4/29/2210
Frantically Daron threw his hand forward, bellowing with pain and frustration as he threw a biotic attack at the closest of the encircling husks. As a result of his failing strength coupled with not having enough time to bring the full force of his power to bare, the rusting assault managed little more then knock the husk flat on its back less than a yard away.
The next husk was on him then, its claws digging long deep gashes across his face as he dodged too slow. Drawing one of his combat knives in a backhanded grip, the mercenary plunged the blade into the husk's face, shoving the thing away with a growl as he twisted and tore the weapon free. Spinning just in time he grabbed hold of another husk's hand as it shot for his throat. He hacked at the arm with his knife, biotics flaring as he doubled the force of the attack so that the blade severed all the way through flesh and bone.
Suddenly a hard grip took hold of him from behind, a husk having managed to get behind him while he had been fighting off others. He yelped in pain as clawed fingers dug into his shoulder, managing to pierce through his skin like it was tissue paper. The creature pulled him back, sending him tumbling to the ground.
Before he could react two husks let loose shrieking cries as they pounced at him with sharp teeth bared. He snapped a booted foot up, catching one of the beasts in the stomach and sending it staggering back. Claws painfully dug into his shoulder as the other husk was upon him, its head shooting forward as it attempted to tear out his throat. Right as the husk got within an inch of his exposed neck, the mercenary buried his knife into the thing's chest. The husk hissed in what seemed like pain as it threw itself back, the sudden movement tearing the knife stuck in it from Daron's grasp.
Shaking with a mix of fear and absolute panic, the biotic shoved himself to his feet, staggering back as he drew his pistol and dropped the husk at his rear. The gun barked once, twice, and three times as he fired into the horde of husks, three falling as the high powered rounds entered their skulls. Before he could fire a fourth time a husk lashed out, the blow sending the weapon spinning from his grasp.
Before Daron could even react the husk lunged at him, the things outstretched palm connecting with his forehead. The second the creature made contact, Daron felt an icy pain shoot through him, every fiber of his being seized with a tight pain as if electricity was arcing through him. Inky black shadows fell over his mind as long remembered pain reverberated in his skull.
He remembered a wave of red light flashing before his vision as pain shot through his implants as if they had turned to molten metal. A thousand horrible, alien voices rose up in a deafening cries of complete agony. He felt himself scream as the pain grew by the second, the feel of many minds touching his and tearing away at his very soul before they vanished into nothingness.
Wracked by aftershocks of phantom pain, Daron crumpled to the ground. His vision flashed and blurred as his head struck the unyielding surface below. Get up dammit, get up, a voice shouted inside his head, frantically urging him to move. Obeying the commands, the mercenary struggled to move only to find his body unresponsive to his commands.
He froze as he saw the silhouette of a husk enter his vision, the grotesque creature looming over him. The thing let out a snarling cry as it drew a clawed hand back to strike
So this is how I die, Daron thought to himself as the husk's hand descended towards him, time seeming to slow to a crawl. Never thought I would die to those things, not now.
The husk's head exploded into a shower of gore as a sound like thunder echoed through the cavern. Stunned, Daron watched as the husk tumbled sideways, its headless form landing with a splat next to him.
Two more echoing bangs reverberated throughout the cavern, each followed by a faint thud of a husk's body striking the ground, intermixed with the sound of footsteps against metal. With an almost insurmountable effort Daron turned his head in the direction of the sound, his gaze falling upon his rescuer.
At the end of the bridge stood a familiar shape, wisps of smoke curling out from the barrel of the shotgun held in the blurry figures grasp. When his eyes cleared a little more, he watched the quarian Ria as she in one smooth motion ejected a spent thermal clip and slapped in a fresh one. A sharp click sounded as she finished and she brought the weapon into a firing position.
"Alright you bastards, I know you can't understand me but here's the deal. Get the hell of away from my crewmate!" the quarian snapped in a commanding tone, her luminous eyes narrowing behind her faceplate.
The remaining husk let out snarling cries in response to the newly arrived quarian's command, seeming to have momentarily forgotten the wounded and dazed mercenary as they leapt at her with claws and teeth bared. As the snarling mass charged, Daron was surprised to see that Ria held her ground; seeming unaffected by the swarm encircling her with deadly intent.
. . . . .
Ria waited until the the husks were only a few feet away before squeezing the trigger of her shotgun, the tight group of rounds caught a husk full force in the chest. Moving before the first husk had even hit the floor, she fired her shotgun twice more; the weapon barking as it blasted away two more of the creatures.
The gun now empty, the quarian didn't miss a beat as she tossed the weapon aside, ducking under a sweeping claw that passed through the air her head had occupied moments before. Drawing the knife strapped to her boot, Ria snapped her hand forward, plunging the blade into the thing's skull.
As the husk fell with the knife still embedded in its forehead, Ria grabbed a small round object from her belt. With a flick of her wrist the quarian threw it over the attacking horde to land a few yards behind. The thing bounced once before it froze in mid air, a gold and white holographic shell forming around it as the combat drone activated. "Go get em, Tikkun"
Drawing her father's vindicator, the quarian opened fire on the husks even as bursts of electricity unleashed by her drone arced between then. Caught between the two, the half a dozen remaining husks were quickly vanquished. As the last beast fell riddled with bullet holes, silence fell once more over the cavern.
"Good work Tikkun" Ria smiled, extending a hand out towards the drone. The brilliantly glowing orb shot towards her a second later, hovering above her hand before deactivating, dropping onto her upward facing palm.
Pocketing the drone, Ria turned her attention to Daron. While none of the mercenary's wounds appeared particularly life threatening, at a glance, the quarian could tell that he was still not in good shape. The human bled from a half a dozen deep claw-wounds across his face and arms. From the Mercenary's half closed eyes and distant-gaze; Ria guessed he had sustained a concussion or at least some other kind of head injury.
Making her way over to the man, Ria knelt down and extended a hand to the biotic. "Daron, get up... now! There's probably going to be more of those things, and I need your help."
Groggily the biotic took her grasp, and with an effort Ria hauled the man to his feet. "You okay?"
"Ya, thanks." Daron said with a cough, shaking his head to clear it. "Where are the other two."
"I don't know." Ria said, worry filling her as she looked back the way she had come. "They were fighting a group of husks last time I saw them, but they should have been able to handle it by now."
Both Ria and Daron froze as a chorus of shrieking cries echoed throughout the cavern, the screeches soon followed by the sound of a dozen hands and feet scraping against stone and metal. Rushing to the edge of the bridge, Ria saw that husks had begun pooling into the lower levels of the cavern and even as she looked on were beginning to scramble towards the pillars leading up to the platform she and Daron now stood on.
"Dammit!" Ria spat, spinning around to face the mercenary. "We need to go, now!"
The human biotic didn't respond, standing utterly still as more screeches echoed out. While his face was twisted in a grimace, Ria saw that the man's eyes were wide and filled with unmistakable fear. Seeing the normally unshakeable mercenary frozen in terror shocked the quarian.
"Snap out of it! I can't fight them on my own!" Ria shouted at the biotic, grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking him. This seemed to have little effect, the man glancing at her briefly before squeezing his eyes shut and turning his gaze away.
Cursing, Ria turned away and glanced down at the encircling husks, panic filling her as she saw that they were already scaling the pillars leading towards them. Spinning around, she gazed down the hallways she had come down, seeing no sign of movement. Ancestors, where is Tarran and Core! They shouldn't be taking this long. Ria knew that if they didn't arrive soon, she would need Daron's help if she was to have any chance of surviving this. Frantically, Ria spun back to the mercenary. "Daron, you bosh'tet. Snap out of it!"
Once more he did not respond to her orders, his shoulders shaking as more husk cries echoed throughout the cavern. Now desperate and out of ideas, Ria's fingers curled into a fist and on impulse she punched the biotic full in the face.
In hindsight the decision to punch Daron had probably been an incredibly stupid one, but at this point she had a million other things the worry about. In the wake of her punch the fear and panic in the biotic's eyes gave way to a look of surprise that quickly turned to rage. The human's mouth twisted into a snarl as his biotics flared up around him and before she knew it Ria found herself wrenched half of foot off the ground as the mercenary's hand seized hold of her throat.
"What the hell was that for" The mercenary growled, his teeth clenched with barely contained fury.
Just then Ria caught movement in the corner of her eye, her gaze darting over to the ledge just in time to see that the first handful of husks had begun to pull themselves up over the edge.
"Get angry later! Kill husks now!" Ria replied quickly, the biotic snapping his gaze towards the approaching creatures.
The anger in Daron's eyes fled at the sight of the approaching husk, replaced by a wide eyed look of panic as he released his biotic grip upon her; the quarian falling to her hands and knees as she caught herself. For a split second, Ria feared that the biotic would freeze up again, but to the man's credit he held his ground; dark energy swirling around him as he turned to face the charging creature.
With a snarl, Daron threw a trio of husks back; the things disappearing from sight as they fell over the lip of the bridge. Immediately the mercenary attacked again, a husk appeared torn from the inside out as as result of the biotic field the mercenary manifested inside of it.
Not wasting anymore time, Ria clawed for her assault rifle and scrambled to her feet. She brought the weapon up just in time, putting a burst of rounds into a charging husk when it was less than a foot away. Without skipping a beat Ria unloaded her remaining clip into the mass of enemies surrounding them.
Again and again husks flung themselves at the duo, and again and again brought low by hails of gunfire or biotic attacks. Despite their efforts a new husk appeared to replace each the creatures that fell to lay among the growing piles of vanquished foes.
"We can't keep this up, there are too many" Ria shouted as she frantically reloading her rifle. Popping off single burst that caught a lunging husk in the face, the quarian continued. "Can't you hit them all at once or something?!"
"I can't, tapped out." Daron growled through clenched teeth, the reply morphing into a strained cry as he threw another husk back. Only then did Ria notice how utterly spent the mercenary appeared, sweat drenching his hair and face and movement shaky as if he was about the collapse at any moment.
"Well, we're in trouble then." Ria replied faintly, her heart sinking as more and more husk closed in around them.
Suddenly there was a buzzing, staticy noise as a overload struck a group of husks, the creatures writhing and spasming as the wave of electricity rolled through them. Even as the tech based assault faded, three thunderous shots echoed out one after another, dropping three husks with almost mechanical efficiency.
Ria tore her eyes away from the attackers for a split second just in time to see Tarran and Core charge into sight. Both appeared battered and bruised, cobalt blue blood seeping through a gashes on Tarran's arms and face, while the geth was covered in varying degrees of dents and scratches.
Reloading in a smooth motion as he came to a halt, Tarran loosed another hail of rapid shots into the swarm of husks and a chunk of them broke away from Ria and Daron to turn their attention to the newcomers.
Coming to a stop besides him, Core deployed a small automated turret that at once began tearing into the attacking creatures with a barrage of super-heated plasma.
With the moment of breathing room granted by the geth and turian's arrival, Ria once more retrieved her inert combat drone from the pouch on her belt and tossed it into the center of the mass of husks. "Lets go Tikkun, once more!"
Between the combined fire of Ria, Core, and Tarran's weapons, the geth turret, her drone, and Daron's biotics it didn't take them long to cut down the remaining husks
Ria lowered her weapon as the last husk fell. "Took you two long enough." She said, breathing heavily
"Would have been here faster, but someone had to run ahead and leave us to deal with the horde of husks." Tarran replied in a sarcastic tone that slowly became of more weary one. "Seriously Ria, if you're going to try something like that again, warn me."
"Sorry, I didn't really think about what I was doing, I just did.". The quarian answered. On reflex she raised a forearm to wipe the sweat beading her brow. only for her hand to bounce of the faceplate of her helmet. Heh, already over a month off Rannoch and I still haven't gotten use to completely suited life. Ria mused, somehow finding the thought incredibly amusing despite the currently predicament she was now in.
"So, now that the whole team is present, are we going to try and get out of here before more space zombies try and kill us; or continue on with foolhardy stubbornness?" Tarran asked. Even as he rested his rifle lazily against his shoulder, the turian still appeared alert.
"Is that even a question? Think about who you are talking to." Ria said with a forced smile. "I'm not about to let some cheap horror vid monsters stop me."
"Foolhardy stubbornness it is, wonderful." Tarran sighed. "How do our resources look? I have a few proximity mines and handful of clips left, you three?"
"I got two grenades left, plus enough thermals for a few more firefights." Ria answered. "I also still have Tikkun, but he's only got enough power left for about a minute if we need him in a fight."
"This unit still possess a sufficient number of thermal clips for continued combat operations as well. However, power on deployable turrets is only marginally less limited that your drone, creator-Shepard."
Ria nodded before turning to the fourth member of the squad. "Daron, what about you?"
"I... I'm drained, simple as that." The mercenary replied hesitantly, appearing to be having trouble acknowledging his weakened and vulnerable state. "I'm not sure how much more I have in me when it comes to biotics."
Ria's mind raced as she attempted to think up an alternative to using biotics to keep the creatures at bay, but ultimately only had two options. She started moving further down the bridge and the rest of the team cautiously followed as she concentrated. She could either do a running firefight deeper into the complex and try to just run past them, or retreat. Neither option was ideal, but she was running out of time.
The bridge soon ran into a large elevator shaft that went deeper into the facility, but the lift she called was still at the bottom, making them wait in a nervous semi circle with heads swiveling. She knew they could probably hold out on ammo if they did a running firefight, but the odds of an injury rose substantially if they couldn't move up methodically and were forced into a run. She had learned these tactics well from her father, but she knew there was a time that only the risky strategies could succeed.
The lift finally arrived and pinged loudly as the doors slid open and they moved inside, and she slapped the button for the bottom floor. the elevator ground it's way down slowly and uneventfully, and her crew prepared themselves for a fight as they neared the lowest reaches.
No sooner had they reached the bottom of the lift than a dozen overlapping screeches rose up, echoing down from passages ahead.
"Keelah, how many more of them are there!?" Ria spat, as she spun to face the direction of the sound.
"Given that the source of the human husks are the remnants of the previous expeditions to these ruins, their numbers can be no more than 100." Core answered, the geth's voice as unshakably calm as always.
"Sure, thats very helpful considering half of these husks are protheans" Tarran noted dryly.
"This is correct, our estimate was only of those created from human corpses. We will need more data before we can predict how many husks in total inhabit the facility." The geth answered, turning his single glowing optic towards the direction of the sound.
"I know this is interesting, but shouldn't we not stand around like a bunch of damned idiots?" Daron growled, his eyes widening as more husk cried echoed around them.
"I have to agree. We need to move!" Ria shouted, a hint of panic creeping into her voice as the sound drew closer. "Core, now that the powers back, can you access the base's computer systems?"
"We already have creator-Shepard. According to the files we have just accessed, this facility was a weapons research lab. In addendum, records indicate that there is a vault on this level of the facility containing a variety of experimental technology." Core answered, as he spoke the geth's glowing optic dimming as he downloaded data from the prothean computer system.
"Which way?" Tarran asked.
"The main passage is to the left of us. It is approximately one-ninth of a mile between here and the vault."
Without delay the four set of down the hallway Core indicated at a full sprint. As the ran they heard more cries far off behind them, drawing steadily closer by the second.
Ria feared they would be overtaken, but at last the end of the hallway come into sight. Huge doors of a strange green-grey metal blocked their path, glowing lines in its surface casting a harsh red light. They came to a halt not far from the door and Core ran ahead towards it's control panel, wrenching off the exterior and beginning his hack.
"How long is it going to take?" Ria asked anxiously, glancing back over her shoulder as the sound of the mass of encroaching husks continued to draw closer.
Core was silent for several heartbeats before answering. "Unknown."
"Wonderful" Ria groaned, turning so that she faced the way they had come. "Looks like we are going to have to hold here for as long as we can. Tarran, I need you to set every proximity mine as far out as you can. Don't go too far out though, if you see the husks, fall back to us."
"Got it" The turian replied, sprinting off a ways down the hallway.
"Daron, I need you to hold back on using your biotics unless absolutely necessary. Once we get the vault open we'll need everything you have left if we're going to fight our way out." Daron nodded and breathed heavily, trying to calm himself. "Core, I want a status report on progress every minute."
"Affirmative."
Tarran returned a few moments later, having placed half a dozen proximity mines along the hallway a few yards back. "Done. I'd suggest we duck when those freaks reach the surprise I left for them."
Just then a swarm of husks came into sight, sprinting down the hallway and barreling past the small flickering lights that were the charges he'd set. "Spirits be damned." Tarran suited his previous words and ducked as a loud beep echoed over the creatures howls.
They were pelted with chips of stone and covered in a haze of ancient dust as the hallway shook in the wake of the mines' explosion. The hallway was deathly quiet for a long moment, and for a second she thought that was all there was, but again the howls came from further back as the horde kept coming closer.
"Core, status!"
"The allotted time of one minute has not yet-"
"Core!"
"Approximately forty five seconds!" His mechanical voice was tinged with a note of annoyance at her insistence, but she was too focused on the other end of the hallway. Hefting the vindicator to her shoulders she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled it like Zaeed has shown her all those long years ago just as the first husks sprinted in.
Her team opened fire, keeping the approaching horde at the opening and trying to negate their advantage of numbers. Time felt like it was crawling as more and more husks got past the hallway entrance, each time getting closer and closer to their position.
"Done!" Core announced as the the vault doors inched open with a creaking sound.
"Go! Everyone get inside!" Ria ordered, backing into the room behind her even as she continued firing upon the encroaching foes. When the last of her team was inside, Ria grabbed her last frag grenade from her belt and tossed it into the wave of husks just a Core slammed the doors shut with a wave of his omni-tool. There was a muted boom as the grenade detonated, followed shortly after by a thud as the husks slammed into the door outside.
Ria slumped in exhaustion against the vault door, and she noted the rest of her squad doing the same. Only once she had caught her breath did Ria begin taking in her surroundings. They were in a small room lined with shelves ladened with an assortment of strange alien devices, few of which took recognizable forms.
"Grab anything that looks useful, anything that could help us get out of this mess." Ria ordered, stepping forward to examine the contents of the vault. She ran her long fingers over a dusty pyramid shaped item near her that sat on a desk and activated her comm channel to her crew topside.
"Ria to Laura, we need assistance. We are trapped in the vault room at the bottom of the complex by husks, I repeat, husks." She waited a moment for a response but got only static. Cursing under her breath, she knew why that was.
Of course it doesn't work this far down. too much interference from all that stone above us. Not to mention whatever else might be broadcasting down here.She frowned behind her helmet for a moment as she thought about that, and shivered at the implications of being stuck in this room.
The reapers used indoctrination as their weapon, and if these husks are still active, then so could whatever turned them. She suddenly wished fervently that she'd paid more attention to her father's stories about indoctrination.
Just then Ria noticed that the room seemed centered around a particular shelf at the far end, and all the lights were turned towards it as if to point out its importance. Drawing closer she saw an object sitting atop the shelf that perfectly matched the description Liara had given her of a prothean Code-Matrix. It was was a small cube of a crystalline material about twice as large as her fist that seemed to shimmer with its own light. At its core was a sphere of a silvery material like molten metal that seemed to morph and fluctuate in size even as she gazed upon it.
When Ria finished admiring the matrix, she looked up and around for her squad. Her eyes fell on Tarran first, who was rummaging through a moldy old box and coughing, before he came up with a triumphant grin and a massive weapon in both hands. it was immediately obvious what it was, as it had a large barrel at the front, and easy handles on both top and bottom along with a trigger on it's underside.
"Oh yes, This is now my favorite gun on the citadel!" Tarran grinned as he looked the weapon over with an excited gleam in his eyes.
"Creator-Shepard?" Ria tore her gaze away from Tarran's find to look at Core, who stood over a metallic crate and holding up a circular object for her to see.
"What is that Core?"
"We believe these to be grenades, due to the amount within and the volatile symbols along the container. This hypothesis is... theoretical, at best."
Ria nodded. "It can't hurt to try them anyways, given how many husks we're going to be dealing with." Turning her attention back to the code-matrix. The quarian began to move to pick up the device, but then stopped suddenly as hesitation gripped her. She half expected that picking up the device would trigger some sort of automated defenses or boobytrap. Working up her courage, the quarian's hand shot forward, her eyes squeezing shut as her fingers closed around the device.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened, much to the young quarian's relief. Moving slowly and carefully, Ria lifted the prothean artifact up from its shelf, and carefully dropped it into reinforced and padded bag that was slung over her shoulder that had been brought for the very purpose of transporting the artifact.
Moving away from the shelf Ria turned to the prospect of their escape. Going over their options in her head, Ria found the possibility of making it to the surface unlikely at best. The only clear option was to hit the husks head on and hope they could shoot a path out. That heavy weapon Tarran found definitely helps, but firepower can only go so far. We are simply too outnumbered. Still, its either give up or try anyways; and I can't give up without a fight.
Shaking away these doubts, Ria turned to address her team."We got what we came for; time to bust our way out. Grab anything else here thats small enough the carry. I wish we could take all of it, but we can't afford to be weighed down." Ria ordered. "Core, get ready to open the vault on my signal."
"Affirmative"
While her team began searching the vault for any remaining artifacts that looked useful, Ria stooped down next to the crate Core had open. Retrieving a handful of the "grenades". She pocketed all but one, which she kept grasped in her hand as she stood.
As she waited for her team to get into positions and stop scrounging, a shelf around head height caught her attention directly beside her. It was mostly empty except for a small rounded and circular metal disc, it was like a cross between her Aunt Liara's prothean data disks and the human pastry her father had called a donut. It looked light and it was certainly small enough to justify taking so on impulse she snatched it off the shelf and stuffed it into a pocket on her suit.
Moving into position in from of the door, she passed the grenade from hand to hand anxiously, waiting until all of her team had their weapons trained on the door. Retrieving her vindicator from where it was slung against her back, Ria help it at her side as she prepared to throw the "grenade" the second the vault reopened.
"You guys ready?" Ria asked.
"Hopelessly outnumbered and high chance of gruesome death? Sounds like our kind of party." Tarran smirked, shouldering the prothean rifle he had taken.
"Good to hear" Ria replied with a small smile at her friend's confidence. Narrowing her eyes, Ria turned all her focus on the closed vault door. "Core, on my mark...MARK!"
With a creaking noise the door slowly grinded open. Through the widening gap Ria saw that groups of husks more than a score strong were gathered in the area beyond the door. Seeing the opening, the creatures let out shrill screeches before, throwing themselves at Ria.
Gun shots shot past Ria as Daron and Core opened fire, dropping the first few husks as they leapt at her and the others. Drawing her hand back, Ria flipped the small switch on the grenades surface and chucked it into the slathering horde of feral abominations.
The grenade lit up like a flare as it left her hand, casting the same eerie green glow as most of the other prothean tech she had encountered. As the grenade hit the ground in the center of the husks, the device detonated in a flash of light and a high pitched crack. The air rippled as a barely visible wave of blue-green light rolled over the husks in area around it. For a split second Ria though it had not affected the creatures, the energy rolling over them without causing any physical harm. Then she saw that the glowing blue of the cybernetics tracing the skin of the husks caught in the blast began dim and die out before the creatures fell lifeless to the ground.
Even as the first husks fell, Tarran moving in front of Ria as he shouldered the weapons he had taken from the vault. "Lets see what this thing can do!" The turian smirked as he squeezed the trigger. A beam of orange energy half a foot in diameter blasted out from the end of the weapon and struck the a husk dead center. The searing ray of energy didn't so much wound as it did vaporize the creature, reducing the thing to ash in less then a second. Continuing firing, Tarran brought the weapon across the area in front of him, burning away husk after husk effortlessly. When the weapon finally stopped firing, nothing was left of the attacking creatures other than a layer of ashes.
Ria had to fight down the urge to gawk at the carnage that weapon had wrought, and she finally lowered her eyebrows from the shock. "That... was unexpected."
"Unfortunately I think its out of energy" Tarran frowned, examining a counter on the weapon. The counter was flashing an alien symbol Ria didn't recognize, but could guess at its meaning. "And here I thought things just got easy, Figures something that destructive is limited."
"Doesn't matter, it gave us an opening. Move!" Ria answered, springing off down the hallway.
They sprinted back the way they had come in, easily hoping over the pile of dead husks at the end of the hall and running out towards the elevator that led back towards the bridge. Tarran's face lit up a little as he motioned for Ria to look at the weapon counter on his weapon in mid sprint, and showed her the number was moving.
Possibly recharging? That might just give us a chance...
More husks rose to stop them as they entered the main chamber, only to be cut down by combined gunfire as they rushed to the lift. All around scores of the feral creatures streamed out from side passages and converged in around them.
Ria leapt up onto the lift that lead up to the bridge first, spinning around to lob another of her new found grenades into the mass of husks. Like before the device detonated on impact, sending a dozen husks falling limply to the ground in a wave of blue-green light.
The split second the last member of her team stepped onto the platform, Ria slammed a fist on the control panel. The lift lurched as it began to rise right as the first husks reached them, the creatures clawed helplessly while she and her team rose out of reach. One husk managed to grab onto the edge of the platform, only to be knocked back down as Daron slammed his boot into the thing's head.
Even as she and her team shot up toward the bridge above, the husks below them had already started to climb up after them. with speed out matching any living being. Judging the distance to the top and the rate the husks climbed up after them, Ria guessed maybe one minute of a headstart, which should allow for plenty of time to get to the elevator.
They arrived at the top and the doors slid open agonizingly slow, but they were all soon barrelling down the bridge and towards the hallway that led to the elevator out. As they crested the midway arch of the bridge they stopped dead.
Below them was a practical sea of the monsters, standing right between them and the elevator. It looked like they didn't see her team yet, and were all looking up the elevator shaft.
"Well, there goes that plan." Tarran shouldered past the group to the front and hefted his two handed weapon, leveling it at the creatures. She took the hint and shouldered her weapon, along with the rest of the team. Every one of them had their backs to her squad, they would only get one chance at this.
"Charge." Ria hissed in a harsh whisper as she opened fire. Tarran roared and let his cannon loose, tearing apart the rear ranks of fiends before they even knew they were under attack. Ria and Core walked forward at a steady pace, spraying into the crowd with their rifles while Daron leaped out front. He threw dozens in high arcs that sent them hurtling into the pitch black darkness to either side of the bridge.
The husks in front were nearly dealt with, but she had forgotten about the ones behind. Yelling in panic she swirled around to see Tarran struggling to keep his cannon from a husk that was grappling with him. She sighted it down and dropped it, but as ever, there were more. She ran up to Tarran's side and covered him while he fell back to the others, then as a group they occupied the area once filled with husks at the bottom of the elevator.
After she smacked the lift button they formed a semi-circle before the elevator door, blasting any that came close, but in a matter of moments they were swarmed. Daron's short burst of stamina was gone.
His powers were failing, making husks stumble instead of fly. Tarran's cannon was empty once more, and he had switched to his sniper rifle once more. Core deployed his turret with the last vestiges of power it had, but they were too many.
I'm sorry dad.
Her thoughts turned to family as she watched Core drop his weapon and deploy his omni-blade, tearing into husks with a skill only a machine could exhibit; while Tarran was brought down to the ground by a pair of husks.
Just then Ria felt a faint woosh of air as Ria saw a small round object flying over their heads to land amidst the horde of feral beats. There was a thundering boom as an explosion shredded and tore apart a group of husks unfortunate enough to be caught in its blast. A barrage of bullets filled the air around her and tore through the line of husks, sending one after another falling under to overwhelming assault.
Spinning around, Ria saw that while they had been locked in their desperate struggle the elevator doors had opened behind her. Her heart skipped a beat as she let out a inward cry of joy as she say that within the open space stood the rest of her team.
"Get in!" Laura shouted, firing off controlled bursts that sent one husk after another falling in a spray of inky black icor. Jalin and Kel both glowed with azure energy and lashed out with their biotics, the combined attack launching a swath of the creatures crashing into those behind.
Turning, Ria threw herself into the elevator just as her team did the same, their rescuers continuing to provide covering fire until all of them made it inside. One husk threw itself forward just as the elevator began to shut, wedging itself between the closing doors. Laura snarled and put a boot up in the creatures face along with her gun barrel She shoved with her leg and shot the thing in it's gnarled face, spraying all inside with yet more black and blue fluid before the elevator doors finally closed.
Ria slumped against the side of the elevator as she gasped for air. It was several moments before she was able to speak. "Thanks. Was sure... we were about to..."
"Don't mention it." Laura smiled a little at her but let it end there. "So, you guys get what we needed"
Ria's hand shot reflexively for the bag containing the code matrix, ensuring that it was still here. Feeling that it was still there, she let out a small sigh of relief. "Yes, we found a functional Code-Matrix; one that seems to be in better shape than the one Eridu Technology had."
"So things worked out for once? Color me surprised." Laura noted with a small grin.
"Almost didn't, by horrible space zombies." Ria laughed weakly.
"Speaking of the heroic rescue, how did you know to come after us?" Tarran asked, sounding just as weary as Ria did.
Laura raised an eyebrow with a perplexed look. "We got your SOS, or the Invisible's crew did. They relayed the message."
"How? We weren't able to contact you, or the ship." Ria said, just as confused. "I tried to send a distress signal, but we were too deep underground." The elevator's occupants shared a moment of mutual confusion, but Core broke the silence
"We were responsible for the distress signal. When it was clear you're communicators could not pierce the mile of stone between our position and the surface. This platform is equipped with a miniature quantum entanglement communicator linked to the Invisible. While unable to send complex messages, it is sufficient to communicate basic messages." Core explained.
"Why didn't you tell us? It would've been nice to know backup was coming." Ria asked with a small, exasperated laugh.
"...You didn't ask." Core replied.
Authors Note: I am going to be taking a week off from writing while I am on spring break, so the next chapter will be three weeks from now rather than two. Sorry about the inconvenience, but I do need to time to relax and recharge.