The Half Life Effect

Chapter 2

Preparations

A/N: Humanity and the Combine don't have any Element Zero therefore there are no human biotics, with that being said I decided to make Kaidan more of an infiltrator class so to speak.

Also you'll probably see weapons that weren't in the original Half Life 2 game, the reason for this is that I seriously doubt that the resistance would only use weapons that had been stolen from the Combine because it would make more sense for them to use a wide variety of earth made weapons. Besides some of the weapons that I'm mentioning were actually going to be in the original release of Half Life 2 but were scrapped for whatever reason.

And about some of the reviews people have been sending me. Granted I like support and I'm glad that you support this fic but I would appreciate it if you explained in your reviews what it was you liked about it and what I can do to make the story better. I really hate it when people send me reviews that are on the same lines as "This is good please continue"

-Earth, Resistance Base, Coast near City 17-

After a long almost sleepless night, sunrise had finally settled over the coast. The rays of light that came in from the sun shone through the partially blocked windows that had been reinforced with makeshift barricades built from various pieces of metal and wood. However the light entered through the cracks in the defenses and across the room to Adrian Shepard's bed and straight into his face, the light awakening the resistance officer from his slumber.

Upon waking, Shepard slowly and with no small amount of reluctance began to raise himself up from the bed. Once he was sitting upright, Shepard rubbed the sleep from his eyes and got up off of the bed and walked over to where he kept his normal attire.

He quickly put on a pair of camouflaged hunting pants and an olive drab colored T-shirt before putting on his HECU power vest. Shepard's power vest was a bit older when compared to some of the newer stuff that the rebels and the Combine overwatch troopers used. However it was well maintained and it was still a hell of a lot more effective than what the overwatch soldiers wore for armor.

On the shoulder pads of the armor was the same patch that all member of the HECU used to wear, on the patch was the symbol of a shield with a trident pointed up at the heavens that was crossed by both a sword and a lightning bolt. Shepard still proudly wore that emblem, it was a symbol of three months of training in pure hell with several other grunts as well as drill instructor Barnes who was now a lieutenant colonel in the resistance forces down at Black Mesa East.

After putting on his clothes he walked out the door and down the wide hallway of the old home, some of the other members of the cell he was in charge of were already up and about "Morning Loco" said James Vega who was walking down the hallway along with Shepard, clearly the guy was more than eager to get some food in his stomach. James Vega almost always called Adrian Shepard 'Loco' mainly because of his uncanny ability to survive some of the most insane of situations when the survivability rate was practically nonexistent.

"Good morning Vega" said Shepard as the two headed downstairs to the dining room so that they could all get something to eat, after all Shepard didn't want his rumbling stomach to give away his position when he and Kaiden went on recon. Downstairs it seemed that just about everyone was already up and about.

Jacob Taylor was serving some of the fried bullsquid steaks that he was cooking on the stove. About two days ago Taylor and Ashley Williams had managed to bag themselves a bullsquid on one of their hunts. This would fill the rebels' stomachs for a while since for some odd reason it took close to a month for bullsquid meat to become rotten when it was being refrigerated. Nobody really knew why and frankly some of them didn't even want to know.

As it turned out, there were actually a fair number of life forms on Xen were dextro-amino based such as the houndeyes and the boids which were merely harmless flying herbivores. There were a few other strange animals from the border world that were inedible to humans, the vortigaunts however, were able to use them as a source of nourishment due to their inability to eat anything other than dextro based foods.

In fact any resistance base that had vortigaunt personnel was required to have a water purification unit so that the vorts could safely drink from it without worrying about getting sick from whatever abnormal bacteria might be in the stuff.

Shepard sat down at the table and ate some of his breakfast. Adrian Shepard never really understood why but for some strange reason bullsquids tasted a lot like chicken. It was quite interesting, how an animal from an alien world could taste almost the exact same way that a certain animal from earth would

Eventually Adrian broke himself out of his random thoughts before he continued to eat the freshly cooked piece of bullsquid he had on his plate. Eventually after he had managed to finish off what was left of his breakfast before he proceeded down to the basement which doubled as their armory.

The resistance cell leader walked over to the basement's entryway which was a small hidden hatch which allowed the rebels that resided within the house to hide down there in case the home that they were using as a base was scouted by Combine overwatch troopers. Under normal circumstances Shepard would prefer to fight the soldiers off when they came patrolling through the area but this was a pretty good place to hole up as well as a good place to stage raids against Combine outposts that were in the area they usually just let the Combine pass through the area unless it was unavoidable.

Opening the hatch Shepard descended into the basement where three years' worth of stolen and salvaged weapons and ammunition were being housed. Adrian Shepard's first impulse was to go and take his most preferred weapon along with him, a modified AK-74m equipped an underslung grenade launcher and a holographic sight but he quickly pushed that thought aside as it wasn't equipped with a silencer and they didn't even have one to give it. Instead Shepard turned his gaze towards one of the mac10s that were lined up against a nearby gun rack.

Shepard grabbed the one that was closest to him and grabbed a few spare clips from a nearby ammo crate before he attached an almost oversized silencer straight onto the weapon's barrel. After that he slammed one of the clips into the weapon and pulled back on the mechanism that loaded the first round before he holstered the weapon.

Now seeing as how he no longer had any real reason to remain in the armory Adrian Shepard headed back up the hatch and walked over to the back entrance where Kaiden was probably there already, just waiting for him. Sure enough the second that he reached the back entrance corporal Kaiden Alenko was still standing there leaning against a wall acting as though he had been there for a while when really it had only been about ten to fifteen minutes at most.

"You ready commander?" he asked to which Shepard just nodded. Kaiden was a good guy one of the few children that had managed to survive the Seven Hours War nearly twenty years ago. Corporal Kaidan Alenko was only five years old when it happened and he was forced to watch as his parents were killed right in front of him by the Combine forces. This left him with a serious hatred of the Combine as well as anyone who dared to collaborate with them.

Because of this the instant that he was invited to join the growing resistance against the combine, Alenko signed up without a second thought. After a few years of working under colonel Odessa Cubbage, Kaidan was eventually reassigned by one of Admiral Anderson's lieutenants into Shepard's unit. Kaidan liked to make himself useful as a kind of scout for Shepard's team. He and usually one or two other members of Shepard's team, would go out to nearby Combine overwatch outposts and gather as much information as they could on them before the rest of them initiated a raid. Hell when they raided one of the more outlying Combine outposts that was within fifteen miles of Nova Prospekt they had managed to save a small group of attempted escapees of City 17 from ending up in that hellhole.

Unfortunately not all of their strikes against the Combine had such happy endings. A few weeks back Shepard had received word from one of the resistance's moles inside one of City 17's Civil Protection precinct that there was a shipment of civilians were being moved from City 14 to City 17 before they would be shipped off to Nova Prospekt. Once they arrived at that hellhole the Combine would turn them into stalkers which were little more than mindless cybernetic drones that obeyed the Combine without question or hesitation.

Shepard's team had managed to blow the transport train right off of the rails and went inside to get as many civilians out as they could. However it seemed that their mole had made a mistake on the status of the civilians that were being transported to the city, it turned out that each of the civilians had already been 'modified' into stalkers, which meant that they were forced to euthanize each and every one of them as an act of mercy.

Adrian forced those memories back down to where he left them and decided to focus on what was going on now rather than what had happened in the past. Today Kaidan and Shepard would be scouting out one of the outposts that the Combine liked to use as a checkpoint for overwatch troopers when they were shipping supplies to Nova Prospekt, City 17 as well as many other Combine occupied cities. If they were successful on this raid they would be able to cripple one of their major supply lines and get a lot of new weapons for the several rebel cells that operated in the area.

Kaidan had with him a standard issue MP7 that was issued to overwatch troopers. This was why most resistance members used the MP7 aside from whatever else they could get their hands on while out in the field. The MP7 that Kaiden was currently using was a bit different than the original variant though. This one had been modified with a suppresser but it also still carried the built in grenade launcher that most of the other versions of the weapon normally carried.

"You ready sir?" Kaidan asked to which Shepard nodded. "Always" the two then headed out through the back door which would take them out near the beach and from there they would follow along the cliff line until they reached their target which as reported to be along that area.

Ordinarily when they went to the cliff area they'd take the route on the beach but since it was spawning season for the antlions it would be near suicidal to take so much as one step on the sand. Once the season of fall started it also became known as spawning season for the antlions, for some reason they liked to be under the sand of the beach whenever spawning season took place.

They'd had a few close calls during spawning season but since their base was situated off of the beach it was normally pretty easy for them to keep off of the sand. Besides in some cases spawning season actually worked to their advantage. It prevented the Combine overwatch from attacking them effectively from behind which was one of the reasons that they chose that building as their base.

Eventually Shepard and Kaidan made their way to the cliffs in which they would follow and old trail which, according to Kaidan would lead them to that overwatch outpost that he said he'd found during his last reconnaissance.

Once they hit the trail by the cliffs Shepard saw one of the old mining entrances to Ravenholm that had been completely blocked off by a large makeshift barricade of wooden planks and scraps of metal. In the center were large spray painted letters that read "DO NOT ENTER!" along with a very crudely drawn skull and crossbones which had been painted directly underneath the makeshift warning.

That sign brought up a lot of very unpleasant memories for Shepard's team. A little over a year ago, Shepard and the other members of his resistance fighters would use those mining tunnels as their own little shortcut into Black Mesa East if they were ever needed for something there. The mining tunnel led to the town of Ravenholm, which had been abandoned shortly after the Seven Hours War. Just a few years ago a large group of escapees from City 17 decided to set up shop there and give whatever materials that they didn't need to Black Mesa East.

The people that had used to live in that town were good, honest and compassionate to almost everybody. Or at least they were good, honest and compassionate people until the Combine had decided to launch an artillery strike with shells that were chockfull of headcrabs. The entire town was completely overrun in a matter hours due to the sheer number of the little bastards that were being used in the attack.

Shepard and his team did what they could but they only managed to save a small number of the people that were living in the town before they were forced to pull out of Ravenholm. However despite having saved several lives it was difficult for most of Shepard's team to get some sleep for several days given what they had seen happen to that poor town.

Nowadays the only ones that entered that hellhole were either those that had a death wish or were just incredibly desperate to get to Black Mesa East. Thankfully though the barricades leading into the old mine shaft had remained undisturbed so it was very unlikely that anyone had tried to go down into that deathtrap. Shepard and Kaidan continued on their path for a while longer and as they went Shepard noticed that Kaiden was becoming more and more cautious with each step he took. The former HECU corporal emulated his comrade's example and started to become more and more wary of his surroundings.

The trail that lead up from the nearby cliffs eventually came to a relatively large rock formation that was situated close to the beach. Before they could make their way there the two resistance fighters heard the telltale sound of a voice modulating implant that all overwatch troopers were given upon having their bodies 'altered' for lack of better terms.

Most Overwatch troopers were former citizens that had become 'problems' in the eyes of the Combine and Doctor Breen, and as such were shipped to Nova Prospekt to be 'adjusted' into Overwatch troopers, or Stalkers.

"Overwatch command, this is overwatch patrol two-one-niner there's nothing new to report" after the overwatch soldier finished speaking another voice filled the air, this one was clearly a female's, synthesized and completely unemotional female's but female nonetheless "Affirmative, patrol two-one niner continue standard patrol route of sector twelve-bravo"

Not wasting any time Shepard pulled out his mac10 and pulled back on the weapon's cocking mechanism which sent a nine millimeter bullet into the chamber, readying the weapon for use. He then looked over to where both he and Kaidan had heard the overwatch trooper speaking up.

Much to both Shepard and Kaidan's relief it turned out that there were only two of the gas masked bastards. In other words, just a small foot patrol. Although it was incredibly tempting to simply blow the brains out of the two Overwatch soldiers and simply move on, it wouldn't be a very good idea since who knew when their next check in would be.

If Shepard and Kaidan had both gone and killed the two overwatch troopers that were currently walking away from them the other Overwatch troopers would eventually send out search parties to find out what had happened to them and if they found the bodies they would go into an elevated alert status making their mission a whole lot harder. Shepard and Kaidan remained where they were. Staying completely still and quiet as to not attract any kind of attention from either of the two soldiers that were currently heading in the opposite direction of where their destination was. Once both rebels believed themselves to be completely out of earshot, Shepard and Kaidan moved on.

As they continued on the rocks that they were using to conceal their presence were slowly starting to become few and far between which would make them easier to be spotted by any sentry posts. Shepard's concern about staying hidden however turned out to be ill founded since they were currently heading up a hill that according to Kaidan, provided a good position to overlook the majority of the Combine outpost.

Eventually they made their way to the top of the hill and sure enough Kaidan was absolutely correct. From where they were positioned they could see a good chunk of the outpost. The outpost itself was made out of what was left of a small convenience store that had been cleaned out of anything that the Combine considered to be useless when they decided to move in a while back.

Now the convenience store had been transformed into a makeshift supply depot for the overwatch. The fortifications of the depot included several parked APCs up against the brick wall of the store while several Combine overwatch troopers patrolled outside of the four foot steel barricades that were located right outside of the store's front. Two pulse gun emplacements had been mounted on either side of the outpost's main entrance. There were also four small defense towers in the immediate perimeter although thankfully they lacked any form of mounted weaponry which would make things a little easier when they raided the place.

From what Shepard could see there were also a fair number of overwatch troopers patrolling parts of the base which meant that it would be damn near impossible to get any closer so that they could get a decent look at the place without getting spotted by the patrolling troopers. However all the security around the depot told Shepard that there must be something worthwhile being stored inside. All they had to do was wipe out the overwatch soldiers guarding it and take possession of whatever goodies were inside waiting for them.

After memorizing the patrol routes that the overwatch soldiers were taking as well as getting a general layout of the defenses, Shepard and Kaidan made their way back to base in order to start planning for the raid that they would be attempting that night.

-Citadel, docking bay 12-

Docking bay twelve was almost swamped with both passengers trying to get to the large group of shuttles that were waiting for their passengers to board so that they could be taken to the Turian frigate, Hammer of the Spirits which would be serving as the main transport and protective detail for the scientific expedition team.

Liara was making her way to the shuttle having already left a message for her mother that she would be outside of contact for a month or two. Originally Liara was hoping to have spoken to her mother, an Asari matriarch by the name of Benezia one last time before heading off to this new expedition since she wouldn't be back for a while. However this wasn't the case as Liara's mother was most likely stuck in some sort of political meeting or something similar.

The young Asari scientist let out a sigh, Liara and her mother hadn't spoken very often since she had completed her courses back at one of the many universities that were back on the Asari home world of Thessia and had begun her first archeological dig. Over the past number of years Liara had been meaning to contact her mother but for some reason Liara had kept putting it off and instead decided to focus on her work as an archeologist.

The lines that lead into each of the shuttles moved quickly as there was hardly any luggage to be moved. The reason for this was because that all of their equipment and what few personal effects that the scientists and security personnel had decided to bring with them had already been loaded onto the Hammer of the Spirits on a separate group of shuttles. Liara looked over at some of the others that were going on the mission and saw that there was a mixture of excitement and anxiety among the others that had been chosen for the mission.

She understood how that felt, after all they had all been awarded a rare privilege to go to a completely unexplored system. Liara was practically shaking with excitement. Eventually she entered the shuttle along with several other members of the expedition. Liara quickly found herself a seat on the transport and quickly strapped herself into one of the seats. Not two seconds later Liara saw a female Quarian walk towards the area where Liara was currently sitting down at.

"Excuse me, would it be alright if I could sit here? Most of the other seats have been taken" she said before Liara nodded. The Quarian sat down in a nearby seat that was right across from where Liara was sitting. Deciding that it would be impolite not to introduce herself Liara spoke up "I'm Liara T'Soni I'm one of the archeologists that's been assigned to this mission" she said.

The Quarian looked over at Liara and decided to give her name as well "Nice to meet you my name is Tali Zorah Nar-Rayya" Liara started to grow curious, it was rare to see a Quarian outside of the Flotilla and soon Liara found herself asking "Pardon me for asking but what exactly is a Quarian doing outside of the Flotilla?" she asked.

Tali didn't appear to be all that offended, it was a valid question after all. Most of the Citadel races didn't know much about the culture of the Migrant Fleet because a lot of those that lived on the Citadel or one of the Citadel's colonies didn't really interact with that many Quarians since they normally tended to stay with the Migrant Fleet.

"I'm on my pilgrimage, it's every Quarian's rite of passage into adulthood. After a while each Quarian has to leave the fleet and bring a gift back that will be of use to the fleet" she explained but Liara was still very curious. She loved learning about the cultures of other races and this was no exception. "What kind of a gift is required?" she asked.

Tali shrugged almost nonchalantly "It could be anything, from an extremely large sum of credits to even a whole new ship, the more worthwhile the gift the more valuable to the crew you'll become" the Quarian explained before elaborating even further "Personally I'm hoping that the planet we're going to will have some kind of worthwhile technology that may be of use by the Migrant Fleet" she stated.

Before Liara could respond with more questions a voice from nearby spoke up "Possible however unlikely, nature of the ruins in system suggests that this is a limited spaceflight species, unlikely that they have advanced technology, but just as possible that they developed something very unique and useful with the technology that they once had"

Liara and Tali looked over at the newcomer, a salarian with orange skin and had only one horn on the top of his head unlike most of his race which had two. It was possible that his other one may have been either removed or destroyed in some kind of an accident sometime back. The salarian took in a breath before he started talking again "Sorry, forgot to introduce myself, Mordin Solus, head geneticist for the mission, may I also get your names and was wondering if I could grab a seat?" he said in a rapid-fire voice.

The two that were sitting down in the seats were barely able to pick up on what the Salarian had said before they both introduced themselves and allowed him to grab a seat next to them. After Mordin grabbed a seat the shuttle began to lurch forwards signaling that the shuttle was now taking off and heading straight for the Hammer of the Spirits. As the shuttle unclasped itself from the docking clams its large frame tilted upwards as its afterburners fired sending it out of the Citadel's docking unit and towards the Hierarchy frigate.

While the shuttle made its way out of the docking bay located in the Citadel's Wards Liara looked out the window that was adjacent to her seat and looked out the window at the other ships that were going to and from the docking bay. Almost all of these ships were of civilian make and belonged to a variety of species most of which came from the races that were part of the Citadel government.

But there were even more that belonged to non-Council races such as the Hanar or the Volus. Almost every race had an embassy on the Citadel aside from a few races such as the Quarians, Vorcha, Krogan and the Batarians who had lost their seat after Salarian STG (Special Tasks Group) teams found out that the Batarian government was sponsoring slaving raids in Citadel controlled territory and colonies.

The other ships going to and from the docking bay quickly became smaller as the shuttle gained more distance away from the Citadel docking bays. Eventually even the Citadel itself became a little smaller before the shuttles carrying well over a hundred CERD exploratory staff. The finest minds were brought to bear for this task of exploring this new world that they had found.

Unlike most of the other planets that the Citadel Exploration and Research Department had explored since the ban on activating dormant Mass Relays was lifted five years ago they had encountered only a handful of habitable worlds that had shown any signs of ruins of what was clearly a civilized species. However almost all of them were quickly reported to be Prothean in origin.

These ruins however appeared to be much more recent if the images that had been taken by the CERD probes were anything to go by. But Liara could just as easily be wrong about this. The images were highly distorted and this could end up as just a new group of Prothean ruins or something similar. Despite the possibility of just stumbling onto yet another Prothean ruin Liara didn't really feel that it mattered, either way she'd be exploring and studying ruins from an extinct race.

-Earth, Resistance Base, Armory-

Shepard and Kaidan had returned from their little scouting trip almost eight hours earlier and the two took a well-earned rest upon returning from their mission. After getting some rest Shepard announced to the rest of his team that they'd begin the raid on the outpost in five hours' time. After the announcement had been made everyone scrambled to get everything set up.

Jacob Taylor who had the most engineering experience spent most of the time to prepare making absolutely sure that the truck that they were going to be using for tonight's raid was in perfect working condition. Zaeed Massani, Ashley Williams, Wallace Jenkins and James Vega were already in the armory gearing up for the raid. Their chief medical officer Nicolai "Sev" Shevchenko had already finished packing his first-aid pack and weapons and was waiting for the rest of the team to get ready by the truck.

Although Nicolai was somewhere in his early forties, he had the stamina and endurance of someone almost half his age. Before the Seven Hours War, Nicolai Shevchenko had been studying to become a surgeon and had almost gotten his MD when the Black Mesa Incident occurred and in the events following that horrific forty-eight hour event was caught in the middle of the short war that followed.

Poor old Nicolai was never able to get his medical school degree but he proved to be a more than competent medical officer and soldier when the need arose. Because of his skills and his obvious intense hatred for the Combine for destroying almost everything that he had ever known and loved, the former med student was recruited into the resistance very early on.

Nicolai's story was just one of the countless others that Shepard had heard of before from countless other resistance members. Everyone that stood before Shepard now had lost most if not all of their friends and loved ones during the Seven Hours War or the eighteen years of pure hell that had followed in its wake. Mostly the other resistance fighters preferred not to talk about their pasts, instead they buried the pain and loss they had of their loved ones deep within and kept it hidden as best they could.

It wasn't all bad though, most of the soldiers that were on Shepard's team had seemed to have managed to come to terms with their grief a long time ago and even if they hadn't, they never let it interfere with their work. However at least most of them had something that Shepard never did, closure. They knew that their loved ones were dead and buried in a makeshift cemetery somewhere but Shepard had no idea what had happened to his folks.

After Shepard had, for lack of better terms 'reappeared' into the world he immediately wanted to get into touch with his parents and find out as to whether they were still alive or not. Eventually Shepard managed to get into contact with a resistance cell that was operating in Maine, in the former United States of America. The rebels that were operating there indulged his requests to check it out. When they reported back they said that the entire area was little more than a pile of rubble and that any hope of there being any survivors of the town was pretty much slim to none at the most.

When they checked what was left of Shepard's childhood home they didn't find any bodies or even bones. Every single time that Shepard thought about his parents he wondered what had happened to them. Were their bodies in one of the many mass graves scattered across the world or had they simply been vaporized when a bomb fell on them while they tried to find some semblance of shelter in the slaughter that was the Seven Hours war?

Eventually Shepard accepted the fact that he would probably never know his family's final fate or even where they were buried, that is if there was anything left of them to bury. Instead he focused almost all of his energy into fighting the Combine. Putting those thoughts behind him Shepard grabbed an AK74m that came with an attached underslung grenade launcher and holographic sight.

Shepard almost always carried the same two backup weapons with him. First he had his trusty K-Bar combat knife which had been with him since the beginning of the Black Mesa incident and a desert eagle magnum pistol with attached laser sight. Shepard looked over at the other members of his team and saw what they were equipping themselves with.

Zaeed carried the same weapons that he always carried whenever he went into combat; a Combine pulse rifle and energy sniper along with a 500. Smith and Wesson magnum as a sidearm. Jacob Taylor had already gotten his favorite weapons before going out to check on the truck, a spas12 shotgun and a USP 9mm, the man always did prefer a simpler loadout compared to the rest of them.

Ashley Williams walked over to the nearest gun rack and grabbed a Combine pulse rifle and a USP pistol and a few grenades. She always did prefer a more standard loadout to some of the heavier equipment that they had on hand. James Vega had a SAW in his hands while an AK74m was slung over his shoulder. Jenkins meanwhile grabbed an MP7 (The MP7 is the standard SMG in Half-Life 2) that came with an attached grenade launcher and a spas12 off of the armory walls and started loading the weapons with a rather anxious look on his face. Jenkins was always eager, sometimes even overeager to prove himself. Shepard had tried to get the young resistance fighter to drop that attitude of his because on the battlefield, being overeager got people killed.

After everyone had finished gathering their weapons Shepard called Jacob back into the armory after he had finished checking their vehicle. Shepard then went over the plan of attack. Zaeed and Kaidan would provide overwatch and sniper support from the cliffs as well as take out as many guards as possible while Shepard and the rest of the team save for Jacob and Nicolai, moved and eliminated any remaining hostiles on the outside of the outpost.

Once that part of the plan was finished, the team would continue inside and eliminate any remaining opposition while Jacob drove up with the truck. From there they would proceed to take whatever supplies or Intel that they could get back to the truck and bring it back to base before overwatch response teams showed up. with the mission briefing finished everyone went back to their assigned duties and continued to get ready for the raid. As they did Shepard hoped that everything would go according to plan on this one.

To be continued.