Half-Life the Convergence
Chapter 3
The Precipice
A/N: for those of you who have decided to favorite/follow my story I would truly appreciate it if you could give me some feedback on what you liked about it and what I could do to improve it.
-Earth, Cliffs overlooking Combine Outpost-
Kaiden and Zaeed were perched on a near perfect spot on the cliff that had been used to scout the outpost earlier in the day. Zaeed had just finished setting up his sniper rifle while Kaiden got out a pair of binoculars and began to survey the area. The two rebels had arrived ahead of the rest of the team as they were to set up a sniping position and provide Overwatch for the raiding party.
They had roughly one and a half minutes to get ready for Shepard and the rest of the team's arrival. That was more than enough time for them. Zaeed looked through the scope of the plasma sniper rifle and at the Overwatch troopers that were guarding the small outpost. The sniper and former HECU sergeant looked over at Kaiden who was talking on the radio with the rest of the group. After a few seconds Kaiden said "Okay, got ya" into his radio and gave him a thumbs up, telling Zaeed that everyone was ready to start the raid.
Zaeed aimed his rifle at the nearest Overwatch trooper that was facing away from him. Slowly Zaeed's finger squeezed on the trigger and with a resounding bang a shot of plasma soared out of the barrel of the weapon and into the back of the Overwatch trooper's head. The poor bastard's head exploded in a shower of blood and pieces of bone. In less than a second, every trans-human soldier started looking around to find the source of the shot.
Kaiden pointed out more targets as he looked through his binoculars and less than a second after having them pointed out to him Zaeed opened fire sending more Overwatch troopers to the gates of hell. The ten remaining soldiers managed to get behind cover and were unfortunately smart enough to stay there lest they have their heads blown clean off.
While Zaeed kept his sniper rifle trained on the base in the event any of the Overwatch troopers decided to grow a pair and take a shot at him, he heard the engines of his team's truck roar from the southwest. The truck that they were using was an older model and looked like something that one would end up seeing some old farmer using. The old truck's frame had been reinforced with various pieces of metal that had either been bolted or welded on. This made it look like it was something that had been pieced together at some junkyard, minus the rust of course.
The once open topped cargo compartment of the vehicle, which could hold up to almost twenty people if need be had also been modified. Now it was almost completely covered in the thick yet sleek metals that the Combine employed for some of their buildings, APCs and attack helicopters. On the roof of the cargo compartment there was a hatch that could be used to access a mounted machine gun turret that could be used to take out pursuing hostiles or provide cover for allies.
Once the truck was close enough it stopped even as the combine started to unload rounds from their weapons on the makeshift armored vehicle, all the while Jacob returned enemy fire. The fifty caliber bullets shredded several of the Overwatch troopers that were taking cover behind their APCs and some of their prefab walls. The machine gun that Jacob was using kept the Combine suppressed enough so that Shepard and the rest of the team could exit it without having to worry about being gunned down.
The team spread out and got behind whatever cover they could find and began to open fire on the remaining Overwatch troopers. While the Combine soldiers were still pinned, Shepard signaled for Ashley and Vega to start making their way around their position to flank them while Shepard and Jenkins continued to provide a suppressing fire on the Overwatch soldiers.
With the enemy currently pinned down and unable to try any retaliatory tactics given how they would instantly suffer acute lead poisoning if they tried that, James and Ashley stayed crouched underneath cover, it proved to be relatively easy to make their way around them. Using the rocks for cover they remained undetected by the Overwatch troopers until it was too late. Once they were close enough Vega and Williams tossed a couple of fragmentation grenades over at the enemy barricade.
One of the grenades hit the ground right next to an Overwatch soldier that was crouched behind a thick metal barricade firing at the rebels with his pulse rifle. The grenade landed right when the soldier attempted to reload his weapon, he heard the thump and looked down to see the grenade right at his feet.
The poor bastard barely had enough time to utter "shit!" before the explosive went off, showering the entire area with pieces of armor, blood, guts and pieces of body parts. One of the now deceased Overwatch soldier's comrades looked over to where the grenade had been thrown and started to lay down suppressing fire where Ashley and James were taking cover.
Unfortunately in his attempt to pin down the other humans the trans-human had neglected to notice that Shepard was lining up a shot with his AK74M's underslung grenade launcher. Once the enemy soldier was in his sights Shepard pulled the trigger on the grenade launcher. Less than a second later what was left of the Overwatch trooper's body was sent flying backwards a few meters before finally finding a resting spot near the doors that lead into the outpost.
Jenkins noticed that one of the soldiers was trying to line up a shot at them and quickly lined up his SMG's sights with that of the enemy's chest and let loose with his MP7, sending dozens of bullets loose into the Overwatch trooper's chest and helmeted head. Ordinarily a few shots from an MP7 would be blocked by the body armor that all trans-humans were implanted with, however if one was to keep firing eventually the multitude of impacts from the sub machinegun's bullets would prove to be too much for the armor to take. Eventually after unleashing a full clip, it would simply buckle under the force of the impacts caused by the bullets.
This occurred as several bloody holes appeared on the soldier's chest armor. The Overwatch trooper gave a small death rattle as he fell backwards into the dirt while blood oozed out of the thirty twenty three bullet holes that were in his chest. Once the Overwatch trooper had finished falling back into the ground, the other enemy soldiers renewed their efforts to eliminate the resistance fighters.
Despite the single minded, machine-like efficiency at killing that the Overwatch commonly exhibited they were quickly put down. The Overwatch troopers fell from either well aimed shots from the rebel's own weapons, grenades, or simply through Zaeed's expert marksmanship. After the last member of the Overwatch fell over dead, Nicolai backed up towards the entrance of the outpost with utmost haste.
There was great need to move quickly, the Combine had more than a fair number of battlefield protocols if one of their outposts ever came under attack by hostile forces. One of these protocols was for the internal defenders to call for immediate assistance should their outer defenses become broken and the internal ones were about to be breached. The time it took for the Overwatch to get reinforcements varied, sometimes it only took a few minutes while others took nearly an hour for help to arrive but Shepard and his team weren't ones to tempt fate.
Shepard, Vega, Williams and Jenkins stacked up on opposite sides at the two wooden doors that lead directly into the occupied building. The leader of the team pulled out a small breaching charge and attached it to the two doors before setting the timer on it for ten seconds. This way the rest of the team would have plenty of time to get ready for the breaching operation. The suspense that everyone was feeling made it feel like timer on the charge it was taking several minutes just to go down a single digit even as everyone reloaded their weapons.
Not a few seconds later a loud boom filed the air and the dual doors that were just a few feet in front were blown inwards. Shepard and the rest of his team rushed inside the building and began to open fire on any trans-human they could see. The instant that Shepard stepped inside the entrance to the outpost it felt like everything was moving in slow motion.
The commander of the group of rebels raised his AK's sights up to the nearest Overwatch trooper who was standing behind a hastily put together barricade that was little more than a table that had been flipped over. A five round burst left the weapon's barrel and slammed straight into the Overwatch soldier's upper torso and head before the bullets exited the other side of his body. The force of the impact made the now dead soldier fall backwards onto the floor with a dull thud.
Shepard paid the now deceased threat no mind and instead focused on another soldier that also seemed to be moving in slow motion. Another five round burst came out of Shepard's rifle. This time three of the commander's bullets impacted the former human's face while two impacted the wall behind the soldier.
Vega meanwhile let loose with his squad automatic weapon on the nearby Overwatch troopers. The cover that the soldiers were using were shredded to the point where several of them fell to splintery pieces. The soldiers on the other hand, had so many bullet's impacting their bodies that a few actually flew back a couple of feet from the impact. One of the dead Overwatch soldiers impacted the wall and slowly slid downwards with a large trail of blood following in its wake.
Soon the firefight ended, with the guards now dead on the floor with Shepard and his team standing over their corpses. Dark red, almost black blood began to pool beneath their corpses but Shepard's team paid it no real mind. They had seen this kind of thing hundreds of times before now and thus corpses of their enemies didn't really even phase the rebels.
It was now that Shepard got a decent look inside the outpost. What used to be a convenience store was now little more than just several combine terminals that were lined up against the wall and a fenced off area that held a mother lode of ammunition and other supplies that the rebels could really use.
There was medi-gel, a Combine medical creation, which was able to clean whatever wound someone had sustained and was also able to speed up the healing process to near inhuman levels. In fact some wounds would be completely good as new within a few hours, but more serious could take up to several days if one had an I.V. filled with medi-gel on hand.
It was a truly amazing piece of medical technology that had, almost ironically, saved the life of many a rebel several times over despite its original intention to be used only on soldiers loyal to the Combine. Hell Shepard probably would have ended up dead at least a couple of times if it weren't for that stuff.
Shepard walked over to the fenced off portion of the inside of the outpost and saw a heavy padlocked gate. At least they wouldn't have to deal with Combine security fields today. Over the past few years the Combine had steadily been replacing certain doors with energy barriers that were more commonly referred to as security fields.
These energy barriers were able to let inorganic matter through but any organic matter not converted by the Combine was unable to move through it. Shepard didn't really know how the security fields worked and quite frankly he didn't give a damn. The absence of a security field just meant that they would have to spend less time trying to hack into the terminal the fields were connected to and more time loading up supplies.
Shepard shot out the lock with his rifle and kicked open the chain linked door. The four resistance fighters ran inside and began taking whatever would prove useful to them and began to put them into the rucksacks they had been carrying. The stuff that had been put into containers or rates that were too big to be put into their rucksacks would need to be taken to the truck separately.
Shepard started to gather up as much ammunition as he could find and placed it into his rucksack. The vast majority of the ammunition he picked was actually for the pulse rifle. The primary reason for this was that there were many in the resistance that had taken quite the shine to the Combine Overwatch weapon.
It was a reliable weapon, the ammo was relatively plentiful, the primary fire was able to cut through most body armor in just a few shots and the dark energy ball launcher that was mounted underneath the primary barrel could literally vaporize just about anyone who was unlucky enough to get hit by it.
It was a pretty damn sweet weapon Shepard had to admit but he still preferred his AK74M over the pulse rifle simply because it was somewhat lighter and each magazine for the AK was able hold more ammo than the pulse rifle could. The magazines for the weapon were also pretty big so it was very difficult to carry more than just three or four at a time. However the pulse rifle was an incredibly accurate weapon in almost any condition and had a minimal amount of recoil despite its moderately high rate of fire, which made up for some of the design flaws that came with using the weapon.
Soon Shepard had filled his rucksack up to the brim with ammunition for their weapons. Eventually the clips that Shepard and his men didn't need would be given to another resistance unit which ran supplies for other cells operating in the area. He turned to look at his comrades and saw that they were about done as well with filling up their rucksacks.
Adrian Shepard looked over at the base's primary generator for a moment before he turned to look at Vega and signaled him to get out his explosives. Vega all but grinned at the order and pulled out a couple of packs of C4 from his backpack and walked over to the generator before putting them all right in the corner of the room right beside the small generator that was powering the outpost.
Shepard keyed the mike on his radio and spoke into it "Zaeed, Kaiden we're done here, get yourselves back to base, but keep out of sight," the leader of the rebel team ordered. Ordinarily Shepard would have had them get into the truck with the rest of the squad but the cliffs that overlooked the outpost were very steep and they didn't have any climbing equipment. This little fact forced Kaiden and Zaeed to walk back to base as there wasn't' enough time for them to find a way down.
Just a few moments later Shepard got a response from the team's resident sharpshooter, "Got it Shepard, and don't worry we'll be home before dinner." Shepard rolled his eyes at that comment and just reminded the two of them to make sure they made it back to the base in one piece and not to go picking any fights if they were to happen upon any hostiles on the way back to base.
With that out of the way, the commander and the other members of his team exited the Overwatch outpost, their rucksacks had been filled to the brim with various supplies that would be distributed to all nearby rebel cells operating the area. Unlike what many thought, this resistance force wasn't as disorganized as the Combine had believed. The rebels actually used an intercontinental communications network similar to what the Combine Overwatch used to give and receive orders to one another.
This made the resistance able to form coordinated raids and assaults all over the world while still making it appear to be random raids and attacks to the Combine. So far this was working as Breen didn't seem to be taking them all that seriously when he actually spoke of the rebels.
He called them "A band of poorly equipped, poorly led and utterly misguided fools who refuse to evolve along with the rest of humanity." If only he knew the full truth of it Breen would probably have had the Overwatch redouble their efforts to find and eliminate the rebels.
Of course this worked right in the resistance's favor as they had continued to gather weapons, vehicles, ammo and other supplies over the past twenty years in preparation to retake their home world. Shepard and his team had been doing there part as well, hitting Combine military bases and outposts and taking whatever weapons and equipment they could get their hands on. After they got what they came for they would destroy what they couldn't take with them.
Shepard and the others quickly climbed aboard the truck. It would only be a matter of time before Overwatch finally figured out what had happened to their little outpost so it was important to move as quickly as they could. Vega looked at the outpost with a blank expression on his face before he produced a small detonator and a sly grin suddenly appeared on his face, it was now time for one of his favorite parts of any mission that involved explosives.
"Five, four, three, two, one," Vega then flipped the switch on the detonator, causing the charges that had been placed earlier to detonate. Less than a moment later the building went up in a fiery explosion. Normally a couple of C4 charges wouldn't do so much damage to something like that outpost but the generators that Overwatch liked to use, were actually quite volatile. This was the reason that Overwatch liked to keep them so well armored to the point where only explosives like C4 could do any real damage to them.
The leader of the rebels looked over at his teammates and gave a small smile. Like any decent soldier Adrian Shepard loved it whenever there was a successful mission without a single casualty on their side. Shepard reluctantly allowed himself to relax in his seat, soon they'd be back to the old building they called home and they would all be on high alert for several hours while the Combine Overwatch investigated what had happened to their outpost.
Despite this though, everyone felt a rush of accomplishment come over them. They had met the enemy on the field of battle and had emerged victorious without losing a single one of their number. And that was something to be proud of.
-Turian Frigate, Hammer of the Spirits, Bridge-
Captain Jerek Vyrnnus, commander of the Hammer of the Spirits was looking over his subordinates on the bridge of his ship with a neutral look. It had only been a few hours since the frigate had left the Citadel and according to the navigational officer of the ship it would be at least another hour before they finally reached the newly discovered system. Captain Vyrnnus looked over his subordinates once again, two crewmen were talking about something trivial that was in no way related to their duties.
Not wasting a moment Vyrnnus called out to them and ordered the pair and ordered them to stop dawdling and to get back to their posts, to which both complied without hesitation. Although most of the crew were exhibiting the professionalism that was expected of them, it was clear that almost all of them were either bored or annoyed with what was going on with this assignment.
Vyrnnus couldn't find it in himself to truly blame them all that much. They weren't even supposed to be taking part in this security detail. Originally the Hammer was supposed to be heading back out on patrol near the edge of the Traverse with the rest of the Twenty Second Patrol Fleet, but an officer had reassigned them to this babysitting job.
There were however a minority who were a bit concerned by their new mission. First of all there were three Spectres aboard his ship. What were three of the deadliest soldiers available to the council doing out here for on what was supposed to be a purely CERD sponsored archeological expedition?
It didn't make much sense to Vyrnnus, unless there was some sort of an ulterior motive for their presence other than the official explanation of keeping the expedition safe.
When it gad beeb announced that three Spectres would be accompanying them, theories as to why they were on the ship began cropping up all over the ship. Many of these ranged from somewhat reasonable explanations to downright idiotic conspiracy theories brought on by someone who had far too much time on their hands.
Another concern was that of the location of the area of space they were heading into. Sure as far as they knew Relay 314 wasn't near any known pirate or terrorist base as it wasn't located near any of the major shipping lanes. Beyond the relay however no comm. buoys had been set up as of yet. As a result, once they were through Relay 314 they were effectively on their own.
The ship that they were using wasn't made to set up comm. buoys and Vyrnnus had been told that they would receive a small relief force in a couple of months after they had entered the system, which would then set up comm. buoys. Vyrnnus had no real clue as to why in the hell they couldn't just send in another ship that was made to set up some damned communications buoys.
When the good captain had broached this topic with his commanding officers, reasoning that it would put them in additional risk as they wouldn't be able to call anyone for help should something go wrong.
All they said was that "All available units that were assigned to set up comm. buoys were unavailable in that area and would remain unavailable for quite a while." Apparently there was a small but noticeable buildup of Batarian ships on the edge of the Traverse and it had been making someone high up in the Hierarchy rather nervous.
Although captain Vyrnnus had complete confidence in his crew's abilities, he still couldn't help but worry, if something, anything were go wrong down there or on his ship, they would be completely cut off for at least two full months. Before his superiors had told the captain to drop the issue, Vyrnnus had attempted to try and convince his superiors to either wait until the comm. buoys were set up or at for the exploration team to have additional support in the form of at least two more frigates.
Unfortunately though, his protests his protests had fallen on deaf ears. His commanding officers informed him that due to the buildup of ships on the borders they needed to put all of their patrol fleets along that section of space on alert. They also stated that they needed this mission to be completed immediately and that they didn't have time to wait for the buoys to be put into place.
Everything about this mission left a very strange feeling in his body. It was the exact same kind of feeling that Vyrnnus had felt during a routine patrol near one of the colonies that bordered the Terminus systems. The patrol fleet had reported nothing during their week long patrol of the system until the very last day where a small fleet of "rogue" (according to the Batarian government anyways) Batarian naval ships came dropped out of FTL and opened fire on the Turian vessels.
In the ensuing surprise attack the Batarians had managed to destroy several of the Turian ships before they managed to drive off the attackers. Although the battle was won and the "rogue" Batarian ships were either destroyed or driven back into FTL from where they had come from, the Turians had suffered losses on their side as well. Even the Hammer of the Spirits did not go unscathed and it had taken well over a month to get the ship up and running at peak condition again, and to replace the crewmen who had been lost during the skirmish.
Vyrnnus shook himself from those thoughts and instead decided that it would be for the best if he were to focus more on his duties rather than the feeling of foreboding that had been spreading throughout his body.
-Turian Frigate, Hammer of the Spirits, observation lounge-
For the past several hours Liara T'Soni had for the most part, stayed inside the quarters that had been assigned to her after she and the other members of the expedition had boarded the ship. The Asari Maiden had been reorganizing her notes and her thoughts in regards to this new world that she and so many others would be exploring over the next couple of months.
It was difficult for her to contain her excitement. She would be one of the first people from the CERD to be part of an expedition into unknown space since, the war with the Rachni at least. From this point forward Liara would be making history just as much as she would be uncovering it.
The very thought of something so incredible made Liara shake with excitement. For the young Asari there was nothing quite like the joy of discovery. To find something that hadn't been seen or even heard of before, there were no words that could truly describe it. Eventually though she ran out of notes to organize and seeing as how there wasn't much else to do, she decided to take a look around the ship, or at least the parts that civilians were allowed access to.
Soon Liara found herself in the observation deck along with several other members of the expedition crew looking out through the windows to the endless expanse of stars outside. Normally Turian military and some civilian ships minimized the usage of windows as they were a structural weakness in starships so one of the architects who designed this particular type of frigate with a few innovations. Outside of the windows of the frigate were a series of shutters that in the event of an emergency, would roll down to completely cover the windows to provide the same level of protection that the standard hull gave the ship.
It was quite the innovative idea and one that made a lot of the crew and guests aboard the ship head there during their downtime to go and marvel at the endless expanse of stars. Liara, despite having seen the expanse of space many, many times during her life, she was still just as awed when she looked out and saw the vastness of space as when she had first seen it when she was but a child. During FTL (faster than light) the view was even more beautiful. It was a mix of colors that kept changing, combining and then separating (I can't really remember what looking out the window of a ship looked like during FTL so just roll with this okay).
The observation deck was pretty much deserted aside from some of the crewmembers and CERD personnel, many of whom were sitting down at their tables, talking with one another. Most of the individuals Liara didn't recognize but that mattered little to her, she wasn't really there to socialize. Instead she was simply there to get lost in the view for a while before the ship finally exited FTL and arrived at its destination.
As Liara walked over to one of the tables that wasn't being used by anyone, she felt lightheaded. Instinctively Liara put her hand on her forehead and closed her eyes for a second before reopening them. When she opened up her eyes again, the universe had frozen in place. The people who were chatting with one another were no longer moving at all. Goddess they weren't even breathing, instead they were completely still like statues. Even the lightshow that FTL was giving off was no longer moving or anything.
Liara began to panic as questions began to enter her mind with near FTL speeds: 'What happened?', 'How is this possible?' and 'is this some kind of hallucination or am I dreaming?' Just as the young Asari maiden began to ask herself these questions a strange voice that was speaking in perfect Thessian spoke into her mind;
"Do, not worry, Misssss, T'Soni, I simply wished to speak with you alone for a moment." The voice was masculine she could tell that much but it had an unnatural feel to it, as though the individual speaking knew the words but had a difficult time saying them, like he knew the language but not how to properly speak it. "W-who, what are you?" Liara asked trying to keep the fear out of her voice but failed.
"Who I am issss of no real imporrrtance, however my employersss are of imporrrtance. They are very much interessssted in you as well as some of your new…acquaintances. For the time being I will function as little more than an observer as per my inssstructions from my employersss, but I will intervene in some sssituations, should certain…thresholds, be reached. For now though, I recommend that you…prepare for unforeseen consequences."
Liara blinked and when she opened her eyes again it seemed that reality finally had finally gone back to normal, with no one save for a certain Asari knowing that something strange had just occurred a few moments earlier.
Liara mulled over the strange voice's words for a few terse moments before the ship's PA system activated and snapped her out of her thoughts "This is captain Vyrnnus, all expedition personnel please report to the hanger immediately. I repeat, all expedition personnel are to report to the hanger at once!"
It seemed as though this little mystery would have to wait a while, for now Liara had to get to the hanger bay of the ship.
To be continued
A/N: sorry that this took so long but college courses take priority but i'll try to crank out more chapters if I can but I'm not going to promise anything.
