.
The difficult part of our assignment was just starting. We needed to find a good vantage point within the base, close enough for Egghead to hack through the geth security and disable the reaper transmitters, and easy for us to defend. We all knew that once you popped the first geth, all of them would turn to the last known location of the dead unit. It had something to do with their consensus or something like that. Egghead was here to know the technical stuff. My fellow sniper, the demolisher and I would do the killing.
We approached the base undetected and got inside without any problems. It seemed that the synthetics didn't expect company, and so they hadn't secured the entrances to the facility. The engineer scanned the surrounding areas to compare to his map of the base's layout. I looked at the map and decided with him that we needed to get through to the control room on the second level, where he could hack the main computer and disable the power to the reaper device installed there. He had to try and disable the jamming tower set up on top of the building as well. The Alliance had been blind since the geth arrived here. No orbital scans could pierce the jamming frequencies, so nobody could see what was inside the facility. We were the first ones to see the interior of this place.
It was time to move out. I had prepared myself and my people for the shit storm that would rain down on us once we opened fire. Turned the first corner. No enemies in a ten meter radius, according to Egghead's omni-tool. Egghead was breathing heavily already, clutching his SMG with one hand and glancing at his display every now and again.
'Get a grip, Private! There will be time for sweating later on. I need you to focus now,' I snapped at him involuntarily. He just looked at me, straightened up and moved along with rest of us. Mayson gave me a disappointed look. I had a feeling that she actually liked Egghead. We moved ahead, sneaking slowly through corridors that Deckard pointed out to us. After a while, the first red dots appeared on his omni-tool display. He was pointing at the next room.
'I think that the geth are attached to their portable hubs.' We looked at him, puzzled.
'I mean that the synthetics are dormant now, but there are still motion sensors around.' He looked at his omni-tool again, adjusted something on the display. 'I can't detect any sensors, so I don't know when the geth will activate again.'
'Well, you're not helping us too much. We will have to go inside and have a look then.' I tried to keep my voice as low as possible. I pointed at Mayson to take the left side of the door in front of us and to Eve to go to the right. I took point. I opened the door and stepped inside. There was no movement around me. Egghead followed me in, ran some scans and deployed his drone. The moment Deckard deployed his little pet was like a signal for the geth. On three portable hubs, there were nine geth troopers and three hunters. All of them came alive in seconds.
'Shit, shit, shit! Take cover!' I shouted at my unit.
Eve jumped behind the first desk she saw and pulled her arc grenades out. The first flew towards the closest group before we even found cover. Mayson's shields were gone with the collateral damage from the EMP. The blast stunned the active geth but she was still the most vulnerable target. Surprisingly, Deckard found his cool and dragged her away behind the demolisher's desk. I was on the other side of the room, behind some lockers that I had managed to throw on the floor. Egghead blasted the two troopers nearest to me with overload, stunning them long enough for me to take them down with my pistol.
'Get out of here, right now! I will follow you and give you some covering fire!' I was determined to at least get them out of here alive.
Two more arc grenades landed on moving geth and four more went down. Suddenly more hubs came alive and three geth primes joined the fight.
'You have to be kidding me!' Eve looked terrified as three plasma cannons were pointed at the desk they were hiding behind. She took her rocket launcher out and shot at prime standing in the middle of the geth.
The shockwave from the explosion threw us on our backs. I recovered quickly and took my chance to join the rest of my unit. Deckard managed to point his omni-tool above the shattered desk he was hiding behind and shot overload in random directions, only missing me by inches. Luckily he took out hunter lining up his shotgun at my back.
'Get up, now! We need to get out of here.' I dragged Mayson and Eve with me, Deckard following behind..
We ran out through the doors on the opposite side of the room. A prime's plasma cannon shot three consecutive blasts at Egghead. Metal splinters from the doorframe went straight through his shields and lodged in his back. Poor bastard. He yelled and fell on his belly, groaning. We had to take him with us. I wasn't leaving anyone behind! Mayson and I picked him up while Eve unleashed electromagnetic hell on the synthetics with her grenades. We were determined. We ran silently. The only noise I could hear were the primes' seeker drones and Egghead's groaning. We had two geth primes on our backs with god know how many other troops. After only a few minutes we reached the control room. The confined space could barely contain all four of us, but we had enough space for Eve to deploy her supply pylon. We laid our engineer down.
'Mayson, look at his wounds and treat them as best as you can.'
She just nodded and got the med-kit out of her pack. I looked around the room to evaluate our options. According to Egghead's scans and the map, this room was directly connected by an elevator to the server room in the basement. It was a good position to defend ourselves. The one long and narrow corridor leading to this room was our great advantage. There were no windows in here and only one extra set of doors. I thought that they led to the elevator..
'How is he?' I asked Mayson.
'He'll survive. It's nothing serious, only a flesh wound. Painful, but nothing more.'
I watched her for a brief moment putting bandages on Deckard's back. Then I turned to Eve. 'How do you see our chances in here, Corporal?'
'Decent point to defend, Chief, but it might get really hot in here when those synthetics flood through here.' She was installing a piercing mod on her Mattock rifle to deal with armored geth.
We need to get Egghead up and start hacking the computers here, I thought.
'I think it will start in a minute, Chief. I can hear them coming.' Eve pointed at the entrance. Her supply pylon stood on the floor, next to the door. Deckard was up and already regaining his composure. I pointed him to the computer. Mayson took the other side of the entrance. I dragged a desk over to block the doorway. Two metal lockers stacked on top of each other and a metal desk behind them formed some cover for our inevitable firefight.
'Private! How's your hack going? How long until you finish?'
'Just got past the first couple of firewalls, sir. It will be a while. No longer than twenty minutes.'
Shit, that's not good news. I hope we can hold out for that long.
The first wave of geth troops showed up just second later. Unshielded geth went down quickly, their flashlight heads blown off. There was no cover for our enemy in the empty corridor. Synthetics literally walked straight at us just to be executed with surgical precision. I knew that the real fun would start when hunters and rocket troopers joined their assault...
I was trying to hack through the security measures as fast as I could. My commander and rest of my unit were behind the barricade, protecting my ass from being shot off. I was frustrated. Why did we had to hack this thing? Why not just blow the damn thing up? I had just managed to take down the second firewall when I heard my commander.
'Private! How's your hack going? How long until you finish?'
'Just got past the first couple of firewalls, sir. It will be a while. Not longer than twenty minutes.' I hoped that I could finish it sooner.. I hate firefights. All I could hear now were bullets flying around and that annoying noise that the geth made. I looked behind me to see how Chief, Mayson and Eve were doing.
The demolisher was in seventh heaven. She was throwing arc grenades one after another, stunning shieldless geth and ripping with her rifle through their synthetic bodies. I could sense the satisfaction she felt with every kill. She was the only person actually happy to be sent here. Since she enrolled with the Alliance two years ago, there was no real geth threat anymore. She had grown up on Eden Prime, and a week after her seventeenth birthday, Saren had arrived with his geth troops. Her entire family had been killed, and she had only survived by hiding under the corpses of her parents. Every single kill now gave her so much satisfaction, as though it relieved her of her pain.
Mayson was focused as always. Silent and deadly, she never spoke much. Now she was probably memorising every single kill she made, so that she could scratch another mark on her body armour. Both of her arms were filled with marks for enemies killed since she had joined the military. For Mayson, this was just a job, another way to provide for her family, but she took pride in what she was doing, no matter what it might be.
Chief Montgomery was a good soldier, bitter and aggressive, but a good commander to work with. He had been an N7 candidate and, during the training program, he had decided to leave his wife safely back on Earth while he pursued his military career. That decision had backfired when he wasn't chosen to join the Special Ops. He was going through some hard times in his life, and I felt genuine sympathy for him. It must have been hellishly difficult to deal with.
Montgomery had given me a hard time since I joined his unit, but I didn't blame him at all. I wouldn't trust a discharged soldier either if he got back into the military. Especially not one who had worked for a notorious mercenary group, and who had survived like a coward while the other mercs were butchered around him. Unfortunately for Montgomery, the Alliance needed every soldier they could get, so my redemption came quickly after the Firebase Ghost failure. Apparently I showed a remarkable will to survive and exceptional technical skills, which the Earth Systems Alliance military found very useful. I was just happy to be back in a real army.
Suddenly an, electric shock ran through my body, making me scream and drop to the floor.
'Private, what just happened?' Montgomery ran back to me.
'Something shocked me. Some kind of security hardware installed here.'
'You're making no sense, son. Explain plainly!' The Gunnery Chief was shaking me, demanding answers.
'It's some sort of physical device installed on this console. It's preventing me from connecting to the system past the fifth firewall,' I explained to Montgomery.
He came closer to the console and reached out to touch it. The impact of the shock threw him back several feet.
'Fucking thing! If we can't hack it, we will blow it to pieces!' He pointed his pistol at the console and shot several times, but his efforts were futile as a powerful kinetic barrier encased the whole computer tightly.
Eve threw a homing grenade at the geth prime that stepped around the corner at the far end of the corridor. Three powerful plasma cannon shots ripped through her shields. She managed to duck into cover just as the third pulse missed her. Mayson threw three sticky grenades at the prime's body and shot one of them with her Widow sniper rifle. The explosion sent the prime reeling back several feet and decimated six other geth nearby. The malfunctioning synthetic giant was disoriented and fired blindly, hitting the geth around it. In the meantime Montgomery had climbed back to his feet.
'Deckard, see what you can do about this barrier. Eve, status! Mayson, cover us!'
'I was shot pretty bad, Chief. I think my shield generator might be damaged.' Eve tried to grab the little device on her back awkwardly.
'Easy, Corporal, let me have a look.' Chief Montgomery looked at Eve's back and tweaked some settings. Her shields started to regenerate.
'All done. Your eezo core needed a restart. You'll be fine, soldier.' He patted her on the back.
'Thank you, sir! Back to work.' She grabbed her Mattock and went back to help Mayson as she was getting overwhelmed by flying bullets. She managed to finish off malfunctioning prime in mere seconds.
'Private, talk to me. How are we looking with this barrier?' the commander shouted at me between the shots.
'The barrier is no go, sir! Field engineers are not equipped to deal with barriers of this strength. I think we should try to disable servers below us. I will try to open elevator door and get us downstairs.'
'Work on it then! We don't have much time, Eve's pylon doesn't have unlimited supplies.' Montgomery turned back and took out two cloaked hunters with one shot.
Time was running out for us so I had to act quickly. I looked at the control panel on the elevator door, examined my possibilities to open it quickly, and one thing came to my mind.
'Open up, you piece of shit!' I took out my omni-blade and ripped through the controls. 'Chief! Doors are open, elevator is functional, let's get out of here!'
Montgomery pointed at Mayson and Eve, who reluctantly moved towards me and the elevator. Chief took out his launcher and fired two rockets at the geth, causing mayhem in their ranks. He managed to kill all of them in the corridor and then ran to us, shouting at us to close the doors...
Chief managed to reach the elevator doors just before they closed. Thankfully I had enough time to dismantle my supply pylon. We should have enough equipment to kill any more of the synthetic bastards down there. I was furious that the Gunnery Chief gave an order to retreat. The goddamn geth would follow us anyway. What was the point of running, when we could kill them there? Anger was filling my whole body. It was like an insatiable thirst for destruction. I knew that no matter how many I destroyed, it would never be enough to pay for my pain and suffering.
'Private, what can we expect down there? Any ideas?' Montgomery interrupted my thought with his question to Deckard.
'I don't know exactly, sir. Scans are showing that the place should be empty but I'm getting some kind of interference.'
The elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal a room filled with servers. Each one was encased in the same barriers as the control panel in our previous location.
'Shit! Now what? Are you not equipped to get through these as well, Private?' Montgomery vented his rage on Deckard.
They started arguing about something and Mayson tried to calm them down. I walked away, between humming server units, and heard the crackling of kinetic barriers when I came close. They looked incredibly thick and surrounded the computers tightly; not even my arc grenades would penetrate this kind of defence. The server room was huge; it probably ran the length of the whole building. I didn't want to get too far away from the group, so I glanced again in front of me and was just about to turn back when I noticed a sign on the wall, about fifty feet away. Slowly I moved closer and noticed the emergency hatch leading out of this place. We had to get out of here, I had to get out of here. I needed revenge. I needed to see more synthetics decimated. It was time to break up this stupid argument of theirs and move out.
'Chief, I found something interesting down there. It's some kind of hatch, maybe it will lead us out of here.' As I was walking away with Montgomery, the elevator doors closed and the car rushed up the shaft. The geth must have called it to join us down here.
'Deckard, seal that thing as best as you can. Mayson stay here and help him. I will go with Eve to check that hatch she was talking about.' We walked away quickly, towards the only exit that could save us now. I was breathing heavily as my anger grew. The geth would be here soon and we needed to get as far away as possible to regroup and hit back at those damn machines. We had failed our mission, but I wanted some payback for this and everything else.
'It's here, Chief, it's leading away from this room. I don't know where, there is no sign, so it will be risky.'
'Deckard, you done there?! I need a scan!'
'Yes, Chief, we will be with you shortly.'
I could hear our engineer approaching with Mayson. Even though he hadn't fired a single shot today, he had had a rough ride with us. I could see that he was doing his best, but it wasn't enough for the Gunnery Chief. He always wanted more from his troops.
'Look at this, get me a scan and tell me where it leads.'
Deckard fired up his omni-tool and we could see schematics on his display.
'This... is complicated, sir.' He looked at Montgomery. 'This hatch leads to a tunnel connecting this facility with the dam powering this whole place. So far, it's our only way out, and it may be a chance to disable this hub after all.'
'How long is this tunnel?' Mayson asked.
'It's about thirty five standard miles long. There is a tram line we could use. It will be functional if we're lucky.'
'And if we're unlucky?' the Gunnery Chief asked.
'Then we'll fucking die in that tunnel when the geth get to us.' I was sure that would happen to us.
'No, no, no. I have no plan on dying in near future. If the tram's disabled, I can make it work. I guarantee it,' Deckard said and closed his omni-tool display.
'Then we hold you to that, Private. Now move out. The geth are getting through your welds as we speak.' Montgomery opened the hatch and pointed at us to get inside.
I got in first, Mayson followed me and then Deckard almost fell on Mayson's back. Montgomery closed the hatch and we followed our engineer through the tunnel. His omni-tool was always on, scanning for incoming enemies, and he opened an additional display to check on the room we left behind. The geth were still stuck behind the elevator doors. We had some time to reach the tram station and maybe even complete our mission. I lapsed into my own thoughts again, barely aware of where we were going and what was happening.
This mission was my dream come true, my best assignment since I joined the military. My whole family had died on Eden Prime, killed by the geth. I had spent two days hidden underneath the corpses of my parents, pretending I was dead. So many geth troopers had been walking around, killing any survivors they found. I was terrified that one would notice my breathing, or a slight movement, and kill me without even looking at me. Now I'm determined to kill them all, to eradicate this scourge from the face of the galaxy. The geth killed my family, my friends, and so many more on other worlds. The quarians are responsible for all this. I hate them as much as I hate the synthetics. They ran away from their homeworld, blamed the geth for being violent. It's all lies, all deception designed to hide the truth: that they unleashed geth on our galaxy. They don't deserve to live...
I had a bullet lodged in my left shoulder. It just managed to go through the armour plating and rip my skin. I felt it wedged somewhere close to my collar bone. Nobody had noticed my wound. Deckard was too busy leading us to the tram station and trying not to enrage Gunnery Chief Montgomery. Our commander was right behind me, looking over his shoulder, checking for any enemy activity. Corporal Eve was lost in her own thoughts, probably thinking about killing geth or fuelling her rage by remembering what happened to her three years ago on Eden Prime. I was just concentrating on the path in front of us, trying not to think about the sharp pain going to my shoulder with every move. We had enough trouble as it was without me complaining about some flesh wound. It took us about five minutes to reach the station. Luckily the tram was active, so we only had to board it and ride to the dam facility. There would be time for a breather there.
'Private, get that thing going, we need to be on the move now.' Montgomery walked over to the huge metal door separating the tunnel from the tram station. 'Mayson, Eve, I need you here to help me with these doors.' I clenched my teeth and approached the control panel. Montgomery pointed at the panel.
'Close the door, Corporal. Eve and I will try to weld it before we go.'
I tapped the code in and the metal gate began to close. The whole thing was more than ten feet tall so Montgomery boosted Eve up onto his shoulders and our demolisher started welding the doors. I walked slowly towards the tram and sat down next to Deckard.
'They will notice your wound sooner or later. You might even lose the ability to use your arm. You should think of that.' Deckard's voice was low and concerned.
I looked at him startled.
'How... when did you notice?' I grabbed my shoulder and let go immediately so as not to cause any suspicion.
'There is a bloody mark between burns on your armour and the plates are coming apart, so it's visible, when you look closely. I just noticed this. Why didn't you say something?'
'We have enough problems without me whining about some flesh wound. I'll be fine.'
'You might not be in an hour or so. Apply some medi-gel when we get on the tram. We will have at least twenty minutes of peace. Now get inside, I got it running, and Chief is finished welding the doors.' Deckard got inside the tram after me and Montgomery walked over to join us with Eve following him. The smell of welded metal filled the air. That meant they had done a good job and we would be on our way in a moment.
'Private, it's time to go. Let's move.' Montgomery sat down on the very end of the carriage and took his helmet off as tram began to move towards the dam. I could see tiredness in his face. He took several deep breaths as he looked at the floor. Eve was tending to her rifle. We had a little while before we reach our destination.
'You should take your armor off. I will have a look at your wound.' Deckard whispered to me. I took my helmet off, my sweaty black hair falling over my eyes. I tried to move it out of the way and then started unstrapping the chest piece of my armor. It was stuck to my shoulder. The padding inside the suit was soaked with my blood. Deckard gently removed the front piece and left the shoulder pad. Only then Montgomery and Eve did notice.
'When did that happen, Corporal? Are you okay?' Montgomery looked at me with concern. Eve was just staring at me with blank eyes. I think she was affected by this whole situation the most.
'She should be all right, the bullet is lodged just below the skin. I will remove it with the help of some medi-gel and standard painkillers.' Deckard removed some medi-gel from my pack and injected me with an anaesthetic.
'I didn't know that you were a trained medic, Private. You are surprising me more and more during this mission.' Montgomery patted Deckard on the back and walked back to his seat.
Even though I couldn't feel a thing, our engineer was very gentle. He slowly removed the slug stuck just under my bone, cleaned the wound and applied medi-gel. I guess he was returning a favor after I patched him up earlier. I liked him a lot. He was doing a great job and was holding better than anyone could have expected. You couldn't see even a bit of tiredness on his face. Maybe he would do a great job as a commander himself in the future.
'There you go. You're all patched up.' Deckard touched my shoulder and smiled at me faintly. Now I could see that this place was taking a toll on him too. He examined at my armour and tried to repair the damaged plates. With a tiny precision welder, he touched up the broken plating, and after a couple of minutes, it was done.
'And your gear is ready to be worn again. Shoulder pad might be a bit stiff at times, but the welds should be flexible enough for you to move freely.' He helped me put my armour back on and avoided looking at me for some reason. When we were finished, he smiled again and walked away quickly to check on the tram console. He opened his omni-tool again.
'How much more time do we have, Private?' Montgomery extinguished his cigarette on the floor.
'We should be arriving in less than four minutes, sir.' Deckard dismissed his display and started to put his helmet back on.
'All right, troops, time to get ready. Mayson, will you be okay?' Chief secured his gloves and looked at me concerned.
'Yes, Chief. I'm fine. I'm patched up and my armour is fixed too.'
'Good, be prepared for anything in there. Most likely, the geth are getting through the tram station doors now. I expect heavy resistance in the dam facility as well.'
I checked my sidearm and my Widow sniper rifle. We still had a couple of minutes, so I took out my knife and I started to carve marks on my left thigh. There were thirty two marks to be tallied on my body armour, the number of geth I killed today. I needed to start marking now; I might lose count when we enter the dam facility...
'All right, troops, time to get ready. Mayson, will you be okay?' I was putting my gloves back on. It was hard work, when my hand were all sweaty.
'Yes, Chief. I'm fine I'm patched up and my armour is fixed too.' Corporal Mayson seemed very composed.
'Good, be prepared for anything in there. Most likely, the geth are getting through the tram station doors now. I expect heavy resistance in the dam facility as well.' I turned to Deckard and Eve. Egghead seemed to be fully focused. He pulled himself really well in there. No kills, but no mistakes either, and his mental quickness was top notch. I could see the lights of the Hydra dam station in front of us now. The tram began to slow down. I approached Deckard.
'Private, scan this place for me. I doubt that we can find maps for this whole place, so we will rely on you completely. Don't you let me down now, son.'
'Yes, sir. I will do my best, sir.'
'Good! Now we will be more than thirty miles away from the communications hub, so I assume that we can contact Alliance Command when we get to the surface, right?'
'Yes, that's right, sir.' Egghead fired up his omni-tool and pointed at the scan results. 'We will stop here, at Level B1, it's just above reactor. We have to get to Level G1, which is two floors above the tram station. From there, we will have a clear signal to contact HQ.'
Good, more walking around to find a bit of fresh air and send an update to the Alliance. I'm tired and annoyed by this bullshit. It should be just a simple mission, but it's turned out badly. It's time for us to move out.
The engineer was leading us between corridors and rooms, avoiding the elevators to prevent any alarms from alerting anything that might be stationed here. The whole facility was fully automated; no personnel were needed to run this place. Two powerful VIs were in control of the dam and the reactor that powered the communications hub. Deckard uploaded our credentials into the VI's databanks to prevent any alarms from sounding, in case the geth were already here. After a long while we stepped outside and were blasted by the winds of the approaching electrical storm.
'Fan-fucking-tastic, isn't it? What's next? Rain of geth?' I was getting really pissed off by this whole thing. 'Deckard, report, now! Can we reach Alliance?'
'Yes, sir, we have no more than fifteen minutes though. When the storm hits, we will be completely cut off.'
'Do it then! we don't have much time!' I turned to Mayson and Eve. 'You two. Mayson, find yourself a vantage point nearby and scout the area. Eve, same thing, other side.' I looked around to see where we were. The dam was enormous. We had emerged out behind some kind of control room, where a strange holographic orb hovered above some machinery in the middle.
'Sir! I raised Alliance command!' Deckard yelled to me. I took the radio from him.
'This is Gunnery Chief Montgomery with Squad Alpha. We encountered heavy resistance in the communications hub on Ontarom. We were unable to disable the facility. Our new position is the Hydra dam facility, the power plant for the communications hub. Awaiting orders. Over.' A few moments of silence and nervous waiting. I looked at Egghead. He shrugged.
'Connection is still there, sir. I don't know why they're not responding.'
'Alliance Command, do you copy?' I shouted into the radio.
'Gunnery Chief, this is Alliance Command, we hear you loud and clear. Await your orders.' The voice on the radio was unknown to me, probably some comm officer. It wasn't important now. 'Chief Gunnery Montgomery, your orders are as follows: disable the reactor inside Hydra dam facility to cut power to the communications hub and await orbital strike. We have two dreadnoughts waiting for you to clear the interference for us. Over.'
'Understood, Alliance Command. Gunnery Chief Montgomery out.' I dropped the radio on the floor and shook my head.
'This will be an interesting mission, Private. Get Mayson and Eve back, we need to move out. Also, get me the quickest route to the reactor.' Just as I said that, I heard Eve's voice on the comm.
'Geth! Dropship is deploying troops on the far side of the dam. There are at least sixty units heading our way, six primes with them.'
'Son of a bitch! Deckard! Got that scan yet?' I ran to Egghead and looked at his omni-tool display. Mayson and Eve returned and took one entrance each, looking for approaching enemies.
'We will have to pass through the middle of this place and get to the guard house on the opposite side. There is a direct elevator link to the reactor level. We should arrive close to the reactor core. I can disable it from there.' Deckard closed his omni-tool and got his SMG out. Even he was ready for a fight.
Several rocket troopers appeared and spotted Eve. Countless missiles flew towards her. She leapt for cover inside the room, and the missiles struck the walls of the building. We moved quickly to our right, taking cover further inside the room. When we reached the end of the wall, there were geth troopers waiting for us. Egghead overloaded them and set them on fire immediately after. I could sense the determination in this man. We had come this far now and we could not fail.
Dodging fire, plasma cannons and rockets, we managed to reach guard house. There was almost no cover here and we were surrounded. All we could do was bunker down and wait for Deckard to open the elevator for us. Just as all hell broke loose around us, the doors opened and my unit rushed inside. I followed them but one of the hunters staggered me with his shotgun before I could reach the elevator. Deckard rushed outside and grabbed me while Mayson and Eve covered us. We got in safely and now the reactor core awaited us...
Montgomery, Mayson, Eve and I rode the elevator down, to the reactor, to the heart of this facility. This part of the mission I was prepared for.
'Chief, I've scanned whole reactor level, there is no geth activity below. We have a straight path to control room. We will need to pass through the reactor core in order to reach the consoles. I'm already preparing hacking protocols to speed up the process.' This time I will be impressive, I told myself.. I will not have to run. I will not let anyone down.
'Excellent, Private.' Montgomery nodded with approval. 'How many entrances to this level apart from this one?'
'I just managed to scroll through the scanned area. There are two more routes, which either the geth can use as entrances, or we can use as exits. That's three entrances in total, sir.'
'All right, let's make this happen!' Montgomery rushed out of the lift just as it stopped. We followed him quickly. We passed some controls on our left and went down the stairs. No movement anywhere. My scanner was blank as well. We approached the reactor core entrance after a short run.
'Are we supposed to go through there?' Eve was reluctant to follow. 'We won't be killed? Or irradiated? I don't think this is a good idea.' She took a couple of steps backwards.
'Private, report. Is this route safe? I thought this thing would be offline.' Montgomery sounded irritated.
'If this would be deactivated, we wouldn't have to be here. The passage is completely safe, as long as we don't linger here and we keep our suits on. Radiation only affects people after long-term exposure. I suggest we keep moving.' I wanted to encourage rest of the unit and entered the reactor core myself. After a moment, they all followed me inside.
A loud thump near our entry point signalled incoming geth. The commander growled and closed the reactor core doors behind us. He kicked in the control panel, hoping that it would delay the incoming enemy. We were on the run again. I started up my omni-tool and tried to access the reactor's wireless network range. I accessed it after a few seconds and immediately started uploading my bypass application. We exited the core area and approached the control panel. While my omni-tool worked on the firewalls protecting the reactor's software, I manually accessed the data server to speed up things. Montgomery was talking to my comrades, but I didn't have time to listen to them. I only glanced up twice. The first time, Eve was deploying her pylon and shaking her head. We were probably running low on ammo and grenades. The second time, I watched Mayson taking off her helmet and wiping sweat off her face. She was trying to tidy up her long hair, to get it out of the way, so that she could see clearly. I couldn't take my gaze off her, the moment seemed to last forever... I didn't have time for this! I had to focus.
The manual override helped my application to slice through all the security in the reactor software. I was the best; I could hack through anything and the best security that the Alliance could provide wasn't enough for me. I could still hearing Montgomery barking out orders. Suddenly something touched my shoulder. I looked over to see the commander looking at me.
'They're here, Deckard. How long? Can you make it? Or should we prepare for a last stand?' I could hear the determination in his voice. Even if he died in here, it would be one hell of a death. He would take half of this facility with him...
'Chief, I'm almost done. The reactor will be disabled in less than a minute. We should have our torches ready. It will be dark in here.' I felt like there could be even hope in my voice.
'Son, great job. Now just lead us out of here. I will personally recommend you for a medal if you get us out of here alive.' Chief's voice was nervous. He took a long breath. It came out shaky. He had to be scared. He was holding up so well, leading us fearlessly. But every being in our universe has its own breaking point.
'We can move out right now. I have the exit route planned in my omni-tool. Let's go, sir.' The countdown on my display read forty two seconds. I quickly explained everything to Eve and Mayson and, as I finished, we heard the reactor powering down and the geth outside the door. Montgomery's kick to the control panel wasn't enough to stop them and the door would open in a second.
I was leading us now. Montgomery followed and Mayson was right behind him.
'Eve, come on! Leave that damn thing alone! We won't need the pylon anymore!' The commander waved at her and she joined us quickly. We started to run, the narrow lights of our torches leading us to the nearest exit. The geth were through the door. I could hear a prime's heavy steps. Eve suddenly stopped and turned towards the approaching geth forces.
'Corporal, what are you doing?!' Montgomery grabbed her arm.
'Those mother fuckers will pay for everything, no matter what.' She lifted her hand. She was holding a small detonator. 'Now we all fucking run, as fast as we can.' The faint click in her hand turned into an ear-splitting explosion that shook the whole place. She turned around and started running as fast as she could. We were right behind her. A shockwave filled with flames followed us mercilessly. I was panting, but held myself enough to shout out a warning. We dived behind some crates and the flames passed us, barely licking at our kinetic shields. I was growing hotter inside my suit. The air around us smelled of ionised, burning shields. We had been as lucky as hell. It was time to run again. This whole place is going to fall apart. All four of us were running, trying to avoid exploding fuel tanks. Electrical fires breaking out around us and metal falling down on us.
The emergency exit was just in front of us. My omni-tool flickered only briefly and then the doors were open. We raced inside the tiny room. There was a ladder inside, which lead to the surface. No one said a word while we climbed. Air filters turned on automatically inside our suits. We could see smoke coming through the doors below us. Faster, we needed to move faster. I could see flames burning between the open doors. The fire was really close to us now. Another explosion inside the reactor shook us about. The ladder began to creak and the whole damn place was growing hotter and hotter. A couple of minutes later, we reached the top of the ladder.
The electrical storm was at its highest now. I looked at raging skies above me. Long and terrifying thunderclaps every few seconds added more terror to that of the collapsing structure underneath us. Strong winds were raising waves of water from the sea surrounding the dam. Now that we had escaped fire, air and water were our only enemies. The tunnel leading to the tram station had collapsed already and the dam could fail soon as well. We needed to get away from here. Montgomery looked at us proudly.
'Well, we made it here. Mission accomplished. The barriers will be down in a few minutes and the communications hub will be exposed for an orbital strike. You've done a great job, soldiers, all of you. It was an honor to serve with you. We don't have much hope to get out of here alive now. I just want you all to know that you're the best bunch that any commander could have.' He saluted us. All of us at once straightened up and saluted our Gunnery Chief.
The flames soon reached the surface of the Hydra dam facility. The whole place was shaking as buildings collapsed. We sat at the end of the short jetty close to the landing pad. I stared at the cracks in the dam. With every thump, I could see another grow larger and more water poured out from every crack. The storm above us mixed thunder with the explosions around us. The orbital strike on the communications hub would be commencing at any moment. The mission was a success. I was proud of myself. I was proud to be a part of this unit.
A shuttle dropped in front of us and hovered above the cracked ground.
'Get in!' An armed soldier waved at us. We jumped into the shuttle just as the dam finally broke down under the weight of the water. The whole place began to flood as the doors closed and the shuttle lifted off. We had survived.
Mission accomplished.