*** Torfan, Last Man Standing ***
Shepard finished reassembling his rifle, reset its ammoblock, replaced it on his pack. He attached the battlesuit's non-collapsing - and currently malfunctioning - helmet to the remaining ASP frame, and stood.
Better get to Jordan fast. He checked the map data with his omnitool. Jordan was perhaps 200 meters away, and he could get to her without having to go back into the silo. The pressure inside it would be further reduced by the cruiser having departed with the volume of air it both contained and displaced.
Hopefully there were no "pirates" in this part of the base. He didn't trust the combat radar at the moment.
The curving accessway ahead was bathed in yellow emergency lighting, probably making it so batarian eyes could see easily. Pistol out, he moved carefully, unsure of how well he could monitor his own noises until he had his hearing back, even partially. The klaxon he could hear sounded like it was underwater; it was going to take him some time to get to Jordan, as every move had to be double-checked. The combat radar display on his ARO still showed only Jordan's location, but no other bogeys.
After several minutes of cautious progress, he extended his pistol around the corner to his left and saw three bodies, two of them batarian. Jordan lay face-down on the floor, pistol in hand, leg stumps still glistening with uncured Medi-goo.
It was hard to tell how this had unfolded, but somehow the badly-injured spotter had managed to gun down two batarians using only a pistol. As he looked, Shepard realized they were techs, not combat troops; they probably didn't have the overpowered shields that were typical of batarian soldiers.
Shepard stepped around the corner without thinking, and Jordan's pistol tilted slightly up off the ground, then dropped again; Shepard assumed she had recognized his unique battlesuit. She started to roll over, then settled to the ground in exhaustion.
"Jordan? Jordan, can you hear me?" Shepard hurried to the other soldier, settling to the floor at her side as she made another attempt to roll over. He could see her talking, but heard nothing.
Damn. He pulled his pack of Medi-Goo out of its leg pocket, squished a fingerful of it into each ear, dabbed more over third-degree burns on exposed parts of his arms and legs. He could tell where they were without having to ignore the pain, which was reduced to an error message thanks to his neurotronics.
Jordan continued to try to talk to him; he shook his head, pointed his free hand at one of his charred ears. "I can't hear yet. Give it a few minutes to fix."
She relaxed against the wall, looking exhausted.
"Can you hear me okay? I can tell you what's happened."
She nodded.
"With my comms out, I don't know who we have left. I think the batarians are doing something to our electronics, it's screwed up my sensor pack, my comms, and god knows what else. Yes or no: have you heard from anyone?"
She nodded.
"Perling?"
She frowned worry, shook her head.
"The Major?"
She nodded again.
"I got RTM, but only yes/no replies. I thought it might have been spoofed, or one of the pirates was using his gear."
She looked at him with a sudden urgency, worked her right-hand omnitool, then the left. As she held it up, it displayed, Check, check. Can you see what I'm saying?
Shepard made eye contact, nodded approvingly as he continued to apply Medi-goo to her wounds. "Sierra Hotel, that's my spotter."
What in the hell happened to you? You look like you got hit by a tank while you were on fire.
Shepard finally looked down at himself. "Yeah, well…that's about right."
A batarian voice started speaking over the intercom; both of them ignored it.
What happened after I got hit sir?
"I used your weapon to hole the base. Needed both weapons to be fast enough, but I lost yours when I got ambushed by–"
He was interrupted by a bone-jarring boom that knocked both of them to one side of the accessway, as if the moon they were on had collided with another, followed by a deafening, staccato clatter – like fist-sized hail – that persisted for only a second, and then stopped as suddenly as it had started. The base around them continued to shudder, groan and creak as if ready to collapse; Shepard grabbed his helmet and sealed it back on urgently.
Jordan flailed, grasping for something to hold on to, looking quickly toward both ends of the accessway. Though her arms were moving, Shepard was able to read her omnitool display.
Shit, it read, shit shit shit shit shit. What in the actual god damned capital fuck is that?
Shepard smiled behind his helmet's full-face coverage, I'll bet it had more exclamation points in the original. Pulling the helmet off again, he brought his right hand up to his left shoulder with two fingers extended like a pistol. "Remember the 'message' that Trident wanted sent to the batarians?" Looking up and over his shoulder toward where he appeared to be aiming, he pantomimed firing a single shot. "That one's for Elysium."
She looked suddenly more awake. You did that? I thought you were uh. God damn. I thought it was just bravado. Inspire Your Team and all oo-rah like that. She shook her head in disbelief. Shepard lowered himself to the floor again, so she would not have to tilt her head as far to talk with him.
She paused, taking stock of his appearance and condition. What did you? The display on her omnitool stopped as she looked over his shoulder. What did you do? Wait, your pack is gone. You konko bastard, what did you do, wear a fusion a god damned fusion weapon into a firefight? She grabbed his torso plate at the collar and shook him, I thought you said that was a bunch of fucking sensor gear. No wonder you couldn't get good readings. Hot damn, I don't know whether to kiss you or kill you.
"Save it." Shepard knew she was as stressed as he; there was no point taking the time to correct her misunderstanding of the situation, and the result was the same. He waved his omnitool around his head to fully enable the Medi-goo's active nanotech. "We are still in a base full of aliens that want us dead, and it may be down to just us. Have you been able to raise anyone since we got here? I think my comms are shot."
Jordan closed her eyes as she answered, Can't you use your omnitool?
"Haven't been able to in combat. Civvie mods are muted over AFC, and I haven't had time to kludge around it. But I've got to get back out there. Are you okay for now? I've got to go hunting, not just for bad guys, but for good guys." He looked at the partially-used pack of Medi-goo he was holding, handed it to Jordan. "Here, you need this more than I do."
Thanks. Yes, go. Hurry, she nodded, jabbed a thumb toward the door. I'll keep trying to reach the rest of the team.
"I understand you might not be at 100 percent until after we get picked up, but are you fit to drive a drone or three?"
She smiled grimly. If you can trade my rifle for their cruiser, then hell yeah, you just keep doing what you're doing. Control still on Charlie Five?
"Charlie Five," he repeated back to her, holding up a hand with all five digits extended. "Wish me luck."
Good hunting, Steve-o. She punched him in the thigh as he was getting up.
Still using his omnitool to manually control his active camouflage, Shepard slipped out the door as quickly as possible. The silo was blackened from the launch, most of the lights below him were out, and the floor was covered deep with debris in every size from lemon to lorry, including a layer of powdery dirt. A column of lights, one at each level, marked a door on each level in emergency lighting. A fog of fine powder was settling slowly down the silo like water draining from a sink.
Nothing else moved.
Out of habit, he gestured for infrared. To his surprise, the helmet's HUD lit, adding artificially-coloured heat sources to his field of view. All of them were the pink of detected rather than the red of line-of-sight.
My suit's sensors are working again? He polled the suit for a systems status; the external sensors had switched over from the missing ASP to local suit sensors, and the primary compute clusters were still working hard to compensate for – or repair – the suit's damaged systems: HUD, comms, power armor, a couple of leaks in the O2 supply line. It required significantly greater than normal power consumption rates, and the battlesuit was a power-hungry beast even on a good day. He was down to 21% of his main supercapacitiors' charge.
He happened to be looking at it as it dropped to 19%.
# # #
With Bundoo having abandoned the base in her cruiser, Prazatch had been field promoted to Base Commander, at least until – indeed, if – another noble arrived and claimed the base. He had not even waited for her ship to depart before heading for the Command Compound.
There would not be much time for him to save the base if they were abandoned, even less to savor command if the base was taken by the Noble of another Clan. (Prazatch did not think the remaining Worthies would be willing or able to enclan themselves under him, let alone withstand any established Clans' attempt to take the base by force.) He stood at the entrance, watching the Base Commander status displayed across the door until the unmistakable fury of the cruiser launching shook the base.
Prazatch narrowed his lesser eyes in disapproval and annoyance. What fool forgot to order Golezh lifted to the surface before launch?
The status indicator changed to Flag Transfer.
At the sound of a chime, the two armed guards at the door turned and read the status change, looked at each other and then at Prazatch. Though he was neither mighty-born nor mighty-made, (and thus, could not demand genuflection,) the three knew each other, and had expected this day would come. Without a word, the superior of the two turned and put his hand into an opening in the wall, activating a biometric switch that opened the door.
Though he had at first been thinking of independent control of base technologies, when Prazatch entered the Base Commander's quarters, he was quickly distracted by direct access to food, and privileged resources: psychoactives, intoxicants, dedicated PVR, and a wealth of reading material, including subjects restricted to the mighty-born and mighty-made.
The cabinets and closets of such riches opened at his touch, but had been largely emptied. There was a flask of Talum brisco, already decanted but unfinished. He lifted the serving piece to his mouth and sipped it, noting the Command Console awaiting his direction. With a sigh of indulgence, he sat in the chair nearby and relaxed as the liquid's effects flowed through him.
As the XO, he had been privileged to imbibe the substance before, but only when offered it by Lady Bundoo.
Presently, he noticed the command console again and sat up relatively quickly. He shook his head. How much time had he already lost? Five fesar? Ten? He sipped from the serving piece again, and carried it as he walked to the console.
The control systems had been reset with the Flag Transfer, so Prazatch applied the settings from his own digital environment to it.
Systematic destruction of the base's internal cameras had continued, so he was even blinder about the human invaders' progress than before.
But the base's internal security also tracked the locations of the Worthies by their comm devices. Prazatch summoned a roster. They still had the strength of sixty-two against the remaining humans. He noticed the console prompting him to punish his underlings for the embarrassing 3:1 loss exchange ratio. Killing twelve humans has cost almost fourty Worthies, most of them infantry.
But when Prazatch reached for the comm PTT, it was not to chide his troops. He had been there himself; luck had not been theirs.
His hand stopped before it touched the holographic ellipse; the PA system would be heard by the human invaders, and they surely had basic translation tech, so he switched to the private comms. "Attention. Base Command speaks. Humans still infest the base. All Worthies, arm yourselves. Hunt the humans and crush them. If not to show ourselves worthy to the Nobles, we will at least be rid of them for ourselves."
At which point the Golezh's core went supercritical.
# # #
The past three hours had been heartbreaking. Shepard and Jordan logged the locations and conditions of six team members, all KIA. Finnigsmeier was chained to a pole at the throat, Glaze was missing her head, Perling and Edwards were only certain IDs because of the Alliance ERFID tags [Encrypted RFID] in their bloodstreams. Sylwester, obviously wounded before being killed, was riddled with bullets, still on the ground, unarmed.
Shepard's suit displayed a warning on its HUD: 12% charge remaining.
Sylwester's suit was so badly damaged that Shepard only managed to get 2% charge from it, though he did recover another pack of Medi-goo. He backtracked to Finnigsmeier, transferring the remaining charge from her supercapacitors, then repeating the process on Glaze. It brought his charge back up to 77%. The battlesuit's exoskeleton and motorized joints were almost as power-hungry as the ASP, but now that the ASP was gone, and the exoskeleton not having to work as hard, he hoped the oversized supercapacitors would last longer.
From one of the drones, Jordan had spotted an Alliance soldier in the silo who seemed to be resting against a fallen I-beam, rifle still in hand.
The drone flew out to the figure, only a dozen meters away, and stopped overhead.
From the door, Shepard realized he might not be in the other's field of view. Whoever it was, they were turned mostly aside, and didn't acknowledge his wave. He hurried into the silo, its floor covered with a 10-20cm layer of sooty black dust and sand from the launch and subsequent destruction of the cruiser.
Might be unconscious, or maybe asleep, Shepard hoped.
When Shepard touched a shoulder, the combat-suited soldier slid limply to the ground. His nametag read Nordberg. Shepard's HUD noted the death had been logged.
Paul. He settled to the floor next to the man, shaking his head. How did I screw this up so badly? Why did this all go so wrong? Why can't I help anyone?
The man had fallen face up, so Shepard could see his eyes through the visor opening. He turned his attention quickly to the power transfer, snapping the connector into the jack. He scowled at the thought of being a sort of vampire, inspected his rifle as the transfer continued.
Something moved on the edge of his combat radar. As he watched, the signal resolved into three, then four bogeys, probably walking humanoids. He had a little more than a minute before they got to the silo door he had stupidly left open in his hurry to get to Nordberg.
He looked up toward the door, thirty meters away. No chance to close the door and get into cover.
He dragged the body closer to the edge of the barricade, then changed his mind, disconnecting the power cable, reslung his sniper rifle, and grabbed Nordberg's oversized shotgun.
Once he had the weapon in hand, he realized it was a Stinger-4; not just a shotgun, but a selectable assault weapon with 12-shot drum magazine. Combat radar showed he still had a few seconds before the batarians would be in the silo.
Before pulling the magazine release, he saw it had not been fired. He instantly looked toward Nordberg's body, saw the man had four other drums in front-panel pockets of his suit.
Shepard wasted one full second to bare his teeth in a malicious grin before running his left hand thumb tip from palm to the little finger's tip. I'll need all the accuracy I can get.
He jammed the drum into the empty aidkit pocket on his left leg, dug the remaining drums from Nordberg's body armor and filled his front pockets with them. He paused to twist the back plate of the one in his hand until it clicked, and then scooped up a handful of the floor-covering debris. Spiraling the drum into the resulting divot with the forward end of the drum facing up, he dumped the powdered debris on it, and brushed his hand over it to disguise its location.
Shepard's ARO tagged the drum's location and added the note, ARMED.
The Stinger shotgun, derived from powder firearms, was something of a throwback. Though less efficient for its weight than its mass-effect-driven cousins, it had the significant advantage of being able to convert its drum magazines into mines. The 12-gauge shells were only 16mm long, but contained – and Paul always got a funny smirk on his face when he talked about., it – "good old-fashioned black powder."
Which was not actually true; in fact, it was an engineered explosive that propelled jagged shot that in turn, burned more efficiently. Most significantly, the drum could be rigged to snap firing pins at the back of each shell by removing it from the housing and twisting the back of the drum.
He switched another drum to its IED mode, burying it in the sand as far from the other as he could reach without moving, and as quickly as he could. His ARO tracked the location. He deliberately scattered more of the debris with his feet as he moved, adding the appearance of a struggle. Planting the third, he moved toward two car-sized pieces of wreckage that would steer anyone who followed, planting the last two IEDs relatively close to the narrowest part of the opening between the two pieces of debris, and moving into cover as he did.
It was meant to seem obvious that someone had walked across the debris-covered floor, done something, and – from the look of the body – died there. But his footprints away from the location would tell of a survivor. His own injuries were functionally masked by the exoskeleton, so he had to make an effort to give the impression of someone who was hurt; it helped conceal the mine locations in the coarse powder that covered practically all of the floor.
He subvocalised, Victor Indigo, enable external translation from batarian. Display on ARO.
His suit chirped once, the sound just barely audible inside the helmet. His hearing didn't seem to coming back, but the inner ear was a very delicate structure, and he might not hear much until he had some serious time with a medical professional. He adjusted his overclock back down to zero and checked that his reroute of suit mic audio was still working.
Just then, batarians stepped into the silo, paused as they saw the body with an assault rifle nearby. One of them spoke; the translation scrolled out on Shepard's ARO.
Look. It appears dead [sir].
A single gunshot rang out.
Affirmed. The one of might told of movement indicated on a sensor here. There was a pause before the batarian spoke again. This one was killed, but another must be near. Underling steelbender and underling [untranslatable] track and kill the invader. Maintain radio contact.
From his concealed location about twenty meters away, Shepard quietly lowered the now empty shotgun into the powdery debris on the floor and began to decompact his Gorgon rifle, slow and silent. He accelerated his neural speed 35%, hoping to buy – or at least make the most of – a little extra time with the added precision that it offered. His HUD informed him that his active camouflage was still operational, but he slowly lifted his pistol up over the wreckage providing his cover to see where the batarians had gone.
Two of them had moved into cover to the right; the superior and the other were just reaching the exit.
The sound of the door closing died into silence.
It didn't take more than a few seconds for Shepard to realise that they were not actively hunting him; they were simply waiting to find out where he was and what he was doing. With the doors closed, sounds in the closed silo were easier to hear.
Combat radar showed their last known positions, but they had not moved. It was possible he'd lost contact. He didn't want to risk tossing a pebble because they might be watching, and doing so would give away his location.
Shepard's ARO notified him that the atmospheric pressure in the silo was just beginning to climb again. His suit was unable to detect any communications, so he had no idea what the batarians intended.
Better wait and see, he thought.
# # #
"See, Gom Tisroc; it looks dead." Karanth indicated the fallen human with his weapon.
The squad leader fired once at the invader, and nodded with satisfaction. "Truly. Mighty One said the sensors showed motion here. This one was killed, but the survivor is still here."
On Khar'Shan, The Pillars of Strength imparted a tradition to seek deeper meaning. This manifest even in speech; things spoken aloud were obvious, subtlety lay in remembering that, as even a human would know, actions speak louder than words.
Squad leader Tisroc realized that if the human was just out of sight, his words might easily be overheard. He gestured to the two underlings and indicated they should conceal themselves, awaiting the survivor's return or exposure.
What if it is already dead? The underlings meant no disrespect in the question as they signed back to him.
Tisroc continued his audible misdirection, "Ter Wommalendu and Ter Karanth, hunt this invader and kill it. Continue wireless talk."
They acknowledged with word and deed, heading to a place where they would be able to wait for the human survivor to give away its presence.
Perhaps it is already gone, Wommalendu signed to his cohort.
To wait it out in a place where it is not, is both safe and easy, Karanth signed back. Though not especially well positioned, they could see the place where the dead human was.
They waited for someone else to make the next move.
Wommalendu, younger and more anxious, remained uneasy. He made eye contact with Karanth. He signed, It may also lay in wait. If it can hear but not see, perhaps one of us should exit the silo. If it thinks it is safe, it may come out.
Patience, the more experienced Karanth signed back.
# # #
Shepard's combat radar had been tracking two soldiers, but when they stopped moving, it displayed its uncertainty about them by coloring the icons yellow. The other two had left the silo, and had walked out of range before he began to have doubts.
He subvocalised, Jordan, do you read me?
There was a pause as his onboard VI detected a failure in the suit comms, and rerouted to use his omnitool's internal radio to message her by RTM. Her voice sounded in his head as the text came back with her reply. "Read you clear, LT."
Did your drone views show the batarians that just walked in here?
"Four came in, two went out. The two still there took up positions below the wall crane."
Thanks; Shepard out.
Combat radar showed a plan view of their relative positions, but his internal computing could reinterpret the data and display them "in the world," on his ARO.
They had taken cover behind what looked like part of a large, heavy cylindrical tank that had somehow survived the explosion. Just to his left was an opening in the wreckage, and a sturdy surface that looked like it would easily support the Gorgon's bipod.
Knowing he could potentially be heard, Shepard carefully lifted and eased his weapon into the mangled metal so he could shoot from it like a loophole in an old "pillbox." It took almost half a minute, and the exoskeleton was the only thing that made it possible to move the massive weapon so slowly and precisely.
With the bipod resting on a well-supported shelf of wreckage, Shepard fitted the stock to his shoulder and prepared to shoot through what was left of the tank.
But before he could line up a shot, one of them moved left, silently but quickly.
Shepard cloaked with a keypress on the rifle, and left it positioned, withdrawing deeper into cover. He toggled his cloak off again by VI when out of sight, but continued to watch the alien move in silence as an infrared source on his ARO. His Gorgon rifle sat uselessly in the debris, hidden from the moving batarian, but nearly lined up for a shot at the second.
How the batarian managed to move was impressive, and though nearly at a run, it was almost inaudible. Had his external mics failed? Was his hearing still that badly damaged?
The batarian reached the silo door, opened it and went through. The noise of the door - captured by the suit's mics and delivered to Shepard's brain via implant - was completely normal, considering the reduced pressure inside the silo. It would have been easy to assume both had left.
He glanced toward the second bogey on his ARO and noted its relative range on combat radar.
Slowly, and just as silently, the batarian slipped its weapon atop the cylindrical tank's remains so it could glass the silo.
Shepard withdrew further, away from his rifle, and from where the batarian might see him.
It continued for almost two minutes before lowering its weapon and moving slowly toward the same door the first had exited.
It stopped to methodically scan the silo floor again. Shepard had remained still; he knew he was at least partly visible, but unnoticed unless he moved. Was the batarian building up a comprehensive view of the silo? The only thing he could do was stay in place; he couldn't give himself away by changing his position from one view to the next. But he also couldn't afford to wait until the batarian had enough of a view of him that the presence of a battlesuited human would be obvious.
But after the third glassing, the batarian seemed to move differently. And it was heading toward him, stepping carefully and silently over debris. It was as chilling as it was impressive.
Victor Indigo, can the mines be manually detonated?
Mines are proximity triggered at first activation, but can be remotely set to require multiple activations before detonation.
Victor Indigo, set mine sensitivity to maximum!
Negative function.
The batarian stepped past Nordberg, and over the mine as if able to see it. The powdery debris was soft enough that it did not trigger the mine.
Detonate all mines!
Negative function.
If the batarian kept walking the way it was, it would step cleanly over the last mine. His pistol would be useless against military-grade batarian shields. Moving to pull his rifle out of the slot would give him away.
Set required mine trigger count to zero!
Negative function.
What else can I do?
He was helpless; the image of his wife sprang suddenly to mind, gun in hand, the spray of blood erupting from her head.
Time stretched again, supercolouring every single molecule of the scene in his mind's eye. Flecks of blood wobbled in flight, her hair curled and flowed in the liquid medium of air. The muzzle flare diminishing as the microseconds rolled slowly by; plenty of time to drown helplessly in the emotional agony.
His eyes widened before he could stop it; he flinched, knocking up against the nearby debris.
The batarian stopped at the sound, turned its head to listen for another.
Its image on Shepard's ARO seemed to be looking straight at him. Though his heart was racing, he held his breath, fighting to stamp the thought out of consciousness.
If the batarian moved another two meters, it would see him. It readied its assault rifle by bringing it up to a shoulder and stepping around the debris.
But because it had stopped to listen, it broke the pattern of stepping over the mines that Shepard had unconsciously planted in regular intervals as he had moved away from Nordberg. The last mine exploded, turning the batarian into a pillar of fire as its shields constrained the blast from the mine.
As Shepard yanked his weapon from its perch, the floor-level silo door opened, and the other batarian's assault rifle poked into the silo.
Not waiting for combat radar to build up data about the enemy location, Shepard estimated how and where it would be standing, aimed his weapon where its head should have been and began to squeeze the trigger.
Instead, the alien bolted through the door, dove into cover.
# # #
Karanth knew the younger Wommalendu was too eager and scared to handle the situation thoughtfully. Sending him out of the silo seemed a prudent move. If he was outside, he was less likely to make a mistake that would cost a life.
The human invader had given itself away, probably unintentionally, with its noisy footsteps; even the reduced pressure in the silo, and the soft powder that covered most of the silo floor had been unable to stop the batarian's keen hearing.
"Ter Wommalendu, I have located the –"
When the older batarian's signal cut off suddenly with static, Wommalendu knew there was trouble. He thought about running into the silo, but hesitated at the door before pulling it open. When he did, air began to rush into the silo again, faster than he had realized it would. Air was too valuable with the cruiser gone, so he pulled it shut and dashed behind the largest piece of debris he could see.
"Gom Karanth?" His voice echoed in the canyonlike silo. Perhaps the echoes would confuse the human. He ran in silence, calling Karanth's name, realizing quickly he was on his own, and tapping the comm key at his neck. "Gom Tisroc, the human is here, and has killed the Worthy Karanth!"
# # #
The batarian ran back into the silo. This time, it wasn't quiet, and wasn't keeping a constant speed.
Shepard's combat radar tracked it easily, displaying its approximate location on his ARO, giving the functional impression of x-ray vision, at least as far as the enemy's location. Shepard raised his weapon, fitted it to his shoulder, panning across the silo to keep the batarian centred.
And it was shouting something, over and over, which made it a simple matter for the suit VI to pinpoint its location. When it stopped behind a large piece of heavy debris, its image began to sharpen on Shepard's ARO.
Weapon: armor piercing, he subvocalized.
At the back of the Gorgon-3's linac, a hollow cone "round" was perched on the end of a horizontal rod. The rod retracted, pulling the round back out of the linac and into an ammodding chamber, where a metamaterial sheath was quickly woven onto its leading surface as the round was rotated in place by the rod. A circle of benzaphos had dropped into place at the front of the ammodding chamber, and when the round was rammed back into place half a second later, its tip was coated with the substance.
The status indicator on Shepard's ARO blinked from red to green, and he quickly applied another half kilogram of pressure to the trigger.
As the bullet accelerated, its speed ignited the benzaphos, tempering the antiarmor sheath. The 63mm of metal tank between the weapon muzzle and the batarian evaporated an instant before the novice soldier's shields and skull failed to stop the bullet's flight.
By the time the other two pirates had returned to investigate, Shepard was over 130 meters away, with his shot lined up, an order for two firings of elongated-cone, 2.6-gram rounds already queued, the linac supercapacitors charged. One of the drones supplied new data about the new orbit resulting from the exploding cruiser, but it didn't affect the shot enough for the weapon to apply any further correction.
You will not kill my buddies. Shepard squeezed the trigger firmly; the weapon punched satisfyingly into his shoulder. A blaze of light detonated in front of the second batarian through the door, so the explosion of organic material was obscured from view.
And you will not kill or enslave any more colonists. There was something viscerally satisfying about that shot; even batarian shields were no match for the Gorgon's anti-materiel round at that range.
A days-long game of cat and mouse followed. With Jordan driving the drones, and Shepard ducking in and out of the silo, changing levels when he could, cloaking when he needed to enter the base proper, they ran the batarian "pirates" ragged. Jordan's shield generator was still working, and though she offered to let him use it, it was not compatible with Shepard's battlesuit.
At first he circled on the balconies, using his cloak only when necessary, including jumping from level to level. When he tired, he took up a position atop the control node of a crane tower. When his location was identified by batarian techs, they called in an SMR launcher. Jordan saw it and alerted Shepard; he made sure they saw him avoiding being seen, located the SMRL operator, kept him in his crosshairs as the batarian set up to fire.
As the missile launcher zeroed in on him, Shepard maxed his cognitive overclock, which effectively doubled his awareness speed. He wouldn't be able to tolerate it for long, and it gave him tunnel vision to accelerate this high, but he needed every millisecond he could get in a game of chicken with an RPG. He could only hope it was not a smart missile.
When he saw a cloud of propellant gases burst around the SMRL aimed at him, Shepard squeezed the last 117 grams of force on the trigger, activated his cloak, and jumped backwards off the node. The node detonated in a spray of flame, smoke, and blue sparks; the battlesuit's power joints absorbed the impact of Shepard's 30-meter cloaked drop.
The two other batarians turned from the exploding crane control node to see their SMRL operator had a bullet hole in his forehead as he fell backwards.
But with the explosion, they reported success at taking out the sniper.
Jordan set up a sentry by the time Shepard had returned to the perch, then parked both drones and left them inert for several hours, giving the batarians the impression they had secured their base against the Alliance.
Jordan rested for a full 90 minutes with omnitool assistance; Shepard took the opportunity to swap the broken forward camera with the working one on the helmet's rear, and to effect other repairs. When she woke, Jordan continued to watch the batarians in the silo, growing bolder now that they thought they owned the base again. Shepard's comprehensive map allowed him to see what areas were accessible, and his onboard VI had developed a good understanding of how often – and for what purposes – the base's rooms were used.
With his ASP effectively gone, and the weight of her legs absent, Shepard's exoskeleton was able to keep them highly mobile. Jordan, using the map data, located a network hub in a hard-to-access location that showed no entrance on the base's internal map of itself. The door was behind a service panel as if it had been walled over. It was a perfect place for Jordan to operate as Shepard's mission controller. Shepard sealed the panel back on when he left.
When Jordan's drone view showed her a batarian in different clothes moving about, giving orders, Shepard snapped open a new drone, and carried it with him to a new perch. He cloaked immediately before putting a bullet through the officer's brain, but had Jordan pilot the drone very obviously up and away from that location as he stayed in place with his cloak active, eventually slinking away to hard cover, but making it look like the drone had a weapon as powerful as a sniper rifle.
Both Alliance soldiers watched smugly as the batarians ran frantically about.
It was now a simple matter to drive the batarians around the base; while Jordan terrorized the pirates with the drones, Shepard retrieved the ones that were malfunctioning and repaired or recharged them as needed. He found a power outlet that his omnitool showed him how to tap.
"I can bring you power," he LOSIed to Jordan. "How are you doing?"
"Still over 80%," she said, "but boy, could I use some Medi-goo. My head hurts, and my left leg is bleeding again. You haven't found anyone else, have you?""
"No. Not sure if that's good news or bad news." He checked his combat radar, verified the nearest batarian was moving away from him before engaging his cloak and starting up the silo ladder. "I can keep watch, drive the drones for a while. They'll probably keep looking for us until they think the drones are finished." He eyed his ARO as he climbed, momentarily glad he could do so.
Like snipers of old, who blacked out their wristwatches and wore them on the inside of their wrists to prevent reflections from giving them away, both Jordan and Shepard used their helmet HUDs for battlefield awareness. Shepard had an additional advantage in his ARO, especially now that his helmet's HUD had been damaged beyond field repair.
After another rest, Jordan also used the less-capable drone to make noise and knock things over, and as the batarian rank and file chased it – or were chased by it – Shepard continued to take out the ones acting like officers until another drone was finally destroyed.
It was tedious, demanding, gratifying, terrifying, tense work, and it lasted for almost four days.
Shepard moved Jordan to different locations, used her as bait, applied the remaining Medi-goo to her wounds, and slept while she flew drone patrols. He brought power to her suit with his massive 2MWh supercapacitor. With the cruiser gone, and the casualties already inflicted, the base was increasingly empty. Everything that happened in the silo was amazingly loud and echoed forever.
It left him time to attend to his spotter. A thorough scan revealed she had significant internal injuries, and they were out of Medi-goo. Batarians didn't use anything like it because their biology had salamander-like regenerative abilities. But Shepard had recovered two doses of a drug that would induce a coma, reducing the load on the rest of her anatomy and potentially allowing her to last longer until they were picked up.
Based on what it had figured out about their operations, his suit VI had found a new perch with excellent cover, and a view of the entire floor of the silo. The position was highly defensible and practically invisible.
"I'm heading back to you. My VI found a place where you could rest and recover until extraction."
"But that will leave you on your own, sir," she objected.
"You know what? That's my problem."
Jordan gave him the look. "It also becomes my problem if I'm not there to watch your back, and they turn me into cat food."
"Fair enough." Shepard put hands on opposite sides of his helmet and rotated it a quarter turn left and then right as a way of scratching his head. He held up his left wrist and indicated his omnitool. "But this thing says you'll last longer in a coma than you will awake, and we still have no contact from Tokyo."
Jordan frowned. "It's my life, sir." She regretted it as soon as she'd said it. "But how about this: You find a medical-quality bioprinter and run off a bunch of Medi-goo from your Field Library, and then put me in a bath of it. I'm not dying in my sleep on a mission."
"Might be the best we can do." He'd been looking up at the location where he expected to be able to hide her while he hunted the rest of the base personnel. "But for now, I'd rather have you watching my back while I climb up to our next hidey-hole." He sat behind her with their backs together, and they each latched carbon-fibre carabiners over their right shoulders and at the waist. The exoskeleton VI noticed the new load and adjusted as Shepard climbed to his feet.
"Here, take this." With Jordan secured to his pack and facing backwards, Shepard handed his pistol over his shoulder grip first, giving her the ability to shoot two-fisted. Even with his Gorgon slung forward, the flexible segments of the battlesuit's exoskeleton became noticeably warmer, pulling and jabbing in strange directions as he began crawling up the service ladder. Lurching and swiveling as Shepard climbed, Jordan sent both remaining drones around to locations within sight, and put them in Hibernate mode for later use.
He almost hoped the batarians would figure out they had holed up in the silo. He could see every potential approach, and if he could keep them trying to get him, any other remaining team members left alive would have the pressure taken off them.
# # #
Prazatch leaned quickly toward the pickup, "What do you mean you have found another human? Why haven't you killed it?"
On the display, Jenta fidgeted, knowing his life was not in danger from the new CO, but still anxious about the humans that had infested the base. For the base personnel to be gathered to the the protection and resources of a Noble, they must first be sure the base was safe, or none would come to claim it after the Bundoo. "Mighty One, it is well-positioned in the silo. I have sent five Worthies to dispatch it, but it has dug its way into the wall like a Walking Mouth. I have come to ask you for the Worthies of your strength. If we charge it, attack from multiple points at once, I think we can kill it."
"Where is it?"
Jenta pointed up and over his back, even though Prazatch had would not be able to see, "We think there may be two or three, but we know one is in the exchanger assembly above level six. It has burrowed its way into the wall and does not move like the others."
"Grenade it."
Jenta still did not make eye contact. "It can see all the approaches, Mighty One. Even after we discovered its exact hiding place, two Worthies have gone to their Reward in the attempt. As Base Command, you have -"
"Send Kitzin. His charge power will put the human in blades' reach before it can know it is under attack."
"Mighty One, Kitzin…has not responded to hails for over four sleeps. We think he has won his Reward."
Prazatch was stunned. Kitzin was one of the Hegemon's state-of-the-art biotic warriors, trained to exploit the power discovered in the Leviathan carcass. In single combat, it make Kitzin almost a warship unto himself. There must be more humans left than he had thought. "Did you use a grenade launcher?"
"It has some way of detecting approach; we think there are others on the south side of the silo, but the armed human stays hidden, Mighty One, while another reveals our Worthies' approach. We have used both RPGs, but we cannot launch at an angle of advantage. We need to use a seeking miss-"
"Even from the opposite wall?"
"Mighty One, the silo doors were closed for launch, and we cannot open them to shoot without immediately giving ourselves away." Jenta paused, then added, "To open the doors would give the humans more places to watch, but the air pressure in the silo was too low until this morning. We have opened the bottom level, but the human is apparently smart enough to not shoot at open doors."
Prazatch frowned, shaking his head as he tried to imagine what the alien was doing. As he paced the floor of the control centre, he remembered the Command Compound had its own armory. Advanced weapons, the kind kept by the Nobles to protect themselves, and give them a ready advantage over any potential revolution. Weapons that Jenta apparently also knew about, like seeking missile launchers, or powered armor.
If they are still there. He turned quickly and strode across the room, whipping the armory doors open.
With a satisfied and determined grin, he said, "Ter Jenta, meet me at the east floor entrance to the silo."
# # #
Once she had seen their hideout, Jordan had agreed she would go comatose until Tokyo returned. "They can't touch us here," she agreed, "and you're right, I'll last longer if I'm resting like that. Let me do a few things, and then I'll take a nap until extraction."
Shepard assumed she had gotten info from her local VI that her chances were higher of lasting longer by doing so. He did not know that she had taken the analysis to mean she was unlikely to make it to an unknown extraction time, had turned off her radios and left messages to her parents and younger brother, expecting them to be recoverable from her local storage if she didn't make it, and deletable if she did.
Shepard had parked the drones so he could see the entire floor of the silo from their cameras. His ARO was able to display omnitool camera data, interpolating from the now-working helmet cams and combat radar to provide a relatively primitive but adequate simulation of what the visor would have shown.
Now that they were in position, the other ARO windows showed what the drones saw, and they would provide immediate warning of any approach. Jordan could sleep, and Shepard could work on his malfunctioning helmet HUD and main display.
In the past four days of hunting, Shepard and Jordan had consumed their combined supply of drones. Only two remained.
One drone's power was low enough that getting it airborne again would run it out of power within fifteen minutes. It still had three rounds of ammo remaining, and he had set it down so it could fire straight across the silo at the balcony between the door and his perch. If he couldn't get to it, the drone would almost certainly be out of power before it was out of ammo.
He had wanted to bring it back up to their new perch, but knew there were batarians in a room just beyond a door that had been blown off its tracks. He wasn't going to risk them seeing the drone in flight, or having it give away his location.
The other still had an hour of flight time but no ammo. Its arc emitter was still working, and it was in fairly good condition, particularly if he could reload its magazine.
From his current location, he could see both drones and almost half of the silo. If he scooted forward, he could see more than half of the silo, but he could already see all the doors on the far side without having to expose himself further.
The views from the drones showed the other half of the silo, and better views of the floor. He was watching one of them when a batarian stepped out of the door on the bottom of the silo in full view, rifle raised high and obviously overhead.
Shepard shrank the drone view windows and zoomed in on the batarian. His ARO tagged the alien and added: Shields disabled.
The scene was almost comical; the alien looked panic-stricken as it walked with the weapon overhead. It glanced nervously over a shoulder, and then forward again, hesitatingly at first, approaching as if ordered to.
Or very afraid to be thinking for himself.
An officer may have ordered this guy to surrender so I can get taken down when I go to accept his surrender, Shepard thought.
There was a shout from behind him; the batarian tossed the assault rifle ahead, where it landed in the gray-black dust.
But what if he's actually surrendering on his own? Or maybe they're trying to find out if–
At the sound of a gunshot, the batarian's head snapped forward, and he collapsed to the ground. Still barely moving, the alien put a hand to its head and slowly bled to death.
As he shrank back into deeper cover, Shepard heard another single gunshot.
Then silence.
*** Glossary ***
AFC: Adjacent Field Communications
ARO: Augmented Reality Overlay
ASP: Advanced Sensor Pack
Cybersilent: power-down state to render a device undetectable
HUD: Heads-Up Display
IED: Improvised Explosive Device
Medi-goo: De facto name for tapioca-like substance that was the technological predecessor to Medi-Gel, also made by Sirta Corp, but largely reserved for first responders and Alliance military; not quite as effective or efficient as the product that would follow.
oo-rah: as a noun, military bravado
PVR: Polyphase Virtual Reality; a total-immersion VR technology with between two and five channels of data that stimulates multiple regions of the brain, allowing for a nearly complete reproduction of environments or experiences. Because it is a demanding, high-bandwidth technology, it became a measure of network capability, particularly among users who depend upon it. PVR games can be very addictive, especially to the young.
PTT: Press To Talk; a manual activation switch for a microphone (instead of VOX)
RTM: Real Time Messaging
"selectability": in firearms, this is the ability of a weapon to switch between modes of firing, between semi-automatic (usually designated "SEMI," wherein the weapon discharges only once for each pull of the trigger,) and fully automated ("AUTO" or "Full Auto," where the weapon fires as rapidly as it is mechanically able.)
Sierra Hotel: Congratulatory phrase acknowledging exceptional work ("shit hot")
SMR: Shoulder-mounted rocket
SMRL: Shoulder-mounted Rocket Launcher
Talum brisco: a liquor with effects similar to that of cocaine in humans
VOX: Voice-operated Transmission (the X comes from "xmit," another way to write the word "transmit." Can English be weird, or what?)
