Hey guys. I'm running a little dry on ideas, so I need some input! I'm still trying to churn these chapters out, but school is limiting my time. Enjoy!
Chapter 4: S.A.B.E.R.
At the cosmodrome with Alpha and Ham
"The Fallen are trying to break Rasputin's firewall. Find a way inside the bunker and eliminate the intruders. If they get ahold of the warmind, we won't be able to go anywhere near the cosmodrome. Make this quick and easy. Torrent-2 out." The three of us dismount the ship, and it flies out on its own. We start making our approach toward the bunker, and notice something in the sky. It looks about the size of the WARSAT you'd occasionally see while patrolling. Siphon came in on the radio. "Don't worry if you can't understand what Rasputin is saying. He's programmed to speak Golden Age Russian. We've actually got an interpreter with us to decipher the warmind's messages." "Roger that." Replied Ham. The giant thing in the sky came closer to the planet at alarming speed. It was getting closer, closer, then we ran for it. It hit the ground with a deafening sonic explosion.
We looked back, and saw a WARSAT in the ground. Considering that the thing was at least 15 feet wide, it was impressive that half of the damn thing was buried in the ground. We started to hear that Golden Age Russian over the radio. The interpreter came in over the radio. "It's saying 'The codes to access the bunker are within the WARSAT. Extract the codes, and make your way to the bunker on the eastern side of the cosmodrome.'" We saw Fallen skiffs flying in, and we knew exactly why. We ran behind cover from the WARSAT, and Alpha worked on the extraction process. "I sure wish the Ghosts were still here. Would've made this 10 times easier." She sounded like she was struggling and getting frustrated. "Uranium! Ham! Hold them all off while I try to patch in and extract the codes!" Ham and I took our spots on the side of the WARSAT, and aimed at the skiffs incoming. They dropped dregs, vandals, and captains. A lot of them. We could hardly keep up with the amount that the Fallen was throwing at us. "Alpha! How much longer?!" I yelled over the chaos. "Not much longer! I'm halfway there!"
It felt like forever. Seemingly endless waves of Fallen, all getting filled with bullets. "I'm out!" Ham yelled. "What do we do?!" Alpha yelled. "...I have an idea!" Perfect plan. I jump over the WARSAT, and toward them all. A purple aura formed in my hand, and I threw it at the horde. They practically disappeared in void light. "Nicely done, Uranium!" The waves stop, and the WARSAT is transmatted out. A marker appeared on our HUDs. "The base is over this way!" I yelled.
We found a large door in the side of a cliff off the Forgotten Shore. "This has to be it." Alpha said as she input the codes. The doors opened with a quiet whirr, and showed us a tunnel that looked like a mine. We heard more Russian, and the interpreter followed up with, "The assault is happening in Bunker WAR-4. He's marked the way to the bunker on your HUD, and is going to shut down the power to trigger a lockdown to slow the assault. The lights will go out in 5 minutes." Siphon came up on the radio. "You know what that means right? You're on the clock, Guardians. The comms won't reach down into the bunker, so you're on your own. Good luck to you three."
We come into a large room with vents everywhere, and are immediately ambushed by Fallen. "Ambush!" Ham cries while fighting them off hand-to-hand. Alpha tried to kill a dreg shooting at Ham, but a vandal hits her in the shoulder. "I'm hit!" She yelped as she hid behind a small guard rail. The vandal had her pinned. I looked over at Ham in distress, and he was surging with fire. He held a hammer the size of his enormous arms, and started to run into the horde. I looked over as he smashed the entire wave with his blazing hammers. I could feel the heat from here, and the dregs and vandals were incinerated by Ham's assault. I went over the Alpha to help her up. The wound wasn't deep, but certainly hit a critical shoulder junction pivot. "I think it hit the IAI on the left shoulder." She told me. "IAI?" I had no clue what she was talking about. "Oh, I forgot tell you. IAI means Independent Artificial Intelligence. Each extremity has one for faster reflexes and more powerful blows." "No time for lessons! We're on the clock!" Ham yelled at us. Shit. I forgot about that. Ham exposed her IAI, and reset it using its emergency function. She gets up, and the lights flicker out.
It was so dark, I was almost blinded by my HUD's display. "Shit. Blackout. We have our sonar trackers, right?" Alpha asked. "Right." I tell her. "Switch them on."
We start making our way to the bunker, and we didn't find anything else on the way. "Looks like the Fallen ditched after the blackout." Ham pointed out. "Nope. Fallen wouldn't do that. They probably all went to the bunker to help get past the lockdown barrier." I corrected him. "Oh, right. That makes sense." Short trip to the bunker, but when we got there, our trackers showed us something that looked like a shank, but was clearly too big to be one. "What is that?" "Dunno, but it can't be good." We got a closer look, and saw the giant Shank up close. "It looks like this Shank was made to crack the firewall, but is having trouble from the blackout." We decide to make our move. Alpha surges with arc energy, and starts to cut apart the Fallen using her Bladedancing technique. They all fell at her feet, but she suddenly just collapsed. "Alpha? Alpha, get up!" Ham yelled at her. No response. Weird. The Shank looked at Ham and I, and we run for cover. "What happened to Alpha?!" Ham yelled to me over the giant Shank shooting at us. "No clue! Alpha! Get up now! No resting on the job!" She wasn't resting. I saw her twitch, but she wasn't responding to anything. Ham and I start shooting at the Shank from cover, but could hardly make a dent. I look over to the right, and see an arc energy discharge point. "Ham! I got an idea!" "Tell me!" "Arc energy discharge point!" I point at it, and he looks at it, and quickly tells me, "Blackout! No power!" "Who says we can't turn this place back on?!" This idea is so stupid that it has to work. I run over to a console, and try to start the process. "Nothing's working!" "I told you! There's no powe-"
The flick of the lights interrupted by clicking loudly. I quickly look over to Alpha, and she wasn't there. "Ham! Where's Alpha?!" "What do you mean 'Where is she?!'" I point and Ham finds, much to his surprise, nothing. The next thing we knew, the Shank was hovering over to the discharge point. The movement didn't look normal, though. It looked like it was being dragged over there. I heard a loud yell that I knew well. "Alpha! Keep pulling! You're almost there!" I saw a big spark come from Alpha, and she fell again. We decided to finish her job. Ham struck it with his fist, and sent it flying toward the point. I finished off the job by using a Warlock melee attack, sliding it toward the corner. The Shank was consumed by arc energy. It practically fell apart. The Shank was destroyed. Siphon comes in over the comms. "Well done. You two know what happened to Alpha?" "No clue." I tell him. "She was shot in the left shoulder IAI, and had trouble staying up in the bunker." "Bring her in for diagnostics. Mission complete, Guardians. Report back to the tower immediately." Ham and I share high-fives before picking Alpha up and carrying her out of the bunker.
Hope you all enjoyed! See y'all soon!