Chapter 2 Horde Event
Commissioned by MaceShepard
Written by BloodRaven
"That should about do it." Kepla breathed as he put the last of the plasma charges on the blast door. Taking a few steps back the platoon got into position, ready to fire should the worst come to pass.
"Wait, I thought they said it'd be easier to dig around these blast doors?"
"Huh?" Kepla looked up to Kinsala, "Oh! That was for the outer blast doors, these ones here are only three centimeters thick. Anyways, fire in the hole!" Depressing the klackers the door melted and then exploded, two turians with a battering ram popped the turian sized hole out and the team entered.
A furious storm of gunfire erupted immediately as the first Turian tried to enter. He was reduced to a bullet strewn corpse as soon as he entered. Another Turian was winged in the arm and chest by the bullets, snapping his shield and shredding armor and cartilage plate. Thankfully he was still alive and only maimed, and not out dead.
"Shit." Hergo exclaimed as bullets then exited the hole and a grenade flew through.
"Get down!" Kepla screamed as he dove to the side and prayed. The firing died down and there was no kaboom so he hesitantly stood up and saw the grenade, just sitting there, menacingly. Shaking his head he brought up his omni tool and flash fabricated a shield to put over the explosive in case it decided to stop being a dud and blow.
He dove on the UXO and pulled it clear of the opening, sliding the dome with his foot as far away from the main fight as possible. This wasn't going well, he'd expected there to be little opposition but it seemed fate decided otherwise as another grenade explosion made him shudder in the tight confines, with the shockwave licking over him.
Screaming and shouting began as he ran up and set more charges to enlarge the hole. Another engineer who had been called up was using a drone to try and get a count on enemy numbers, and Hergo was putting charges up on the other side of the opening.
A warning klaxon, high pitched and bone shaking began. A turian threw a grenade disc into the hole and the firing stopped for a second, before Kepla shouted for them to get ready, "Detonating!"
Saren was thrown to the ground by the shockwave, and the sound of a brief fight reached his ears as he picked himself up. Desolas rushed to his side and checked him over, "You okay little brother?" He asked in a small voice and Saren only nodded.
Standing up he fell in line and they began to enter the complex proper. A line of dead and wounded aliens was before the door, some were writhing in pain, their legs, abdomens, and heads impacted by shrapnel and spalling from the demolished blast door. One who was still clearly alive was clutching his face and screaming in pain, he raised his head up and lowered his hands long enough for Saren to see a metal splinter the size of his forearm embedded in his gas mask lengthways, it crushed across his vision plates for his mask. His translator didn't even manage to get a basic translation as he babbled and screamed and cried.
Saren couldn't take it, he silenced the alien with two clean shots through the neck and face. Spirit this was getting bloody. He flinched as bullets whizzed past his head. He flicked to the source and saw the aliens retreating desperately, firing from the hip and sprinting down a featureless hallway.
Were they routing? Or just luring them into another trap?
A turian to his side was impacted once, his shields popped as the explosive round detonated, then a second bullet hit his neck and he was decapitated. Saren raised his rifle and fired at the retreating figures, one was impacted dead in the back and fell forward, another the side of the head who dropped like a stone. Then a burst hit him and he was thrown to the floor.
He groaned and joined the writhing on the ground as he felt his chest. He was jostled then pulled aside as other Turians began to lay down suppressing fire then pursue after the aliens. "you're alright." A small voice said in his ear.
"you're alright Saren." It insisted as he coughed heavily then started to breathe.
He looked at the sound, Desolas was cradling him, his own helmet gone, and his flange ripped off. Blood dribbled down the side of his head like a stream. Saren should count his lucky stars, his shield took the full burst. Seeing the dead bodies of fallen comrades, not all of them were as lucky as he.
Saren tried to sit up, agony flared through his body, before he overrode his body's natural instincts and succeeded, he rummaged through his medical pack on his omnitool and injected himself with a painkiller and stimulants. He got up before the drugs even started to run their course and limped to help bandage Desolas' face and the other wounded.
By the time he finished up, the gunfire was starting to die into echoes down the halls. His radio made him jolt in surprise as he had grown accustomed to the silence and drug haze, "General Arterias, come in." An insistent voice shouted on the radio.
"Desolas here." A weary voice came. A heavy thud reverberated through the base.
"Sir! We've been trying to reach you for the last few minutes. All enemy forces are pulling back to your position. They're setting up a defensive line it looks like, we're trying to get behind them as we speak but-" A squeal of interference began and the base started a klaxon wail that shook bones with an automated message.
"Warning. Warning. Warning. Containment breach. Containment breach. Containment breach. All personnel report to panic rooms. All security shoot to kill. All units contain breach. All units contain breach." The message came in a simple chant. So loud it was almost disorienting.
Commander Jenia Vasilias looked on in concern at the viewscreen. Not at the Turian talking to him, but at the sudden tidal wave flood of aliens running from the buildings. All running out towards the giant pile of guns and ammo in the center.
The alert notification reached even to orbit, and Vasilias dreaded it was heard in the rest of this alien species' domain.
The sentries were so shocked that by the time the first aliens started to grab guns and kit and then race away, they could barely call a halt before they were overwhelmed. Males, females, children even, they grabbed guns, ammo, and began to scatter, panic and worry written queerly asari-like on their faces.
The turian in the viewscreen was struck dumb at it. He was growing more dumb by the fact that the aliens were acting as if the turians did not exist at all. In the screen he could see a Turian arguing, wrestling with a heavy machine gun being dragged away, his only response clear through the radio link was, "You breaking law! You kill us all!"
The first shots were fired, then more, then the aliens started firing back and pandemonium broke out.
Saren limped along with the rest of the strike team as they advanced deeper into the facility, klaxons and alarms blaring at a more manageable volume but blaring all the same. They found more of the aliens, dying from wounds and bleeding out from the last two skirmishes and the pursuit from their forward fireteam. Stepping over bodies and traversing the featureless corridors with no side rooms or doors. They found where that heavy thud came from. They walked onto a catwalk that overlooked a massive chamber of…. Tubes, and cages. All of the tubes had shattered and the cages blown apart by a detonation charge of some kind. Dead bodies littered the catwalk, aliens and Turians, with no cover they had torn each other apart.
And below, hundreds of the aliens ambled around, and roared. Looking at them, they weren't… right. They were all undressed, hairless, and had extensive cybernetics attached to themselves.
One of them looked up, and then it pointed and screamed so loud that it pierced Saren's audio filters. The sudden change in the crowd below was like a force of nature, they beat and screamed, frothing at the mouth as they tried to climb the walls, then tried to find an exit.
Whatever those creatures were, he did not want to fall amongst them, he was elbowed in the side and directed to look up. All around the room, freshly activated demolition charges blinked serenely as they waited for confirmation, "We can't let them destroy the facility. Not until we get what we came for." Desolas breathed as they began to run down the catwalk.
Then it started to shake. Saren stopped and looked, and through the grating he saw the creatures flinging themselves inhumanely into the air and grabbing onto the walkway. The first was now on it with them, and it roared a horse screech. He shot it twice in the head, and then another leaped onto him. A neighboring turian shot a burst, but it kept trying to bludgeon Saren, he was pressing his rifle against its neck and its claws tried to get under his armor. Its head disappeared into a mist of red and greys splattering his visor in viscera. Someone picked him up and they began to run to the far end of the room.
"What in the spirits are these?!" Someone screamed as they shot on full auto, and continued to run. The creatures were undaunted by their casualties and initiated a race, running with unnatural speed with teeth bared in the universal sign of aggression.
They were fast, but the Turians were just that much faster as they crossed the threshold off the catwalk and fired down the walkway. Saren searched around, then found one of the few features this facility possessed, an inset switch behind a glass panel. He smashed it with his rifle butt, and then pulled the switch. Before he could blink the security door swooshed down into place with a scratch and clang that told of bending metal. No going back now.
"What were those things sir?" One of the birds asked.
Desolas looked resolutely at the door then turned his back to face down the corridor. "I don't know, but we can't go back that way. Only way is through." The clanging on the metal behind them, dull thuds heard through even the klaxon's white noise set Saren on edge. They began to march forward.
Kepla flipped around the corner with a commandeered assault rifle and paused, seeing nothing he flicked back and motioned for the team to move. Every footstep made them wince as they eased their way in. On both sides, offices and administrative facilities flanked them. Cubicles, individual rooms, all sorts of cover to attack from.
Made worse by the silenced klaxons and omnipresent security systems they passed. Turrets had emerged from walls, security doors bisecting birds as they crossed, and lone gunmen ambushing them for the last ten minutes. This wasn't a dedicated resistance, it was pure desperation through and through.
The two turians stopped halfway down the hall and took up position and tilted their heads, trying to hear something. Then one disappeared as he was crushed by a wooden desk the size of a krogan. The other was then beaned in the head with a paperweight shattering both his visor and the paperweight, knocking him out cold.
The door at the far end of the hall slipped up just enough for a prone man to fire under it, spitting bullets towards them. The Turian next to him on prone overwatch was impacted in the head, blowing it apart after his shield shattered. Then from the side offices things emerged. They weren't like the regular aliens, they were larger, fitter, meaner. One had four arms, two big arms the girth of tree trunks, then two smaller insectile ones that each held a pistol, firing them akimbo. His main set of arms held a cannon that would look right at home on with a Krogan, firing with abandon to suppress them. He was dressed in thick body armor like the aliens they first fought in space, chitinous plates that scraped and gouged as accelerator pellets spanked across it.
The other was indeterminate, unnaturally lithe and graceful, enough to make an Asari dancer blush, it slipped through an impossibly tight crevice barely the width of its head with a blade of some kind. With great alacrity and speed it closed the distance under the covering fire. Another Turian was decapitated by this new threat, just as his partner adjusted his aim the alien shoulder charged him, downing him before slitting his throat with a slash so quick not even his camera could follow it.
It was laughing at them. With no helmet he saw its eyes darting, head hair so long it reached the floor, braided into knots with a hooked blade at the end. Dressed in a skin tight black suit that had a kinetic barrier ripple around it as Kinsala fired a burst from a machine pistol at it, forgetting his rifle. It backflipped, pirouetting and cartwheeling away, as the brute of an alien continued laying down suppressive fire.
"Never should have come here meat." A nearly perfect translation came from the lithe alien as it licked the blood away from the blade with a snake like tongue, then skittered into the side offices as tracers chased after the beast.
The thundering of feet behind them drew Kepla's eyes up to see reinforcements. Spirits, they looked terrible, covered in fragment wounds, blood, and dirt. They got into formation then got some grenades ready. After consulting with Kinsala they threw the explosives. Smoke and shockwaves billowed out of the corridor followed sharply by a crashing wave of a charge mixed with elevated voices.
Kepla watched in horror as a Turian was torn in half by that cannon held by the brute, the next two fell to the ground, clutching lacerations by the returned gymnast. Then the gymnast staggered, staggered again, and finally succumbed. The brute took a sniper pellet to his visor, then pivoted back into cover as the charge continued. More than forty Turians sprinting, hollering, and firing as they rushed the position, using the weight of numbers and firepower to over take the defenders.
Disappearing into the smoke, only sound would give a clue as to who was winning. Looking back to their dead and dying, Kepla could only reflect that no matter who won, the Legion had lost.
Saren injected himself with another stimulant, and used the time to wipe off the blood and gore from his head and chest. He found a fragment of skull, and an implant of nondescript make, scanning with his omni tool found that it was a miniature explosive device. He dropped it like it was a hot grenade and kicked it away so it skidded across the floor like a puck.
'Fuck fuck fuck fuck!' He mentally cursed as he scrambled to check himself for any more surprises, ignoring his compatriots as they moved through the hall. He looked up to see a freshly attached demolition charge, its soft green light glowing serenely. He saw it was attached by detonation wire down the hall, and more charges. Many more charges.
As if the spirits themselves were delivering an answer the intercom came on, "All people, evacuate immediately! Self destruction in five minutes."
'Oh great even more fuck!' Saren considered that as he cursed in his mind, then looked back down the hall they had come from. 'No, totally logical reaction if they're dealing with THAT getting out.'
"Damn it! Double time it people, we're stopping that countdown." Desolas ordered as they passed another bend and finally came onto the actual meat of the facility, before it was featureless hallways with auto turrets facing in and the occasional security side room. Now they emerged to a hallway flanked by offices and laboratories.
The long hallways were definitely security minded, they'd funnel any enemy down them and be perfect to ambush and keep them suppressed. The baffling thought however was that the aliens had hardly used them. Perhaps they were too few to risk their numbers, or they were not so sure about the complex themselves. No matter, Desolas was right, their only chance of survival now was stopping that countdown.
Galloping along past the offices, he looked about them. They were strewn with damaged equipment and waste bins with burning documents. Combined as well with the obvious signs of hasty evacuation. He cursed again as he lost feeling in his right leg and punched it with the bottom of his fist to get it feeling again. Limping along he impacted the back of the trialing trooper, and looked up.
It was an observation window, and he could see it. The legendary Arca Monolith. And around it, the aliens were setting demolition charges. Desolas punched the window, "We got three minutes!" He shouted.
Kepla felt sick, an accomplishment for a seasoned dropship pilot. He walked along the office hallway and saw the dozen dead bodies that littered it, the dead lithe alien curled up in a ball holding its stomach. The brute was currently locked behind a security shutter of some kind that he had managed to hack close. But the turian bodies that lay across the hall made his stomach turn over.
Approaching the raised security door, the dead and dying were ankle deep. The aliens had met them in combat and fought viciously. Most weren't as well armed or armored as the alien militia, only chest pieces and SMGs with a few rifles with the full size explosive rounds.
The final chamber was a command center of sorts. Terminals, view screens, security panels lined the walls and all faced a two dimensional viewscreen at the far end that showed a map of the globe and the outer orbitals. The writing and numbers were all gibberish to him, but the fact that dozens of the aliens were unmoved from their seats as they accessed and adjusted the terminals before them was more interesting. Unflinching, unmoving, unblinking, they worked and typed.
The only aliens seeming to notice them were… well alien, alien to even these aliens it seemed. The leader, the one more militarily dressed, with a white shirt, and camouflage pants, and a few old fashioned service pins and rank boards. He and the others with him had their hands in the air. He was the sole normal looking alien, the others around him though, made him question if they were the same species.
He had black hair, brown eyes, and pale complexion. Shorter than those around him, he looked sullen and defeated, like an asari. But distracted, as he kept eyeing a specific terminal and barking something out every so often in a completely different language.
Kinsala approached, "In the name of the hierarchy we accept your surrender, our first demand is for you to order your garrison to surrender and peacefully gather in town."
"No. Can't do that. Protocol must be enforced. Containment breach." The translator spoke in broken sentences. He looked thoughtful for a moment then added, "Couldn't even if wanted. You fools. Broke containment. Now you kill us following protocol. Kill us all. Hope. Hope complex self destructs. Sole hope."
"Two minutes until self-destruct." The base intercom announced serenely.
Saren disabled another demolition charge on the wall as they passed. They were unshielded from EM waves and his omni tool was capable of frying the detonator's fuses before they could activate, but it was a fool's hope, if the aliens did this right these were only the just in case charges, the real deal would have been built into the very support structure of this facility with probably a nuclear bomb.
Saren shuddered again at the thought of those things escaping and doing who knew what to the local population. The remainder of their platoon stopped at the door of another observation deck to the monolith. "Ready breach!" Desolas ordered.
Saren fabricated some charges but got distracted. It sounded like… shouting was happening behind the door. They began to stick the charges on the door.
"One micro cycle to detonation." The intercom announced.
Gunfire, the sound of the high caliber rifles firing. Then they detonated the charges, tossed in a couple flashbangs, and sprinted in. An alien, bigger than any that he'd seen yet on this world, threw a smaller alien across the room into the first Turian to pass the door, then the shooting resumed. There was no hesitation, no fear. It was do or die, and everyone knew it. Saren dove into the chamber, and crawled desperately behind a bank of consoles. He immediately set his omni-tool to hack the thing. It was a forlorn hope, it hadn't worked against any other console, why would it work here?
He punched the metal sheeting of the console in futile fury. Closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. A body thumping the ground next to him caught his attention as an alien fell down, locked eyes with him through his mask's lenses, and they both realized that they were alive, a stupid, monumental astounding feeling of elation welled up in him, that little lizard brain telling you that wait, you may not be TOTALLY fucked.
The alien's eye's flicked to something, and Saren followed. It was a black box that would fit in their palm with a big, red… button... Oh. Their eyes met again, and Saren prayed to the spirits that if he got out of this, he'd never have to deal with these insane suicidal bastards ever again.
It began to try and get up and run to the detonator. Saren grappled him and pulled him to the ground. He was lighter than expected, and Saren's talons dug into the soft rubberized body covering between his armor plates. The cry of pain was followed by a "Mother Fornicate!" And then a hammer blow across his face that sent his teeth rattling, and then he felt something white hot stab into where his neck met his body. His eye flicked down to see a metal knife sticking from his armor and into his carapace.
Son of a pyjack! He headbutted the alien like a krogan and that dazed it enough for him to retract his talons from its side and begin to make its way towards its throat.
A rifle butt hit his head hard enough for him to hear his helmet crack, "Get away from him you fatherless son!" The translator struggled with the epitaph as he was now face to face with said largest alien he had seen yet on this world.
"Zero." The base intercom announced serenely. Then subtle thumps reverberated through the concrete and metal. Thump, thump thump thump thump. But they were alive, and the remaining fighting in the room died down.
Everyone left held their breath. Saren looked to the alien going for the detonator, and saw he had just grabbed it, his cry of alarm and despair was drowned out by the plexiglass covering for the observation chamber exploding inward, the shockwave roiling over them.
Kepla watched in horror as the command center's readings on the research base went dead. The rest of the legion, as many units that could be spared, had surged up behind the reforming alien line, the aliens didn't even try to guard their backs, and only the most rudimentary of rear guards were formed as they got into a defensive line before the base.
They were just inside the theater shield umbrella, and as soon as their positions were attacked and overrun, they let them have it from orbit, driving them into their guns. But twenty minutes later the base lit up that it was about to detonate. General Arterias was too far in with his unit, and they couldn't do anything to pull them out. They'd tried to get the alien general to do something but he merely shook his head, threats of violence or execution did nothing to faze him as he explained calmly that the only way to interact with the base's self-destruct was to override it to explode immediately.
"Ma'am we got control of the orbital comms." Kinsala shouted as he looked over the shoulder of an alien automaton.
"Get a line to the commander in orbit, tell him we've secured the planet and need reinforcements." General Orinia looked tired. She should damn it. They'd lost half of the legion to death and wounds. Everyone else was sporting some type of injury and their reserves weren't looking much better after that fiasco in the town courtyard.
Kepla was put a bit off balance as the alien commander moved past him to a nearby console. He was about move to restrain him, how the hell he got out of his restraints was a mystery but-
"Repeat. Repeat bombardment." The alien started to tremble, then shook the automaton, "Repeat bombardment, containment breach." He shouted at Orinia. Who snapped to him, then was drawn away by her comms headset.
"Say again?" She asked. Kepla looked at the screen the alien was looking at and paled.
The entire ground was moving. His eyes tried to discern what it was but he camera image was of poor video quality. The alien general met his eyes and spoke again, "Infected. Zombies." He announced slowly, his translator not getting the second word. Seeing he did not comprehend, he pushed the automaton aside and started to type up something and bring up on the primary view screen what he was seeing. All chatter in the room stopped as they saw a wave of living creatures charging through the dust of the orbital bombardment. The few alien survivors who had been driven from their positions fought desperately. Their large caliber explosive firearms dropping the creatures with a single shot each, blowing apart limbs and chest cavities. But they were few in number and they all got a front row seat to see them torn apart.
"All units…. All units retreat!" Orinia stuttered, then shouted again as she was asked for confirmation.
"Override detonation! Override detonation!" The alien general shouted as he tried to access the computer's systems.
Another alien spoke, "Too late sir!"
The alien general rounded on Orinia, "You are fault!" He snarled dangerously, "You kill them all! You kill my people! You invade home! You start war! You interfere! You kill us all!" His eyes were fire, and his body rippled before a pistol and several rifles were leveled at him. "We got two hours before infected leap. Evacuate people, MY people." He snarled, "Your fault you die first."
"That's no way to get my support for a general evacuation."
"Fornicate your support. Do this or we will kill your planets with no talking." He threatened. The tension grew two fold.
"You'd break citadel law." Orinia countered.
"We contracted no law. We kill you like you kill us. Evacuate people. You can't stop that." He pointed at the view screen.
The radio started to light up with all units. Kepla could hear the gunfire and screaming of the legion's various officers as they were overtaken by the oncoming horde. "Start. Bombardment. Before it's too late!" The alien general repeated.
Orinia met his eyes then slowly raised a talon to her head, "Commander, full fire. Repeat bombardment."
She snapped to Kepla, "Pilot, get back to your bird and begin the evacuation." Kepla could only nod as he and Hergo ran from the command center.
Saren was being dragged. That was the first thing that came to his concussed mind as he felt the start stop of movement. Looking up, he saw Desolas dragging him one armed. He was battered, his hardsuit was scorched black and his helmet was gone, "They blew it apart Saren." He mumbled. The ground under them echoing his mumble with a rumble of its own.
Saren grabbed his talon and then tried to raise himself. He let out an agonized squawk when he tried, bringing up his medical report from his suit reported that in a word, he was fucked. He overrode the warning and injected himself with another painkiller, and a few other medical cocktails. He'd be good to go in a minute. His breathing eased as he felt the pinpricks of injection needles, and the pain faded away as he fell into a happy high.
Getting his feet under him, Saren rose.
Des looked like a damn mess, "Did anyone else…?"
Desolas merely shook his head, "Some of the aliens went this way." He said instead, "Maybe it's a way out." Saren looked around and found they were in yet another corridor, this one strewn with rubble and debris.
The two brothers walked side by side down the corridor, bloodied and battered they supported each other as they went.
Saren's eyes caught the occasional fresh blood smear or droplets as they went. Although little could be heard over the sound of alarms, and the rumbles in the earth, the blood was getting fresher and fresher.
The suit recorded them walking a full two kilometers before coming across what seemed like a medical dispenser and an emergency bulkhead door that was ajar. The dispenser was open and its contents used and ripped open packages.
Desolas set Saren down and began to see if anything useful was left in the spent dispenser. It took him only a minute to find nothing of value and pick Saren back up so that they could limp side by side. The emergency door led into a rough hewn stairway carved from the living stone. The blood trail had stopped.
"Come sir. Keep eyes open." A voice from above drifted down. The grumbling of the earth easing away. They climbed after the voices, the air growing more foul as they went up, polluted by dust and ash.
"No guard… can't…" The other voice wheezed and coughed.
"Damnation sir. Swore oath, like child." The other ordered insistently. Saren
Saren and Desolas remained quiet as they continued to listen to the two aliens talk as they wound their way up the passageway. The sounds of bombardment and the howling wind slowly drowned them out as they reached the exit. The sound truly was deafening, a dust storm of Tuchankan proportions whipped around and limited visibility to only a few tens of meters.
The two aliens just sat on a grassy patch of dirt overlooking the source of thunderclaps. Orbital bombardment impacting kinetic barriers. One of the aliens turned and then hollered, leaping to his feet. He and his partner had risen, but Saren and Desolas leveled their weapons at them.
Looking at them in the swirling vortex of dust, Saren gaped as he recognized them. The massive alien from before, and the alien who he had locked eyes with. The latter produced a type of sword from his hip, which made him snort as he got in an alien fencer's pose, then he reconsidered.
It wasn't for show, if he met those abominations, his sword may actually have been useful. Here, it had just enough heft that it could slip between his hardsuit's plates and sever an artery. But he'd have to close the distance, and looking down at his leg, it had bandages stained red from his talon's work earlier.
The big alien slumped his shoulders, "Surrender sir. Duty done. No shame." He said, looking to his right to his compatriot. The smaller alien trembled and looked at his taller sharply. He apparently made to speak but was cut off, "My duty protect you. By any means." He reached out slowly and gripped his hand and pulled away the sword.
Desolas tried to get a signal and got a patchy one, "Pickup in fourty minutes. What's going on out here?"