Author's Notes: When you get to the phrase "hurricane of bullets," that would be a great time to find a Borderlands 2 OST and start playing the battle music when you're fight Hyperion on the Bloodshot Ramparts. Just a suggestion.
"Alright, how's it going? How are our assets?"
"Roughly half the security force is dead, sir. I've lost twenty-one of eighty-three data feeds. Hostile geth programs are scattered throughout the network."
"What about the intruders?"
"One hundred and three Crimson Lance troops are still alive, but they are outnumbered three to one by the geth, and more geth are entering the compound. The rogue Lance unit and the Siren have encountered one another, and a peaceful outcome is likely. The Claptrap with them is still intact. We also have a Systems Alliance Marine unit scaling the outer wall and entering the perimeter."
"Good, good." Slender fingers rubbed a smooth, chiseled chin, which was attached to a tremendously handsome face and eyes that had long since lost any beauty to them. "What about orbit?"
"An unusual contact appeared on orbital sensors a few moments ago, but it disappeared just as quickly. Displaying it now."
Mismatched eyes narrowed, and his heart started pounding as he leaned in closer.
"Oh. Oh yes." He grinned, and clapped his hands once.
"Okay, send out these orders," he said, his voice perfectly pitched to catch the attention of an entire boardroom of shareholders or order a mass execution. He sometimes did both at the same time.
"Security is to regroup in the upper levels around the main hangar. They're to engage anyone not wearing a Hyperion uniform on-sight. And disarm all locks on our shuttles, too, while you're at it."
"Sent. And done."
"Kickass. Now." He sat down, and began pouring a drink. "Let's watch the show."
Chapter Three: Ballistic Diplomacy
Roland scrambled to his feet, and stepped toward the Siren. He met her eyes, the golden glow fading, and nodded his thanks.
Then he tackled her.
Behind him, he could hear Williams and Reiss jumping out of the way as well, and a blast of sudden heat and force erupted behind them, and then repeated half a dozen more times. Roland and the Siren tumbled over the floor, and he found the barrel of her pistol pressed against his helmet when they came to a halt.
He went very still, releasing her from his arms and holding them out. The pistol - a Maliwan shock-elemental repeater with a barrel the diameter of his thumb - remained jammed againt his skull. After a couple of seconds she lifted the pistol and clambered off of him, before extending her hand.
"Thanks," she offered, her tone a bit amused. That put him off somehow, but he accepted the Siren's hand. "Didn't know your former friends there were rigged to explode."
"Not my choice," he replied as he got back to his feet. He glanced at the remains of the Lancemen who had been under Higgins' command, as well as Jenkins, their bodies charred into unrecognizable hunks of meat and metal. A pang of sadness shot through him at that, along with a burst of pride.
Damn. He was a good kid. Didn't deserve this, but he went down like a man.
"And thanks," he offered a moment later. "For helping when you did."
"If I hadn't heard you arguing with that psycho about the civilians," she replied, "you'd have different words to say." She glanced to the rest of the squad. "Sorry about your friend. I was hoping-"
"Without you, none of us would have survived," Roland replied with a shake of his head. He checked everyone's vitals on his HUD. Reiss and Williams were uninjured, but he still asked them anyway.
"I'd feel a hell of a lot better if we ditch these power cores, Sarge," Williams said. "Higgins might decide to try detonating them."
"Good point," he said, and began releasing the straps around the heavy torso armor. "Chuck the vests, but keep the shields. They won't be as strong without the suit cores, but they'll be better than nothing."
"Right," Reiss said as he and Williams followed suit. "Lance tried to kill us once. No reason to give 'em another chance."
"So, I take it you guys are deserting now?" the Siren asked, leaning against a scorched tabletop. She glanced to the scientists, who were still huddled in their corner, watching them with equal parts fear and hope.
"Yes," Roland grunted. "We're already marked now, so there's no sense in trying to stick around."
"You got a plan for getting out of here?" she asked as they finished ditching their torso armor and the deadly power cores within. They detached the lightweight shield generators mounted inside the armor - really just the same generators many people carried clipped to their belts or arms - and attached them to their belts. "Because there's about a million geth coming down around the base, and we know exactly what they want."
"One moment," Roland said, and they each hurled their core-loaded vests across the room. They landed in the far corner, and a few seconds later exploded into brilliant incendiary bursts. The trio of Lance troops were now clad in just their red ballistic weave jumpsuits and helmets.
"Higgins has the beacon," Reiss said as the howl of the detonations faded. "And he said extraction was on the way."
"Right," Williams added. "We find that snake, we find a way out."
"Better than fighting through thousands of geth," Roland said. He frowned, thinking, and came to a realization. "And that beacon is still worth a lot of money."
"Good idea," Williams said, and an eager edge came to her voice. "They tried to kill us. Best way to pay them back is steal the thing they came here to snatch in the first place."
"The three of you against a hundred Lance troops and legions of geth, plus whatever Hyperion security is left?" They looked up to the Siren, who watched them with cool, gold-tinted eyes. "Sounds like suicide."
"Good thing that we've got something in common then," Roland said, and the Siren nodded. He held out a hand, and after staring at it for a moment she gingerly shook it. "Roland." He gestured to the others. "Williams. Reiss."
"Lilith," she replied. "No ranks anymore?"
"No," Roland grunted.
"Still calling you Sarge, Sarge," Reiss said, and Roland nodded. He stepped past Lilith, moving toward the scientists.
"You," Roland said pointing toward the man who had the guts to stand between his fellows and the men planning to kill him. "What's your name?"
"Greer," the man replied. There was only a slight quaver to the man's voice. "Doctor Greer."
"Doctor, is there another secure lab or storage area around here? Somewhere out of the way?" Roland asked. The scientist nodded. "Get these people there, and lock it down. The geth in this compound are only after the Eridian device. If you try to escape, they'll probably kill you, but you have a better chance of survival if you stay out of their way. Do you understand?"
He nodded quickly, and Roland patted the man on the shoulder.
"Get them moving," he ordered, and rose. He strode back toward his squad and the Siren. They regarded him with expectant eyes, even behind their visors.
"Let's move out and grab that beacon," he ordered. "And pay back thos eassholes who tried to kill us for doing the right damned thing."
"HELL YES!" a mechanical voice howled from the entrance to the lab. Lilith muttered something in annoyance. "Vengeance on the organic bastards that massacred my lot number!"
"What the hell is that?" Reiss asked.
"Annoying," Lilith grunted. "That's, well, I think its the only Claptrap unit left in the base. He's been unlocking the doors in exchange for watching me kill your former comrades."
"Sounds useful," Reiss said.
"Until he starts on the dubstep," Lilith muttered.
"Okay, we've wasted enough time," Roland cut them off with his best authoritative bark. "We've only got ten minutes before extraction arrives and Higgins makes off with our way out of here and that beacon. Let's move!"
They still had the data plots from company network. Higgins hadn't yet cut them out of those, if he was even aware that they were still alive. Using that data, Roland could easily determine where the Eridian beacon had been stored and where the rest of the company were positioned and, more importantly, where they were headed. The route he plotted to intercept Higgins' men led them through the twisting corridors of the Hyperion base and back upstairs. Lilith took the lead, advancing eagerly, while the Claptrap puttered along behind them on his single wheel. They cut through an exterior loading dock that was clear at the moment but showed signs of heavy fighting between geth, Lance, and Hyperion troops. The sky above was still streaked with smoke and the back-and-forth fire of mass accelerators, elemental weaponry, and fighter craft.
As they neared the far end of the dock, though, Lilith slowed. Roland ran past her, and then paused, glancing back at the Siren. She had come to a halt, and was staring up at the sky.
"What is it?" he asked, and she shook her head.
"I feel . . . I don't kn-"
Reality twisted overhead, and a sonic shockwave broke upon them, knocking them all off their feet (save Claptrap, due the lack thereof) and shaking the entire complex. Blood-colored lightning swirled around a massive, towering shape that ripped through the air above them, all dark metal and long, grasping tendrils and aquatic lines. One side of the massive machine was covered in golden, complex whorls and script, similar in style to those of the old Eridian ruins, but with a harsher, aggressive edge to them.
A corona of dark energy, just like the one that had wreathed Lilith as she Phasewalked, danced around the ship for a moment before vanishing. The titanic machine slowly descended toward the surface below, mechanical tentacles reaching out toward the ground to brace it as it started to land. A heavy silence fell over the small group, broken by a tinny, awe-stricken voice.
"Sweet mother of chrome and all her polished nephews," the Claptrap whispered.
"Is that-" Williams breathed.
"Phasewalking," Lilith gasped. "A ship. I don't know how a ship can-"
"Not relevant now," Roland ordered, pushing up to his feet. The others leapt up at the tone of his voice. "Keep moving!"
They were on their feet and wheels in moments and hurrying out from under the specter of the massive, Phasewalking dreadnought.
Kaidan hurried across the courtyard into the main building of the Hyperion compound, his Marines following. They had engaged a few groups of geth on rear-guard duty after scaling the walls, but most of the synthetics were now either inside the compound's buildings or outside the compound itself and closing quickly. Sandwiched between two armies, Kaidan's group was left in an uneasy state of quiet.
They passed dozens of corpses: geth, Hyperion soldiers and robots, and the charred remains of a few unidentified troops. He couldn't determine who they were, but most corporations had their commandos outfitted with self-destruct units which incinerated the bodies. He thought one of the wrecked gunships resembled a model commonly used by the Crimson Lance, but whatever had taken it out wasn't a conventional weapon. It looked more like someone had struck it with a giant incendiary battering ram that had crumpled the cockpit.
"Still no positive identification on the attackers, sir," he reported back to Captain Anderson in the London. "Just some intense fighting. Lot of it concentrated around the main labs where the artifact is stored."
"Understood, Lieutenant," Anderson reported. "Just locate the device and recover it if you can. If not . . . if not, your orders are to destroy it."
Kaidan came to a halt, blinking at that last order. That wasn't part of the briefing.
"Confirm that last, sir?"
"This comes direct from the top. The last thing we need is a rogue corporation or the geth getting that device," Anderson said. There was a pause on his end. "And Command has informed me that we don't want Handsome Jack to get any more Eridium technology than he's already claimed. If it comes down to destroying that thing or letting the enemy take it, destroy it, son."
"Understood, sir," Kaidan replied, with a firm nod.
The Marines reached the entrance to the main lab building and were preparing to enter when a mountain of metal tore its way into reality directly overhead, the shockwave knocking them off their feet.
Kaidan was back on his feet in moments, peering up at the tremendous, dark shape wreathed in red lightning and golden markings. Like most, he knew what Eridian script resembled, and could make the (bowel-watering) connection between the markings and the fact that it was running down the ship's left flank.
"Captain, you getting this?" he called over the rumble of the massive vessel as it descended, arms reaching toward the planet's surface as though it planned to scoop up the entire lab complex.
"I see it," Anderson replied, his voice tight. "That thing just Phasewalked straight down from orbit."
"Eridian, sir?" Kaidan asked.
"I don't know, and right now, that's irrelevant," Anderson barked. "You have your orders, now move!"
"Aye-aye, sir," Kaidan replied, and waved for the Marines with him to rush inside. "Can we get some support?"
"All air and ground assets are tied up just fighting the geth, Lieutenant," Anderson said. "The Fleet is still staunching the bleeding from the first engagement. Hate to say it, son, but you're on your own."
As usual, Kaidan thought. But he only barked an acknowledgement, and then took the lead into the building, just as the massive warship touched down, sending floor-shaking tremors through the compound.
Roland held up a fist at the intersection, and everyone came to a halt and went quiet. Even the Claptrap recognized the need to be silent, coming to a puttering halt a safe distance down the hallway. Roland peeked around the corner, wishing he had a drone or fiber optic wire or even a damned mirror.
It was another lab, but unlike the previous one, this was a wide open room, with a circular line of computer terminals that glowed dimly with the idle holograms of a haptic interface. Interspersed among the computers were large, boxy devices with cylindrical components that were almost certainly scanning equipment. A large pedestal of polished stone sat in the center, currently empty, but it was surrounded by gray slabs of geometrically-precise rock, carved into smooth, glassy blocks. The slabs possessed thin, flowing lines that glowed in the emergency lighting, shifting from dark blue to purple to red and green and then back.
"Main lab, looks like," he whispered, and waved a hand forward once he was sure it was clear. Williams and Lilith slid past him into the room with weapons raised. The Siren didn't move with the same precision as Williams, but she was still quick and covered her side of the room with ease. That, and the way she'd been chewing up the rest of the company earlier, told him she wasn't just dependant on her alien-gifted cosmic powers. The two women took up firing positions, and the rest of the group moved up behind them.
"Yeah, this was where the leaks said they were keeping it," Lilith said once they swept the lab. She looked over one of the computer terminals, where Claptrap was tapping some of the controls.
"Didn't even bother locking them down," the robot muttered. "Password is still set to 'Guest'! Exactly like I suggested it! That was, maybe, sixty-percent sarcasm! No information security at all."
"No signs of fighting here, either," Reiss called from the far end of the room. "Like they just up and abandoned the place to the Lance."
"They were fighting like bastards to keep us out," Roland mused. "Why would they abandon the heart of their research here?"
"Won't find out staring at an empty pedestal," Lilith said. "You're still locked in on their network, right?"
"Yeah, they're converging on one of the hangar bays, at the top of the main building," Roland said, checking his ECHO. "Move out!"
They started out of the far end of the lab, down another of the Hyperion base's endless array of corridors. Distant gunfire sounded overhead, a mixture of human and geth. As they followed the path dictated by the Lance's ECHO network, Roland caught another transmission, this one on the company-wide net.
"Attention, all personnel of Crimson Lance D Company, this is acting Company Commander Higgins," the bastard himself called, his portrait appearing on Roland's HUD. "We have confirmed that Third Squad of First Platoon has betrayed the rest of the company to the enemy. All loyal squadmembers have been brutally executed, and likely, I dunno, dismembered and teabagged. We've triggered their power cores, but have no confirmation that they have been killed, so if you see them, correct this bureaucratic oversight with terminal lethality."
The transmission ended, and Roland nodded with grim determination.
"They'll be gunning for us now," he said, looking to the rest of his squad. "So if we see any Lance between us and the objective, shoot to-"
"Okay, look, sorry," Higgins cut in again. "I think, maybe, four of you knew what I meant by 'terminal lethality.' It means shoot them. A whole bunch. Ass, face, I don't care. Shoot them, until they die from it. 'Kay, guys? And, seriously, basic language education. Try it. It will dramatically improve your career prospects. If you ever had a career prospect beyond shooting people for the Lance. Because, y'know, leaving the Lance is death."
The transmission cut out again.
"Right," Roland said. "Kill them before they-"
"Oh, son of an ass, are you serious?" Higgins shouted over the network. "How is he-? Well, cut him - Gah! Okay, so, Roland, hey buddy, you squad-murdering shitstain, you can probably hear me right now because the only guy who knows how to cut you out of the company ECHO network was Barry, and Barry just up and got his head ventilated by geth." Higgins chuckled. "Crazy, crazy Barry. So, since you can hear me, I guess you know we're going to kill you. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of that. And also, I'm going to shoot you in the balls when this is over. Just, well, FYI. Go die in a fire, buddy!"
The line went dead again.
"Sir, when we kill him," Williams said, "Let me shoot him. Please?"
"I'll consider it," Roland growled. "Let's get to it, people."
Bullets stitched the wall just over Kaidan's head, and a couple sparked off his shields. He ducked back behind cover, muttering, and waved the rest of the squad back. The balcony walkway they were using overlooked most of the compound, and according to his suit's scanners, it was one of the quickest ways to get to the main launch bay where all the geth and other contacts inside the compound were converging.
It was also occupied by a couple of Hyperion soldiers, clad in their heavy yellow-painted armor, and they weren't too discriminating in their targets.
"Hold your fire!" Kaidan shouted over the guards' gunfire. "Systems Alliance Marines! We're on the same side!"
The guards either didn't hear, didn't care, or had orders to not care. A few more rounds hit the wall, and Kaidan repeated the order to hold fire. He shook his head and, remembering Anderson's orders had included keeping the artifact out of Hyperion hands, he made the call. A clench of his fist set dark energy twisting around him, and his body was sheathed in a powerful biotic field several times stronger than his suit's own barriers. He stepped out of cover and charged straight into the Hyperion troops' fire, his Marines following behind him.
Kaidan's submachinegun chattered and his squad's rifles thundered around him, a steady stream of bullets pounding into the Hyperion troops' shields and armor. The corporate troops didn't give any ground, their weapons howling with a fury that didn't abate until the first guard went down in a cloud of spraying blood and shattered armor. The second one was struck repeatedly in the chest by Marine fire that cracked his armor, forcing him back with every step until a biotic thrust by the Lieutenant hurled him off the balcony.
"Captain," Kaidan reported as they moved along the walkway a few moments later when their shields had recharged. "We've been engaged by Hyperion security."
"Friendly fire?" Anderson asked, and Kaidan shook his head.
"Didn't feel very friendly to me," he muttered. "I think they know we're here to steal their toys."
"All you can do is keep pushing forward, Alenko," Anderson said. "I'll see if Command can pry some answers out of Hyperion."
"Understood, sir."
There was a cargo elevator running from the main lab level to the hangar where the remaining Lance were assembling. There were a lot of them; Roland guessed that just about everyone in the company who had survived fighting Hyperion, the geth, and Lilith were outside, going by the sheer amount of gunfire they could hear as the elevator reached that floor. The group had their weapons up and ready when the elevator doors opened, and they stepped into what could best be described a hurricane of bullets.
The hangar was a large docking facility, with a lower maintenance floor strewn with equipment and disassembled - and now bullet-riddled - cargo and ore loading craft. A second floor held a couple of docking cradles for ships, and a Hyperion interstellar shuttle was docked at one of them via magnetic clamps affixed to its hull. Beyond that, it was difficult to make out anything in the brutal storm of noise and multicolored tracer fire flying in every direction as three factions tried their damndest to kill each other. Higgins' Lance troops - about sixty men in total - were spread around the large hangar bay in groups of four to eight soldiers, and not by choice. They were trading rivers of bullets with about the same number in geth infantry. At the far end of the hangar, about thirty Hyperion soldiers and combat loaders were hunkered down and trading fire with both sides.
What the Hyperion troops lacked in numbers they made up for in cohesion, and what the Lance lacked in cohesion they made up for in firepower. Geth troops kept pouring into the room as the Lance and Hyperion cut them down, some from other doorways into the hangar, and some dropping in through the open hangar doors amid blue kinetic barriers and screaming howls of retro-thrusters. The Lance troops were moving by bounds toward the stairs leading to the second level, and the Hyperion troops tried to doggedly pursue them in spite of being outnumbered four to one.
No one had spotted the new arrivals, which gave them a moment the process the sheer chaos of the gun battle as more than a hundred and fifty men and machines engaged in ballistic diplomacy.
"There!" Roland said, pointing up at the docking level, at the cradle opposite the docked shuttle. A knot of Lance troops, two of them wearing heavy black armor and backpack power generators, were surrounding a device that resembled a tall, thin spire wreathed in green light, around which several shards of glowing stone circled. Both spire and stones were covered in that glowing, color-shifting Eridian script. Higgins, visible by the fact that he was missing his helmet (as all proper commanders were wont to do) was barking orders and directing his men.
"That's our payback," Williams muttered.
"And our payday," Lilith added with a grin, and dashed out of the elevator.
"Wait!" Roland started, but she spun around toward them, her eyes glowing suddenly through her visor.
"I'll cover you!" she shouted, and dashed toward several geth. The synthetics whirled toward her as one, their curving rifles brought to bear, only for her to punch a hole in reality with a burst of electricity of and kinetic force, and reappear a moment later in the middle of the group of geth, punching one so hard it blew into several pieces and sending the rest flying away.
"You heard the crazy Siren!" Roland shouted.
"FOR VENGEANCE!" Claptrap screamed before Roland could continue, and charged out of the elevator. Shaking his head, Roland took the lead, throwing out his Scorpio turret and raising his rifle. Williams and Reiss followed, and they joined the insanity.
"One hell of a firefight up ahead!" shouted one of the Marines as Kaidan's squad hurried along the outer walkway. The Lieutenant nodded. They were maybe thirty meters away, running up a flight of stairs that would give them outside access to the hangar in question, and from here they could hear the storm of bullets, a composite howl of harsh human-made weaponry and the geth's thoopthoop pulse weapons. Enough stray tracers and blue mass accelerator rounds were screaming out of the hangar bay ahead that he guessed more than a hundred combatants were desperately trying to kill each other.
The titanic dreadnought towering over them had not reacted to the gun battle, instead positioning itself directly over the facility. Every minute or so the Alliance troops had spotted at sleek, locust-like ship about twenty meters long swoop overhead and pause above the hangar doors, where it would drop about fifteen geth infantry platforms into the bay before peeling out.
At this rate, the geth would bury everyone else under sheer numbers. They had to move quickly. Kaidan moved to the point position as they reached the top of the stairs. The walkway straightened out, and fifteen meters ahead they could see the hangar. The walkway was nearly flush with the wall of the level the hangar was built into, so all they could see was stray tracer fire whipping out of the bay ahead of them and the open doors.
"Keep close and cover your angles!" he ordered his troops, and they nodded despite the redundant orders. They hefted their weapons as they charged along the walkway.
"LT!" one of the Marines shouted as they neared the doors, and pointed. Kaidan followed the Marine's finger, and spotted a fat-bellied transport ship painted in red and gray colors swooping in. It was a human design, and though it lacked markings, he could guess at the owners.
Crimson Lance. Atlas Corporation, then. Greedy bastards want to maintain their monopoly on Eridian tech?
They reached the edge of the hangar doors, and Kaidan pressed himself against the wall. They were about to plunge into the maelstrom; he could hear screams, mechanical stutters, and some form of odd, hollow explosion every few moments. Certain death awaited them, but they had their orders.
A flare of red lit set his visor opaque for a moment, and then it faded and the visor returned to normal. Kaidan looked up to see the Lance transport ship was now little more than flaming scrap, the remains impaled on a red beam emerging from the prow of the titan looming overhead.
"Yeah, that's . . . not good at all," Kaidan muttered under his breath. But whatever that dreadnought was, it had bought them at least few more minutes by taking out the Lance ship.
"Ready, Marines!" he shouted. He received shouts back in the affirmative. Kaidan drew up a biotic barrier around himself, and when sheathed in the powerful, comfortable blue glow, he bellowed, "Advance!"
He rounded the corner, submachinegun shouldered, and the Systems Alliance Marines joined the madness.
Roland rose from cover, sighting a group of geth and pouring fire into them. Their shields flared and broke under his concentrated fire. His own shields flashed as they deflected stray shots, and he dropped to cover as the geth pivoted toward him, tracing the source of the fire that broke their defenses. Reiss perforated them as Roland pulled their ire, and they toppled in mangled piles of cabling and armor plating.
A trio of Lancemen charged around their flank, trading fire with Williams. She jerked back, blood flying from her flank as a round punched through her shield. The mercenaries pushed forward with vicious, relentless intent, until Lilith exploded her way back into reality among them, rending them with waves of lightning and hurling was was left across the bay. Williams clutched her side, omnitool flashing as she started applying Insta-Health and nodded the Siren her thanks. Roland slid in beside the wounded soldier, redeploying his Scorpio turret to cover them both.
"Swift death to the robot abusing pig-****ers! And then, we shall slay those who programmed the autocensor into my voice module!"
Claptrap provided emotional support.
They kept moving toward one of the ramps leading to the upper level, separated by a wall that would cover anyone moving up. Hyperion troops fired in their general direction, but had too many targets to focus on just their small group, while the geth paid them no more heed than any other threat. But the Lance were another matter. Higgins had spotted them, and the Lance troops who weren't pinned down fighting the geth and Hyperion were actively trying to kill them.
But the three ex-Lance and the Siren fighting alongside them didn't die easily. Anyone directly threatening them found themselves facing immediate, decisive, concentrated gunfire, and if that wasn't enough to break them, Lilith charged into the midst of the enemy, shocking and blasting and burning them down.
As they advanced, bullet casings raining from digistruct weapons and mass accelerators overheating from massed fire, Roland spotted something else: another group of figures advancing across the hangar, fighting in tight coordination much like their own squad. But where Roland's group had a Siren supporting them, this group was led by a man slinging blue-tinged bolts of gravity-altering power that launched foes across the bay or yanked them off their feet, when he wasn't wreathed in a shimmering blue field that deflected incoming fire with effortless ease. And Roland recognized the squad's equipment.
He brought up the same frequency he'd used less than an hour ago: general Systems Alliance military communications, and tightbeamed a transmission toward the SA Marines.
"Lieutenant Alenko!" he shouted.
The biotic Marine actually jerked to a halt. Well, that ID'd the squad leader with the level head. Roland keyed his transmitter to show his face.
"Who is this?" the familiar Marine officer's voice responded, his portrait appearing in Roland's HUD.
"Name's Roland. Sergeant, ex-Crimson Lance," he replied, and then fired a couple of bursts at a geth platform that was a bit too optimistic. It went down hard. "Propose we have a mutual enemy."
"That being?" Alenko called as he launched a Lance trooper across the hangar.
"Everyone one of these assholes!" Roland shouted back, cutting down a Hyperion loader advancing toward them.
"Agreed," Alenko answered. The last syllable was drowned out by Lilith erupting back into reality near the ramp to the second floor, scattering a group of Lancemen holding that spot.
"Ramp secure!" she called. "Get moving or get left behind!"
Roland, Reiss, and Williams rose, laying down suppressing fire as they advanced toward the ramp, Claptrap squealing along behind them and shouting curses at anything that suited his fancy.
"The Siren with you?" Alenko called as his Marines moved toward them.
"Hell yes," Roland replied. "So's the Claptrap."
"Ah. I . . . see. Okay. We're moving toward the ramp! Can you cover us?"
"Feed me your IFF," Roland shouted, readying his Scorpio turret as it finished reloading and recharging. Williams and Reiss were firing on either side of him, shouting targets. Lilith had already moved away from the ramp and was blasting back into . . . wherever she went when Phasewalking. "My Scorpio will cover you!"
"Sending!" Roland fired a couple of bursts and checked his HUD. A positive signal was received. Two seconds later, the Scorpio confirmed it had the new friendlies locked in. He deployed the gun turret.
"Move up! We've got you!" he shouted, and the Marines rose as a group and advanced, firing and maneuvering toward the ramp under the supporting fire of three angry Lancemen backed by a heavy gun turret and a rampaging Siren.
Within less than a minute, the Marines had reached their position, sheltered by the ramp's wall. Roland and Alenko traded nods. That was all they really had time for.
"You here for the beacon?" Roland asked, having to shout over the metal typhoon being whipped about outside. Alenko nodded. "Right. We got a mutual target, but bhe Lance has a ship coming in," Roland started, but Alenko shook his head.
"That thing outside shot it down," he reported. "Might do the same to us if we extract the device."
"We can decide on that risk when we recover the damn thing!" Roland said, and Kaidan nodded.
"That Hyperion shuttle operational?" the Lieutenant asked.
"Looks like, but I don't have anyone who can fly it," Roland replied.
"I can!" Claptrap piped up, hopping up and down somehow on his single wheel. "It's Hyperion tech! I can interface with Hyperion tech without any problem!"
"Uhhh," Roland started, but Alenko cut him off.
"Best we've got! You're sure you can fly it?"
"You betcha!" the robot declared.
"Okay, then," Roland said. He looked out over the hangar bay. Higgins was still standing near the beacon, but the two badass-looking Lance troops in heavy armor were lumbering away and firing down at the endless horde of geth still pouring into the hangar. "My team can grab that beacon and get it over to the shuttle faster than yours can."
Alenko nodded after a moment. He pointed to the shuttle.
"We'll get the robot to the shuttle and cover you while you bring the beacon over," he said, and Roland nodded in turn.
The brotherhood of battle was a strange thing. Less than an hour ago, these two men had been prepared to kill each other. But circumstances, morals, and the rare quality of level-headed sanity had conspired to put Marine and ex-Lanceman toward the same bloody purpose. Thus they turned to their men, relayed their orders, and an unlikely alliance of betrayed mercenaries, dedicated Marines, power-drunk Siren, and vengeful Claptrap surged back into the fray.
The docking level was not quite as chaotic as the maintenance level below, as only a dozen geth had reached that floor, and twice as many Crimson Lance troops were dug in around the beacon. Some were wounded, but all were laying down intense fire, most of all the two elite, badass soldiers in their heavy armor. When Roland's squad emerged, it took the Lance only a few moments to orient toward the new threat, and the trio of ex-Lance were forced into cover, firing and maneuvering between heavy loading and maintenance equipment and cargo crates designed by whatever wonderful engineer had realized they needed to be rated against anti-ship weaponry. Roland redeployed his Scorpio turret to cover them, the heavy gun blasting apart enemy shields and forcing the Higgin's Lancemen back into cover.
Below, the battle had turned against the Lance and Hyperion troops, with only a few knots of the former still fighting, and the latter having been surrounded in the center of the bay and falling one by one in a storm of blue tracer fire from the synthetics. Several Lance troops on the second floor were fighting toward the Hyperion shuttle, trading fire with Alenko's Marines as they did the same.
Bullets deflected off his shields as Roland dashed for cover behind a cargo container, squeezing off bursts at the enemy. Lilith exploded among a group of geth advancing on their flank, and Roland heard her laughing over the constant scream and rumble of gunfire. His ECHO flashed, and, thinking it was Alenko calling him, he acknowledged.
"Fuck you, Roland!" Higgins screamed, and the ex-Sergeant shook his head. "Why can't you just DIE? Fine time for you to find morals, you hypocritical-"
"I don't have time for this," Roland grunted quietly, closing the channel. He pumped a hand, waving Williams forward, and she ran past. He leaned out, laying down suppressing fire until she reached the next bit of cover. She started firing in turn, and Roland stepped out.
"Sarge, hold pos-" Reiss shouted, and then a grenade flew past his faceplate. He jerked to a halt and hurled himself back behind cover.
The detonation tossed him off his feet and blew apart Roland's shields. Ringing filled his ears, and he thought he could taste blood. He rolled over onto his stomach, pain flashing all along his body, and pushed himself to his knees with his left hand. His rifle was held in a death grip in his right.
One of the huge, heavily-armed Lance soldiers stepped around the corner of the cargo container, a massive squad-support machinegun in hand. He hefted the heavy weapon toward Roland, who snarled a curse and raised his own rifle.
Just as the badass Lanceman pulled the trigger, bullets smashed into his flank, setting his shield ablaze and wreathing him in harsh blue light. The Lanceman whirled toward Reiss, who was emptying his rifle's magazine into the hulking figure's flank. The shields collapsed as Roland opened fire in turn, but he watched with agonized frustration as just about every round he fired just deflected or crumpled off the heavy armor.
Then Williams ran behind the badass Lanceman's back, jamming a grenade into his belt. He spun toward her, shouting in surprise, but she was already vaulting over a parked light cargo-lifter. He took a step toward her, oblivious to the actual threat until it literally exploded his pants off.
The heavy armor kept the man's upper body mostly intact, but the detonation blew his lower body into mist and ceramic shrapnel and threw what was left a few meters away.
"Good teamwork," Roland grunted, pushing himself up and stumbling back into cover. "Now we just have to-"
The second badass, surrounded by half a dozen Lancemen, stomped into view around another cargo loader, and raised a rocket launcher to his shoulder.
"Burn, Roland!" he heard Higgins shout over the gunfire, and the launcher belched out a trio if missiles at his position.
Lightning played over the geth trooper's metal skin, and it twitched violently. The flashlight head exploded, and it dropped in a squealing heap of metal and plastic. Lilith shifted her aim, and put two more electrical rounds from the Maliwan shock pistol into another synthetic. The elemental rounds exploded against the geth's shields, and the lightning bursts that slashed over the geth's body blew out shield projectors and scrambled processor cores. The geth toppled, and she shot it another time to make sure it was down.
Keeping the geth off Roland's squad as they assaulted the beacon made sense; if anyone was suited for wiping out flankers, it was someone as fast as a Phasewalking Siren. And if she could keep the robots off them, they would be clear to grab the beacon. Lilith wanted the device not just because it was worth a fortune, but also because of the Eridian tech and its relation to her abilities. She didn't think she could perfectly trust Roland's crew - they were Crimson Lance, even if they had turned on Atlas - but they could be trusted to be motivated for profit.
The Siren's eyes snapped up as she heard an explosion, and saw the body of one of the Lance badasses fly through the air. She spotted Roland's group, still advancing toward the beacon, but in their path were several more Lance troops, as well as the other badass, and he was toting a launcher and staring in Roland's general direction.
Lilith felt a sudden clenching in her chest, then stepped out of reality immediately and charged toward them. She didn't have time to think, least of all about her reaction, but some distant part of her was surprised that the sight made her...afraid?
She'd held her wrath from Roland's team because they had been willing to act like decent people - a rarity among the Lance. And they had been useful this far. But the fact that she cared about them at all came as a sudden shock to her.
Lilith grit her currently-ethereal teeth as she charged toward the Lance with liquid speed. The badass raised the launcher and depressed the trigger, and she felt another jolt of terror as the rockets screamed toward Roland's position. They hit the cargo container and a distant vibration of force and noise touched her in her ethereal state. She saw the blast, a grayed-out flare of light and smoke and debris, and at least one body wearing the stripped-down armor Roland's crew now bore went tumbling through the air for several meters. The Lance troops surrounding the badass started cheering.
Then she was between the Lance troops, the surging power rolling off her ethereal body. Lightning cascaded over the mercenaries, and she shoved her hand into the badass trooper's back. The phenomenal cosmic power coursing through her slammed down into an itty-bitty contact point, and she pumped it through her fist into the trooper's back.
Armor shattered, and bodies went flying among a storm of lightning. The badass toppled, and other Lance troopers fell around her. She spun, drawing her pistol, and sighted a pair of Lance troopers still standing and reeling from the Phaseblast. She shot them both with quick double-taps through their facemasks, and their bodies toppled with jerky movements as the shock rounds detonated inside their helmets.
"What the shit?" shouted a Lance officer, and Lilith spun toward him, raising her pistol. He was about twenty meters away, near the Eridian device. Lilith guessed this was that Higgins bastard who had tried to set up Roland's execution, and she started to sight him when something moved behind her.
She had a split-second to act, and immediately tumbled forward into a roll. The rocket launcher smashed down into the floor where she had been standing a moment prior, and Lilith whirled around, switching her pistol for her submachinegun in a glowing blur of digistruct light.
The badass Lance trooper surged toward her with surprising speed for someone so large and heavily-armored. Smoke trailed from his armor where the lightning had scored across the ceramic plating, and the backpack power supply and ammunition cache had been flattened, but that didn't matter. The badass slammed into Lilith with his shoulder as she pulled the trigger, her rounds deflecting off the heavy armor. The impact blew the air out of her lungs and launched her back a few meters.
Moron, she thought to herself as she hit the floor and rolled to her feet. Check to make sure the target is dead first! She snapped up the submachinegun and backed away, firing as she did so. The badass just twisted in place, putting his armored shoulder in the line of fire, and calmly pulled a racking lever on the side of the launcher. A fresh magazine of missiles locked in place.
"Ah, shit," she hissed, and reached for the well of power once more. Energy started flickering through her, but it was too soon since the last Phasewalk. She needed a few more seconds to recover before she could properly harness the power again. Lilith scrambled sideways, her rounds bouncing off the badass' armor as he pivoted to target her with the launcher. He started to fire.
There was a click, a hiss, a beep, and then a Scorpio turret put eight heavy rounds into the hulking Lance trooper's back in one long burst. The badass jerked from the impact, and the barrage of rockets went wide, exploding a few meters to Lilith's left and a dozen behind her.
The massive Lanceman didn't turn toward the turret. Instead he racked the lever again and targeted her once more. Lilith dug in her heels as he sighted her, grabbed at the tingling conduit of power, and the stuttering flow intensified.
She stepped out of reality right as the missiles would have struck her. The explosives were detonated by the Phaseblast, and Lilith charged with a feral grin. As she charged, she saw the badass drop to his knees, blood flying as bullets punched through his battered armor and exploded through thinner leg plates. And advancing through the debris and smoke and dust was a man covered in blood, broken chunks of Lance armor hanging from his body, firing an assault rifle with grim determination. That had to be Roland.
The Lance trooper turned toward him on one knee, dropping the rocket launcher and producing a machinegun. He started to take aim, when Lilith's incorporeal hand slapped his corporeal shoulder, and a torrent of lightning and kinetic force shattered armor and hurled him through the air. He skipped off the solid guard railing and dropped to the lower level.
She turned toward Roland, grinning at the tingle that ran through her, only to have him slide into cover close to her beside some kind of loading cradle. This close, she could see his face under the broken chunks of his Lance helmet: strong features, dark skin, brown eyes, and a determined set in his jaw. Lilith crouched beside him, and he wiped the blood from the side of his face.
"You hurt?" she asked, and he grunted.
"Banged up by that blast, but it looks a lot worse than it is. Gotta thank whoever made those cargo crates. They'd last through a nuke." Bullets struck near their position, and they both winced. "Reiss got the worst part of it but his shield saved him. Williams is patching him up."
He rose and started firing at the Lance troops near the artifact, and Lilith followed suit. As they traded shots with the mercenaries by the beacon, their ECHOs lit up. Alenko's face popped up in the corner of their HUDs.
"This is Alenko," he reported. "We're at the shuttle. No casualties. Initiating-"
"BOW BEFORE MY KEYPAD MANIPULATING PROWESS, FEEBLE DOOR!"
"-entry."
"Copy that," Roland replied as he crouched to reload. "We're close to the beacon. Some minor wounds, no casualties."
"Need some support?" Alenko asked.
"Negative, we've got this."
"Copy that. Good luck." He closed the line.
Lilith and Roland kept firing on the Lance troops, and she saw at least one go down. The Higgins guy who kept barking orders was still alive, though, and yelling at his men and shouting curses at his foes. Lilith ducked down to reload her submachinegun, and caught movement behind her. She glanced back and spotted Williams and Reiss catching up, the latter's uniform stained a darker red in spots.
"Sarge, we've got your back," Reiss grunted, in obvious pain but also not caring.
"Okay, Reiss, Williams," Roland said with a nod. "Supporting fire. Lilith and I are going for that beacon."
"And Higgins," Williams said, and Roland grunted.
"Damned straight," he replied. He glanced to Lilith, who found herself nodding. "Advance!"
Williams and Reiss opened fire, spraying the few remaining Lancemen with suppressing fire. They advanced into it with determination and grit, bounding and shooting with coordinated movements. Roland leapt up and charged, heart pounding, and Lilith circled around the opposite way, red tracers leaping from her submachinegun. He threw out the deployment canister for his freshly-reloaded Scorpio as he ran, and fired a couple of bursts on the move, but didn't stop until he reached an overturned cargo loader. As he reloaded, Roland keyed his ECHO.
"Higgins!" he shouted. "Got no one left to hide behind now!"
"Fuck you, Roland!" the Lance officer shouted back. "I don't need them! I'll kneecap you and make you drink your own stomach aci-"
Lilith Phasewalked, the detonation drowning out the rest of the threat, and Roland stepped out during the distraction. He heard his Scorpio pounding away, and a Lanceman was blasted off his feet. He ran from cover to cover under the suppressing fire from his squadmates and the turret, and a blossom of lightning and a charred body tumbling through the air heralded Lilith's return. Roland sighted another Lance trooper - a man who an hour and a half ago would have been his comrade - and put a dozen rounds through his chest.
Then Higgins stood from behind another battered cargo loader, not ten meters away, with his face twisted in a murderous grimace, but he was targeting Lilith as she burned down two more Lance troops. Roland snapped his sights to the center of Higgins' face and pulled the trigger. The rifle howled in his hands, pounding against his shoulder, and Higgins' shield erupted around his head. He jerked back behind cover almost instantly, and Roland snatched a grenade from his belt and hurled it around the side of the vehicle.
Higgins leapt around the opposite side a moment later, shouting and cursing. The detonation shook the floor, but Roland had braced himself, and kept his aim dead-steady. More importantly, do were the rest of his squad, and everyone opened fire as Higgins reappeared. Twenty rounds from four separate guns drilled into Higgins' shields and armor within the heartbeat he emerged, and he ducked back, leaving blood on the floor.
Roland charged after him, heart pounding and anger burning in his chest. This was too easy. He wanted something harder. More satisfying. Higgins damned well deserved a prolonged death, after he jeopardized a mission trying prove a point. After killing Jenkins. After nearly killing the only men in this entire company who had any sense of morals, for his goddamned bottom line.
"Higgins!" he shouted, rounding the loader. "Get back here!"
The Lance officer was limping away, omnitool glowing as he applied Insta-Health to his wounds. Roland saw where he was headed; only ten meters away he could see the Eridian device, looming overhead in a gleaming field of green light. It was mounted on a conveyor trolley, and had been prepared to be quickly loaded on the Crimson Lance transport, but now it simply sat in the open. Higgins struggled toward the device.
"Higgins!" Roland shouted, and the Lieutenant dropped his rifle. It clattered to the floor, and in a flash of blue, a missile launcher digistructed into his fingers. He raised the weapon to toward the artifact.
"Back off, Roland!" he shouted. "Or I blow it! You want this damned thing as much as I do, don't you?"
Roland heard a distant explosion as Lilith Phasewalked again. Roland didn't bother looking toward her, and instead kept his weapon trained on Higgins' back.
"You won't be able to kill me before I pull the trigger, Roland," Higgins said with a grin.
"I won't need to," Roland replied. At the corner of his vision, he saw lightning sparking along the floor as Lilith closed in.
Then a blue corona surged around Higgins and yanked him off his feet. He let out a shocked cry, and the missile launcher fired straight up into the ceiling as he was sent twisting and spinning through the air over the center of the bay. Then a blue streak arced overhead and slammed into Higgins from above, and he was smashed down into the lower floor.
"Uh," Roland said, lowering his rifle. "Well."
The air shook a few meters away, and the echoing explosion of a Phasewalk sounded almost petulant. Lilith appeared, arms crossed.
"That was anticlimactic," she muttered. Even with her face hidden behind her helmet, he could tell she was pissed.
Alenko's face appeared in Roland's HUD.
"You're welcome," the biotic Marine grunted. "Claptrap's got the shuttle online. We'll maneuver it over to that side of the bay and load up the beacon."
At his words, the shuttle's engines began rumbling. Geth, Lance, and Hyperion troops started shooting up at it almost at once, and more geth were advancing toward the docking level with the core of the Lance resistance on that level wiped out. Roland turned toward the synthetics as they regrouped and began firing at the shuttle from the upper level.
"Defensive positions, people!" Roland shouted, casting aside his frustration at Higgins' anticlimactic end. "Reiss, Williams, to my spot. We hold the ground around this-"
Purple light flooded the floor around him, and Roland spun around, shouldering his rifle, but he lowered it when he saw the green field around the Eridian device had changed colors. The stones rotating around the spire were spinning faster, their lines gleaming.
And the field snapped out and ensnared Lilith before she could react.
"Whoa, what the-" she started to say, and Roland leapt toward her. He grabbed her arm.
Heat stabbed into his hand, burning straight through his gloves. Ballistic weave began to melt, and he recoiled from the blistering fire rolling off of the Siren. Fire wreathed his arm, and he tore the detachable sleeve off. He stumbled back, shielding his eyes with his gun hand from the brilliant light wreathing Lilith's armor.
Something leapt out from her body, a blade-like shape of pure golden flame, and a moment later it split apart, resolving into wings of searing fire.
Lilith was more surprised than afraid when the Eridian device grabbed her. She had expected as much when the device activated, but she hadn't expected it to activate so abruptly. Otherwise she would have warned everyone.
She felt Roland grab at her, and tried opening her mouth to warn him off, but the field wrapping around her, locking her arms and legs and head in place, refused to let her move enough to open her mouth. He released her a moment later, and she hoped it had been before he was hurt too badly.
She could sense the heat from the device and the conduit of power running through her, but there was no pain. The device interacted with the surging cosmic power within her, and she could feel it adjusting and changing, sensations of living energy awakening and shifting within her.
Then knowledge poured into her brain. Thoughts, alien and twisted in nature - not repulsive or abhorrent, but nothing like anything a human mind was wired to comprehend. Images, sensations, tastes, smells, thoughts - thoughts so complex that they couldn't have been the product of a human mind - machinegunned through her brain.
Then she saw a shape: circle, with an elongated, inverted "U" in the center.
There! she thought. Where is it?
More thoughts and images: Snowbound peaks. A world of six-year seasons. Purple minerals stabbing through soil and rock and flesh. A serpent five hundred meters in length formed of metal and flesh and gleaming lines. A battleship appearing to be made of diamond and chrome. A buried tomb.
Where is the Vault? she screamed in her mind.
A burning world, surrounded by warships kilometers long, each with long tendrils, contours like an aquatic animal, and wreathed in red lightning. Her mind's eye narrowed. The shape was familiar, but where there the Eridian markings she had seen on the dreadnought outside?
As she focused on the image, other sensations accompanied it: terror, hate, and loss. Deep-rooted and pain and fear, and somewhere in there, a vague sense of triumph and satisfaction. She felt her stomach twist at the torrent of familiar yet utterly alien emotions.
Then the field released her, and she dropped to the floor. The stones surrounding the spire hit the floor alongside her. Lilith gasped, coughing violently, and fought to keep her stomach under control. Pain ran through her, spiking and fading erratically, and the conduit of energy that fed her powers pulsed and waned with all the violence of a hurricane in a gas giant. She thought she could hear rumbling vibrations and gunfire, and pushed herself to her feet.
A hand grabbed her and yanked her to the floor.
"Stay down!" Roland shouted, and she decided not to argue with him. Blackness swam up around the edges of her vision, but she could see movement all around her: the gold-and-white slab-sides of a Hyperion shuttle, gray and crimson uniforms moving around her, bullet casings raining from digistruct weapons and shimmering in the light of a dozen muzzle flashes. Someone lifted her up, and then there was a wonderful sense of weightlessness.
Then darkness.
The air was filled with back-and-forth tracer fire. Roland's Scorpio pumped out an endless stream of heavy machinegun rounds. Dozens of geth were closing in on the shuttle from all sides, and the Marines and ex-Lance fought furiously to hold them back. Synthetics closed in, relentless and emotionless, advancing from cover to cover, willingly sacrificing themselves and drawing fire so that others could move safely.
"Get it aboard!" Kaidan shouted, constantly surrounded by a blue corona as he hurled advancing geth around the bay as quickly he could manage without passing out. Two Marines dragged the trolley up into the shuttle while two more shielded them.
"Vamanos, friends!" Claptrap shouted from the cockpit. "We have to fly! Like leaves on the wind!"
"Beacon secured!" a Marine shouted. "All wounded are on board!" Kaidan nodded.
"Everyone on board, now!" he shouted. "Move!"
Kaidan and Roland stood on the ramp, shoulder to shoulder, cutting down geth as the rest of their ragtag group hurried back aboard. The last of the Marines hurried onto the ship under their covering fire, and they retreated up the ramp.
"Claptrap, go!"
"Hold on to your waste disposal subsytems!" the robot shouted, and the shuttle lurched away from the dock. Kaidan and Roland and several Marines stayed at the ramp, firing upon any optimistic geth with one hand while holding on for dear life at Claptrap's unsteady piloting with the other. The shuttle swerved away, and they caught a look at the bay below.
"Dammit!" Roland hissed.
"What?" Kaidan asked.
"Bastard's still alive," Roland muttered, and Kaidan looked down at the lower level. Below, the last of the Crimson Lance, about fifteen men, were fighting a desperate last stand, surrounded by more than a hundred geth. In the middle, Kaidan spotted the officer whom he had pulled away from the artifact and smashed into the deck. Somehow, his armor had cushioned him enough that getting spiked into the floor hadn't killed him. Not immediately, anyway.
"He won't make it out of that," Kaidan said, with a shake of his head, and the thrusters fired. They shot out of the hangar bay, and Kaidan signaled for the ramp to close.
"Now, we have a bigger problem," the Marine said, and started through the cargo bay. Roland followed.
"That being?" he asked, and Kaidan pointed straight up.
"Wha-oh, crap."
"Yeah," Kaidan said. "Claptrap, get us moving fast as you can!"
"I'm givin' 'er all she's got, cap'n!" the robot shouted back.
"Less references," Kaidan shouted as he ran up to the cockpit, "More avoiding the giant death beams!"
Above them, the titanic machine bearing Eridian markings turned toward the escaping shuttle, and a glowing red light signaled that they had caught its deadly attention. Countless voices whispered, feeding into a greater whole, forming a single tremendous will which made a swift and decisive choice. Targeting systems calculated the firing solution, and endless arrays of generators and capacitors fed energy into the liquid metal projector that would swat the shuttle out of the sky.
But one voice spoke louder than the others.
Wait, it said, The device is aboard, and we need it still.
The millions heard the one, and they heeded its wisdom. Yes, they murmured. This is true.
Another decision was made. The firing process was aborted, and power was shunted to other systems. Phasing systems began charging for the extraction.
And deep within the monstrous vessel, a organic lungs breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Disaster averted.
For now.
"They're not shooting," Alenko said, confused. "Why aren't they shooting?"
"Who cares?" Roland said. "Claptrap, get us out of atmosphere and into FTL!"
"On it!" the robot said, and they shot up out of the atmosphere. Geth ships did not react to them as they ascended.
"We've got the device on board," Alenko said, and Roland slowly nodded. They had come all this way for that beacon, so they wouldn't destroy it.
But if that were the case, why were they not pursuing the shuttle, either? A boarding team could secure the shuttle, and the geth had already spent hundreds of platforms trying to take it.
What the hell was going on here?
Roland had no idea, and still hadn't figured it out when they breached atmosphere and Claptrap triggered the faster than light drive.
"Die! Die you synthetic freaks! DIE!"
Higgins rifle pounded against his shoulder as he poured rounds into the geth. The flashlight-faced machines advanced from all sides, a constant torrent of blue pulse weapon fire slicing into his men from all sides. Lancemen were falling around him, riddled with smoking wounds, screaming in terror, dropping in heaps of dead flesh and torn armor.
"Damn you, Roland!" he screamed, dropping a spent rifle and grabbing another from a dying Lance soldier. He cut down two more geth before the gun ran dry, and he ripped another weapon from another fallen soldier.
His shield meter was depleted. Rounds skipped off his heavy officer-grade armor. Something hit him in the back; he whirled to strike, only to find it was the corspe of another Lance trooper, slumping against him. Another mercenary crouched beside him, but his head snapped backward as a bullet went through one of the eyeplates.
Higgins raised his weapon, screaming in impotent rage and fear, blasting another geth. How had this happened? How had Roland managed to ruin everything?
Something struck him in the gut, and he found himself staring at the ceiling of the hangar. He blinked, gasping for breath, but he couldn't seem to fill his lungs all the way. He rolled over, looking for his rifle, but it was gone.
The hangar was dead silent. He fumbled for his pistol, and it formed out from his SDU into unsteady fingers. The pistol fell from his hand and clattered across the floor. It stopped against another dead Lanceman's shoulder.
No. Not like this. Not before he could make Roland pay for this . . . this . . . all of this.
They were all dead. No one remained to follow his orders, to save him from what was about to happen. He gasped, letting anger fuel his movements, and reached for his pistol with feeble fingers. His hands brushed weapon's grip.
Something cold wrapped around his neck, and the air he was struggling for rushed out of him. He was dragged up to his feet, and then off them.
Higgins gasped, choking, and stared into a set of harsh, glowing blue eyes set into a nightmare face of gray, leathery flesh, narrow avian features, long, spear-like spines, and gleaming blue wiring. A dark pair of lines ran down the face, framing the cold eyes, converging at to top of its head.
"You have heart, human," murmured a voice, harsh like cast iron, with a hint of electronic augmentation. "I can use that."
"Fuck you, turian," Higgins choked out somehow.
"Where is the Eridian device?" the turian asked, his words quiet but intent. Higgins nearly spat in the alien's face, but couldn't cough up enough spit to manage it. The edges of his vision grew dark.
"Roland," he squeaked. "Alliance Marines. A Siren!"
"I asked where, not who," the turian snarled. "Where did they take it?"
"I . . . don't . . . ."
The turian released him. He flopped to the floor, gasping, and through his blurred vision he saw the turian looming over him, clad in bone-white armor. Spikes and blades poked from parts of it, while others were smooth and almost organic in nature. The turian crouched over him, cocking its nightmare face. Higgins wondered how a turian could look so tall and emaciated, even for one of their looming, slender breed, and realized that it had something to do with the inverted letter "U" that slashed down his face.
"I know that it was taken, and I need to know more, but you are in no condition to assist me, human," the alien said. The face leaned a bit closer.
"But you will be soon enough. Rest assured-"
The recording came to an abrupt halt. A mutter of annoyance sounded from the slender figure sitting on the minimalist chair. Dim red light reflected off mirror-polished floor tiles, illuminating a thin face.
"Telemetry from that soldier indicates a geth termination-shot to the head destroyed the recording gear built into his armor," a woman's voice spoke, and the slender man nodded. He picked up a glass of brandy and swirled it absently.
"It'll do," he said, and smiled. "You've got plenty of other raw recordings from the rest of the base."
"Yes sir," the woman replied, her voice distorted faintly by the speaker filtering it. She stared back at him through a holographic projection: pale skin, black hair, empty blue eyes.
"Alright, then," he said, sitting back. "So, let's break it down. Beacon's been accessed by someone who can actually use it and read the data."
"Yes, sir."
"We've got all the equipment and resources in place to track them," he added.
"Yes, sir."
"And they've gotten clear despite the unexpected intervention of the Eridian-empowered ship," he continued.
"Yes, sir."
"And," he added, "Our competitors will be facing severe fines for raiding one of our bases on an Alliance world."
"Extremely likely, sir."
"Not to mention," he continued, "We've finally pinned down one more of the six human Sirens in the entire universe."
"...yes, sir."
He grinned and threw back the glass. When he finished, he wiped his lips with a flourish, and giggled.
"Better than I expected, but not quite as good as I hoped. But we're still way ahead.
I'd say that's a win."
"Agreed, sir."
"So, pull up the rest of the list, and get ready for the next phase."
"Already done.
"Excellent," he said. "You make me...well, less disappointed. Which is very impressive, Angel."
"Thank you, sir."
Codex: Humanity And the Systems Alliance: Megacorporations
The so-called "megacorporations" form a central component of the economic and military power of the "human sphere of influence" in the galaxy. Formed by a combination of loose control by the central government of the human Systems Alliance, large amounts of resource-rich worlds, limited competition toward expansion, intense business savvy, and an appalling lack of ethics in favor of profit-focused growth and development, human megacorporations such as Jakobs, Anshin, Hyperion, Atlas, and Dahl have grown to become massive powers in their own rights, acting as interstellar nation-states in all but name.
Megacorporations possess massive military forces, with many forming their own specialized and distinctive mercenary forces, such as the Atlas Corporation's Crimson Lance, or the Dahl Corporation's Colonial Marine Corps. Other corporations have outright purchased existing mercenary groups, such as the Maliwan corporation buying out and integrating the Eclipse mercenary army into its own military forces, or the Blood Pack being bought clan-by-clan by the Vladof corporation. Other corporations have formed mergers with existing military powers, most famously being the immensely controversial merger between the Torgue corporation and the krogan clan Urdnot. These powerful military forces often lead to corporations clashing with one another, as well as other galactic corporations or military powers, in Terminus space or on the "border" worlds where Alliance and Citadel law are not recognized.
Despite their power, megacorporations have faced difficulty expanding and operating both in their "home" space in the Systems Alliance as well as in larger Citadel-controlled space. Corporations are legally barred from open conflict in these regions and face immense fines and legal sanctions for breaking these laws. Most megacorporations are also required by Citadel law to adhere to the authority of a Council Spectre, although like all legal restrictions, Spectre authority is ignored or undermined the further one gets from Citadel and Alliance territory.
Author's Notes: This chapter was where the story really started to click for me (as evidenced by the fact that I slammed out about 12,000 words in three days) where I started to get how to write Roland, and also discovered how to write Kaidan. Working on handsome Jack, though we're not really seeing him in a setting where he is his classic snarky, malicious, condescending douchebag self.
This chapter heralds the end of the Eden Prime arc, and next chapter we'll start seeing what trouble that beacon is really going to cause, as well as start venturing into the larger NGOG setting.
Until next chapter . . . .