Brothers In Steel Part 44

Reclaimer Part 3


Miranda organized her people just as John had instructed. John realized that Miranda had a little sister among the small group of children there, a fifteen year old girl that looked a lot like Miranda, but younger, and dressed a little more conservatively. There were four or five older seniors, and the rest of the men and women that were able to, picked up arms and decided to fight. They knew that without them pitching in, there would be no hope in getting out of there alive. There were about twenty of them together.

After they were organized and everybody knew the plan, they began to move as one through the sub-basement. It took them a half-hour to get to the entrance to the sewers. With no tools available, John and Garrus slowly had to cut a way open with their omni-tools, until a ring of molten metal formed around the grating, letting it fall to the ground with a clang. John raised his gun immediately, in case Flood were attracted by the sound, but for the mean time, there were no contacts.

"In the pipe, everybody, keep it quiet!"

They walked into the pipe, and John's heavy metal boots sloshed through refuse and dirty sewage water. A rat scurried by, squeaking, and John put a finger up to his helmet to tell them to stop talking. There was but one groan from a child, but everybody else managed to keep quiet as they began walking the length of the smelly, dark corridor. Condensation dripped from the ceiling and formed ripples in the stagnant filth below, and John put on the flashlight on his helmet to get a better view of where he was going.

Every so often he would have to pull out his map of the facility when they needed to make a turn, and then he would choose the right direction. Then they reached the area underneath the comm tower. Above them would be the Gravemind, and if the Gravemind detected their presence, there was no way for them to survive the initial onslaught. At the same time, they could not afford to dally, as the Flood needed to be destroyed before they moved out to the other cities on Horizon, and take up space-craft.

"Wait here," whispered John to Miranda, "Legion, Shay, come with me."

The two of them followed at John's heel, and they moved down the pipe. John saw a glimmer of light ahead, and turned off his helmet-light, hugging the concrete walls of the pipeline. He looked above as he entered a shaft of light, and looked to see that he was under a part of the facility that was outside. He checked the map: they were right in front of the Comm tower, on the other side. They would be safe for now.

"Alright, you're good," said John on the Comm. No response came, though John had told them to keep radio silence, and did not worry. The group came in about two minutes later, and they kept moving on in unison.

Finally, after about half an hour, they arrived at where they needed to be, a pumping station in front of the nuclear reactor main building. There was a service ladder in front of a long waterfall, and this was where John motioned them to stop. "Garrus," ordered John, "Stay with Smith and Pierce and guard the civilians, the rest of us, lets move up the ladder and take the pumping station. From there, we'll have to fight our way to the nuclear reactor. If we fail, Garrus, I'll try to send a distress signal to the Alliance, if that fails..."

He left the words unsaid, since he didn't want the children to hear. Garrus simply nodded and said, "Good luck Commander."

John didn't know why, but that made him smile slightly.

John led the party up the ladder, and opened the top of the hatch. They had entered a large boilery room, with pipes everywhere, pipes covered up in Flood webbing and growths. A group of infection forms immediately popped out of some brown sacs by the wall. "Open fire!" growled John, and they let loose a couple of short, controlled bursts that killed over a hundred of the little balloon creatures. John reloaded then said, "There's no point in trying to be stealthy. I don't know for sure, but I think they have the ability to share their viewpoints with the Gravemind, he controls them all. Lets just keep moving."

They moved through the room, taking out infection forms, then walked up a flight of stairs to the main level. They could see the outside clearly, an empty, coverless plain that was flat grassland. The nuclear reactor was on the other side, and John could see huge smokestacks gushing from the cylindrical towers. That's where they needed to get to.

"Alright, on the count of three, we all make a break for it," said John.

"I'm a biotic," said Miranda, "I'll cover our rear with a barrier."

"Good idea."

The party burst through the double doors. Immediately from the nuclear reactor building, over thirty or so Flood burst through the glass, jumping like demons from the pages of a demented fairy tale. Some of them were holding shotguns and assault rifles in their mutated, bulbous hands, and firing them haphazardly at the group. Two of John's men were downed instantly by stray shots as they did not have any armor. John yelled, "Open fire!"

Miranda shifted her barriers in front of them, which absorbed some of the bullets. John started firing from behind the barrier and managed to down a few of the Flood. However, they just kept coming relentlessly, and soon enough were attacking the barrier. One jumped on Miranda, and Legion acted quickly and pushed it off her. Then he lit it on fire with his omni-tool. John spun around and fired several shots into a group that were starting to tear apart at some of his civilians. "Damn it!" yelled Shay, who watched another pair of civilians get dragged down, the combat forms vomiting infection forms onto them, so they could join their ranks.

John pulled out his pistol instead of reloading and shot both of them in the head, so they wouldn't become Flood. Then he threw an incendiary grenade, his last, at the mass of Flood and burned them away into ashes.

"Come on!" he gestured wildly towards the reactor, "We need to get away!"

They made a mad dash for it, the flood on their heels. Finally, John threw himself through the glass windows and into the floor, landing with a thump on the ground. The musty of the smell of the Flood was at his back, and a Flood leaped on him. He unsheathed his omni-blade and stabbed it straight on in the chest, then flung it at a few others. "Fall back!" said Legion, "There's some doors located up that stairway," Legion pointed behind himself.

John waved his men over, and then starting walking backwards up the stairs, as he and Legion held back the tide of Flood. Then they quickly got inside the doors. "Lock that shit down!" yelled Shay. Legion slammed his omni-tool on it and it pulsed red. The noise of the Flood slamming against it remained though.

"They'll just attack from the flanks," a balding, middle-aged man wailed, "We're doomed!"

"No we're not," said John, "How many of us are left?"

John took a look, and besides Shay and Miranda, there were only nine civilians left.

Miranda then spoke, clutching her wounded side, "The man's right though, they will move on the flanks and intercept us at the Reactor Core. We need to double-time it. Then we need to establish a defensive position while someone arms the nuke."

"Legion can take care of that, the rest of us can defend."

Miranda nodded, then groaned as John patched her up with medi-gel, "Thanks, those things aren't contagious are they?"

"Looks like you only got a cut, so I think you'll be fine," he replied. "Lets get moving then."

The Reactor room was as wide as two football fields, and a large metal structure shaped like a fat cylinder had been built in the middle. On either side were power nodes, barrels that glowed red and operated in pairs. Around the Reactor were computer terminals, crates, and back-up power stations, black wires snaking around the floor. The Reactor was closed shut, but John knew the controls would be around here somewhere.

They searched the area for several moments, until Legion said, "Spartan-Commander, I have found the controls to open the Reactor. I will look through the data to find our options."

"Alright, everybody! Get in defensive positions around Legion, defend him at all costs!"

Some of the civilians seemed to be shaking in worry, but they managed to be brave. Nothing came at them yet.

A few minutes later, Legion said, "That is fortunate, but not unexpected."

"What is?"

"Cerberus reputation for extreme measures continues: they built in a self-destruct protocol for the Nuclear Reactor."

John was surprised, "Really?"

"Affirmative, which is logical. It would be the easiest way to make sure their enemies, most notably the Alliance or Reapers, would not get access to vital information."

"Can you set it off?"

"Of course, only problem is that the trigger mechanism to do so can not be activated remotely. One must go inside the Reactor Core. I suspect that this was done in order to make sure nobody would destroy the base without an acceptable reason."

"Its highly radioactive in there!"

"Yes, but thankfully for you, I am a Synthetic and therefore will be unaffected. At the same time though, I will be a carrier of Radiation for the next forty-eight hours, so I would advise you not to make physical contact with my platform."

"Alright, how long will it take?"

Legion paused for a moment, "Five minutes."

"How long will it take for the Reactor to explode?"

"Ten minutes."

John used his comm and called up Cortez, "Cortez!"

"Yes, Commander."

"We need an Evac in six minutes, make your way to the north side of the facility, on the back side of the Comm tower. Do not get too close to the ground though, area is hot."

"Affirmative, coming now."

"Alright, Legion, we'll cover you," ordered John, "Get to it."

Legion ran off to do his job, and John formed a defensive line. He and Garrus moved some crates in order to make a wall for cover, and set up some on the flanks to form a protective circle. However, as soon as they were done, they heard the noises of Flood coming down the hallway, and soon enough, over fifty Flood were bounding at their position.

"OPEN FIRE!" yelled Miranda, as they laid down fields of rounds.

The first wave of Flood were knocked down and collapsed onto the battlefield. But the second wave managed to get up to the fortifications and jumped over. A few were laying down rounds of their own. A civilian dropped next to John, who had to stop and reload. The Flood were overwhelming them on angles.

Miranda let an angry yell, and sent out a field of Biotic energy, that rippled across the Flood attackers, sending them sprawling to the ground. John quickly eliminated them, and then yelled behind himself, "Legion, you almost done back there!"

"Almost, Spartan-Commander, just another minute!"

They managed to keep the Flood off their backs another minute, when a blaring siren erupted from above, and red lights flashed. Legion came running, his body slightly glowing a sickish green. "We must get out of here, Spartan-Commander!"

"Everybody! Push to the exit! Miranda, cover our ass!"

"You got it!"

They moved in concert, slowly moving up as the Flood attacked on all sides. The Flood would sometimes get close enough but Shay would pop up from behind and shoot it down with his Scimitar shotgun, which was equipped with incendiary rounds. One...two...three flood were knocked down and set aflame, crumbling into ashes on the ground. When they came up to the stairs they disbanded formation for only a second, but that was just enough for a Flood to jump off and tackle John to the ground. He rolled down the stairs and looked up at a grim, rotting face, with root-like tentacles growing out of a black gash in its throat.

John tried to pry it off him, but was saved as a shotgun blast took the Flood assailant right in the face, and it stumbled off and burned.

"Thanks," said John to Shay as they both ran out of the building.

"Don't mention it!"

The shuttle came by and swooped around. John didn't see any Flood immediately, but kept his eyes peeled. The shuttle stopped and hovered. He saw Garrus and the children running first into the open doors. Then his civilians. Shay, Miranda and Legion took guard in front of the shuttle as they got in. John felt something wrong in his gut, and his feeling was warranted, when out of the Comm tower nearby, three huge tentacles erupted from the glass and a voice malevolently roared over the shattering glass.

"Take off, Cortez!" yelled John, firing his weapon at the tentacles, to no avail, "Get to safety!"

Cortez drove just as the tentacles tried to snatch him. The Gravemind growled defiantly, "I will not allow you to leave...this... PLANET!"

"What do we do now?" asked Miranda as the tentacles surrounded them on all sides.

John was at a loss as what to do. "Just keeping shooting," he ordered.

They kept shooting at the tentacles, and tried to dodge them as they swooped around, trying to snatch them up. Unfortunately for Shay, a tentacle got him and he was taken, screaming as he was dragged back to the Comm tower.

"Run back to the Reactor!" said John, "we can try climbing up to the top level before the nuke detonates! Steve, meet us at the top of the Nuclear Reactor, main building!"

"Will try, those tentacles are going to make things difficult, though."

John watched the shuttle zoom by overhead. Then he saw Garrus get on the gun and start firing at the tentacles. They recoiled a little bit, as the rounds were big enough to do some damage. John, Miranda, and Legion ran forward, and jumped over one of the tentacles to get to the Reactor building. Quickly, they scrambled up staircases and bashed open locked doors. A group of Flood tried to attack them, but got stuck in a narrow corridor, when they tried to pursue en masse.

John broke through a final door and came on the roof of the building. Only two minutes left before that nuke detonated! The shuttle came around again and the doors swung wide open. "Jump for it!" yelled John

They ran for it. The tentacles came up from behind them, breaking the building in pieces; slabs of concrete and glass falling to the ground in a pile of dust.

They managed to get in just in time. The shuttle was cramped but they could deal with it. "Get the hell out of here!" yelled John, "We might not be able to escape the blast!"

Cortez was dripping sweat from the pressure; he zoomed as fast as he could upwards, breaking through the clouds. John looked out the window and couldn't see anything. But he heard it when it happened, a loud rumble followed by the shuttle shaking a bit.

"We escaped by just a hair," said Cortez, "Had we left a few seconds later, I don't think I could have gotten us high enough."

"Good job Lieutenant," said John.

Everybody but John sat down, taking deep breaths, then smiling at the fact that they were alive. After a few moments, John asked Miranda, "So after this, you think you could help us take on Cerberus?"

Miranda smoothed away a lock of her hair from over her eyes then said, "I need to make sure my sister is safe first."

"She could stay on the Normandy," said John, "Its a Stealth ship, and it won't be involved in fighting until we retake Earth eventually. For the time being, she'll be safe there."

"You got a point," considered Miranda thoughtfully, "Alright, I'll help you out. I've been meaning to pay back the Illusive Man anyway."

John then heard Cortana's voice, fraught with worry, on the comm, "Chief, what went on down there? We lost contact for a while."

"Its a long story Cortana, and you might not even believe this one."


Author's Note: In a way, I feel somewhat sad that I didn't do more with the Flood, but realistically once the Flood started taking over Reapers, there would be no way for anybody to win anyway, short of building Halo rings of course. And I romanced Miranda in my default personal play-through, and it still baffles me to this day, why she can't become your squad-mate after Horizon, in fact, it makes no sense that if you romance her, why you can't invite her to just stay on the Normandy to keep her safe from Cerberus! Its a Stealth Ship, for God's Sake!