Chapter Sixty
September 17th, 2077
Night City, Northern California
Batty's Hotel, Coast View
"Our objective is clear." Eagle's voice filtered into the masks of every Bloodhound and Banshee. "Secure the Mezzanine and punch a hole through the Voodoo Boy fortifications. Mage One is pushing the main lobby, so check your fire and stick to your fire teams. Good Luck."
Pavlenko 'Nightowl' Denisovich chambered a fresh round into his M2038 Tactician, ignoring the smear of blood staining its barrel. A Voodoo Boy tried to pick a fight with him at close range and ended up eating a mouthful of barrel before his brains were scattered across the dim hallway.
Nightowl was one of the first Bloodhounds to breach the Basement, adding three fresh tallies to his kill count in the process. It was a standard breach and clear maneuver that removed a dozen or so Voodoo Boys without any of them firing a retaliatory shot.
It was a tried and true tactic that Pavlenko's squad performed with relative ease, but there was a difference between this occasion and the rest. Disciple Two was no longer a four-man team consisting only of Cypher's Elite Bloodhounds.
Four Banshees were included in the squad structure on Chamber's requests for this operation. It felt more akin to a demand in Pavlenko's eyes, but he wasn't stupid enough to voice his concerns with the all-knowing AI.
She believed that a mixed composition of Bloodhounds and Sirens would be a far more effective fighting force for their assault on the Voodoo Boy stronghold.
There were a few objections on both sides, particularly from a few high-ranking Sirens, but the silent approval from Cypher and Fury tempered any arguments.
To simplify the new formation, Chamber assigned two mixed fireteams to one squad and placed two high-ranking members from the Bloodhounds and Sirens in charge.
Eagle and Leopard led Disciples One and Two, while a pair of Siren officers took charge of Disciple Three and the newly formed Disciple Four.
Pavlenko was thankful that Disciple Two was assigned to Leopard's authority alongside the rest of his squad, but he would have preferred to keep the command structure free of any Siren involvement.
Especially considering the Banshee he was assigned to.
The Siren was a force of a woman called Kerrigan, and much like the rest of her kind, she was a complete contrast to Pavlenko and other Bloodhounds. Her armor's sleek design complemented her nimble statute, and the ease with which she manipulated her environment made him both admire and envy her martial skillset.
Still, Pavlenko didn't trust Kerrigan, and neither did she going by the silent looks of disdain she sent his way. Weaver had a much more accommodating partner, Lyla, who engaged the Bloodhound Marksman in a brief but animated conversation, much to Kerrigan's chagrin.
He was certain that any cohesion between the Bloodhounds and Banshees would immediately fail once the first shot was fired.
Much to his surprise, the exact opposite happened.
"Bounding!" Pavlenko stormed down a hallway with his Carnage at the ready, bullets racing past his head as he barreled into a wide-eyed Voodoo Boy. The Bloodhound drove the nose of his shotgun into the man's gut, eviscerating his midsection with a 12 gauge shell.
He ducked into an empty side room and braced himself against the near wall. "Weaver!"
"Bounding!" His fellow Bloodhound broke into the same hallway, his Ajax cutting down a pair of Voodoo Boys with a burst of 5.56. Weaver slid into a makeshift barrier with a Voodoo Boy's bloodied corpse strung over the edge.
"Set!" The Bloodhound called out to the Sirens, who were itching to break out into the corridor.
"Bounding!" Kerrigan went first, storming down the corridor with an Arasaka Shigure in both hands. Her rounds joined a chorus of Bloodhound and Banshee gunfire suppressing the Voodoo Boys, trying to fend off their blazing advance.
Her nimble speed contrasted Weaver's direct approach, and within a blink, Kerrigan was taking shelter in an adjacent room to Pavkenko.
"Set!" Lyla followed in Kerrigan's wake, matching her compatriot's movements with grace and precision that should have been downright impossible, but Banshees are truly one of a kind.
"That is such bullshit." Weaver accurately summed up Pavlenko's thought, but an immediate call from Chamber silenced any further comments.
"Nightowl, report?" Pavlenko fell back into cover and activated his transmitter.
"We're encountering heavy resistance in the eastern corridors." He peaked down the hallway and glimpsed the blockade of Voodoo Boys exchanging gunfire with Weaver and Kerrigan. "At least three dozen hostiles are slowing our advance towards the main junction over."
"Solid copy. The other squads are reporting similar progress." Chamber relayed. "I'm transferring the rest of Disciple Two to your corridor. Once they arrive, make your way towards the main lobby and assist Mage One."
"Understood." An explosion rocked the building, shattering the nearby window and caking Pavlenko in a shower of glass. "We'll break through this blockade and link up with Mage One. Interrogative, what's the situation outside?"
"Critical." Well, wasn't that just dandy. "Oxide, out."
A disbelieving grunt fell from Nightowl's lips. "First op with the grunts, and we're already on babysitting duty."
"Stow it, Pavlenko." Kerrigan admonished the Bloodhound as she inserted a fresh magazine into her Shigure.
Pavlenko cast an amused glance towards the Siren while chambering an incendiary shell into his Carnage. "You standing up for the boots, Kerrigan?"
"No, I just can't stand your whiny voice. Lyla, cover me!" Kerrigan wheeled around the doorway and sprinted down the corridor. She pushed two rooms down and shouldered into a makeshift barricade that buckled underneath the kinetic force.
Pavlenko heard a trio of gunshots before Kerrigan's voice echoed into the jammed-up hallway. "Clear!"
"Fucking, Banshee," Pavlenko whispered. He snapped out of his cover and fired a trio of incendiary shells into a mass of Voodoo Boys swarming into the hallway.
Bullets tore into Kerrigan's cover, scattering splinters of wood and forcing her back from the hallway.
The intense gunfire picked up a deadly notch, and Pavlenko's team soon found itself unable to maneuver within the constrictive hallway. They were forced to carefully pick their engagements or be torn apart by the Voodoo Boy's well-coordinated fire.
A high explosive shell fired from a Voodoo Boy Grenadier slammed into Weaver's cover, sparking a concussive blast that torpedoed the Bloodhound onto his black.
"Weaver!" Pavlenko shot to his feet and squeezed off a pair of shells that mutilated the Grenadier.
"I got him!" Lyla broke from cover and shuffled towards the ailing Weaver while keeping her sights downrange. She rolled into an adjacent room with a blown-out wall and pulled a still-dazed Weaver inside.
"How's he doing?!" Pavlenko asked, the booming echoes of his Carnage adding to the chaos.
Lyla propped Weaver against the wall and ran her hands along his armor, searching for blood. Her palm felt nearly a dozen jagged pieces of shrapnel scattered across his sternum, but none pierced his protective shell.
"He's ok!" Pavlenko barely contained a relieved sigh. "Armor saved his ass!"
"Well, thank god for small mercies." He replied with his usual sarcastic wit. "Get his ass back on the firing line. We got more hostiles flooding into the hallway."
"You'll be fine, Bloodhound." She roused Weaver to his feet and pushed his rifle into his hands. "Take a breather and join us when you're capable."
"You don't have to tell me twice." The Bloodhound replied with a grimace.
Lyla pat him on the shoulder and peeked into the smokey corridor. True to Pavlenko's word, another group of Militia reinforced the Voodoo Boy barricade.
Their situation was grim, and for all his quips, Pavlenko couldn't muster any forced levity into his fire team. They were in danger of missing the timeline set by Chamber, and the last thing Lyla wanted to do was disappoint her Matriarch.
The Banshee heard a commotion to their rear, and to her internal relief, it wasn't a Voodoo Boy flanking force.
"Friendlies!" Their sister team arrived in force, charging down the corridor with guns blazing and renewed vigor.
"Welcome to the shitshow, Leopard." Pavlenko greeted the leading Bloodhound as she slid into cover. His eyes preened at a familiar SOR-22 and its steely-eyed owner. "Hatcher, pick off these Gunners suppressing our line!"
"On it!" The Bloodhound sighted a Voodoo Boy reloading his mounted Defender.
Hatcher braced his SOR-22 against the edge of his cover and squeezed off a single round that shattered the Voodoo Boy's left eye. He sighted another MG Gunner and deftly fired a second shot into the man's cranium.
"Two down!" Hatcher's eyes widened at the sight of a rocket tube popping into view. "RPG!"
He pulled his barrel to the left and put three rounds into the Rocketeer's frontal lobe. The Voodoo Boy's head violently snapped backward, but his finger pressed onto the RPGs trigger, causing his rocket to fire prematurely into the roof above.
A plume of debris ejected into the hallway smothering it in a haze of impenetrable smoke. The Bloodhounds activated their magnetic visors and continued engaging the Voodoo Boys with eerie precision. Every bark from their firearms was accompanied by the muted thud of a dead tango.
Micro pulled a fragmentation grenade from her belt and heaved the ball of condensed shrapnel toward the surviving Voodoo Boys. It bounced off a wall stained with blood and between the feet of a blank-faced woman who should have been selling off her wares at this hour of the day.
Just another casualty for an already lengthy list.
*BOOM!*
The grenade imploded, bisecting the woman in half and igniting an ammunition cache filled to the brim with unspent rounds and readily available explosives. The Bloodhounds and Banshees hit the ground as a reverberating shockwave rocked the hotel grounds.
"…Mother…fucker…." Pavlenko stumbled to his feet, his visor scanning the corridor for any surviving Voodoo Boys and brainwashed Militia. "That's one way too clear a junction."
"You're telling me." Leopard braced a hand against the soot-covered wall and glanced towards a sheepish-looking Micro. "Would it kill you to call grenade next time, rook?"
"It worked, didn't it." Umeki rolled her eyes with mild annoyance before turning her gaze towards the rest of her squad. "We need to push for the main lobby."
"Why are we diverting, Bloodhound?" A Banshee with a Copperhead slung across her sternum inquired.
"Mage needs more heavy hitters on the line. They're encountering more resistance than Chamber anticipated, and we're the closest squad." Leopard loaded a fresh magazine into her Ajax and shot the Siren a baleful glance. "Is that a problem, Aurelia?"
"No, ma'am." The Banshee offered no resistance, allowing Leopard to order them onward.
"Good. Since you're eager, Aurelia, you're upfront with Pavlenko." Leopard turned towards the rest of her squad and honed in on her marksman. "Hatcher, you bring up the rear while the rest of us space out the center. Any questions?"
The silence was all that greeted her.
"Let's move." Disciple Two pushed down the blood-soaked corridor, all the while ignoring their blank-faced adversary's bleeding out on the floor. Their reactions are mute and inhuman, a stark contrast to their lives not days earlier.
Keep moving, Bloodhound. Death is their only salvation.
Chamber's presence comes in an ethereal voice that blesses the ear of every Bloodhound, Banshee, and Blackwatch Operator under her sway. The AI acts as a guardian angel who constantly reassures her underlings while carrying out the regrettable task of putting down these mindless drones.
Leopards noticed that Weaver was slow to tear his attention away from the dead or dying. He is a native son of Pacifica, and the day's events have gradually torn at his psyche.
She wanted Weaver sidelined until further notice, but he assured Chamber and Eagle that he could separate his personal misgivings for this operation. Umeki wondered how much more he could take before his mind cracked under the pressure of slaying his kin without hesitation or mercy.
For his sake, Leopard hoped today would end in no further bloodshed.
But as her squad turned a tight corner and glimpsed a crowd of Militia and Voodoo Boys mechanically throw together a final barricade, Leopard remembered why she didn't pray to hope.
Only fools and dreamers hope to be offered their salvation.
Bloodhounds take it by the throat.
One Spartan is an unknown quality capable of incalculable devastation that is quantified only by the after-action report.
This is something that Chamber has grown accustomed to witnessing over the last few months of solo operations with Cyrus on this backwater version of Earth.
But two Spartans acting in near seamless coordination?
That is not an unidentifiable quantity.
It is a force of nature.
While the Bloodhounds, Banshees, and Blackwatch Operators fought tooth and nail against a force that knows no fear or hesitation. The Spartans tore through the Rogue's AI's array of armed forces with the same ferocity they inflicted upon the Covenant in a bygone era.
The corpses they leave behind are humans that no longer hold the spark of emotion or intelligence behind their eyes.
But they are human nonetheless.
Their mindless frames are silenced by a slit throat, crushed skull, or a single bullet through the forehead.
Cyrus and Eliza are a breath away from breaching the data stronghold before the Rogue AI can even process their movements. Whole sections of its immaculately constructed defenses are torn apart by the seams, and Chamber could only appreciate the Spartan's speed compared to their subordinates fighting to keep pace.
The Bloodhounds and Banshees assigned to guard their respective Leaders are mere spectators to a violent show they have no place in. Eagle and the Siren Commanders, who insisted on employing this personal guard to the Spartans, quickly realized that a bodyguard of ten highly trained killers was needed elsewhere.
Chamber pushed them to secondary objectives on the flanks, where they could slow down potential QRFs the Rogue may throw their way.
Until then, Cyrus and Eliza would have to contend with a sizeable force of two hundred Vanyons defending the Strongholds Data Fortress.
Cyrus snapped the neck of a masked Vanyon bouncing a mono blade off his skull.
199 now.
Cyrus glanced around his surroundings, his visor scanning for any thermal contacts that momentarily evaded his wrath. "Clear."
Eliza stepped over a trio of dead Vanyons that gave their all to strike her down. Specks of blood coated her forearms, and her golded visor was marred by red streaks running down the brim of her helmet.
Time had not eluded Eliza's skill but refined it to a noticeable extent. Her movements were precise and no longer carried the drawn-out hitch Cyrus had repeatedly reprimanded her.
It made him appreciate her that much more.
"These guys were better than the armed civilians thrown at us earlier." Eliza gestured towards the pack of dead Vanyons while coming to his side. "The Rogue must be getting desperate."
"I think it's well past desperate." There was vitriol to its movements, and a near frantic nature pushed it to throw everything it had in the Spartan's path.
It wouldn't be enough.
"Chamber, give me a status on our forces." Cyrus hadn't heard much from outside. Communications were becoming increasingly unreliable the further he and Eliza ventured into Stronghold.
"Mage Company has drawn in their platoons and has set up a perimeter around the Hotel. Casualties are extensive, with four dead and twenty-five wounded, but they're holding the line. Our Bloodhounds are harassing the Voodoo Boys being held in reserve and supporting Mage Company the best they can…." Chamber paused, her eyes pulsing as she received another round of communique from Mage Company. "…Ronin is requesting heavy air support to thin out the Voodoo Boys hitting his strong point."
As for the Romeo Squadron, it was initially intended to provide close air support for Mage Company, but following the shootdown of Romeo Six-One, all air assets were withdrawn from the hot zone. Chamber redirected a few squads from Mage Two and Three to clear out the MANPADS, but progress was slow considering the heavy resistance and urban environment.
"Grant limited air support and direct Romeo Squadron to utilize decoy runs to throw off their remaining MANPADS." Cyrus paused, his mind mulling over the Blackwatch casualties. "Dispatch any available squads from Disciple to the roof. We must get our dead and wounded to Sierra Outpost within the hour."
Sierra Outpost was a Blackwatch stronghold out in the Badlands designated as a triage center for the Pacifica Operation. The outpost was still receiving necessary personnel and equipment, but it could function as a medical facility in its current form.
"Roger that." Chamber's eyes glanced over the Hotel's CCTV network graciously acquired from an irate Rogue AI. "In the meantime, we still have about two hundred Vanyons between you and the Data fortress, so hop to it. I'll take care of our Bloodhounds outside."
Eliza didn't miss how she deliberately avoided the Banshees and took her to task with an annoyed glimpse.
"Don't forget about my Banshees, Chamber." The Matriarch warned with a tinge of heat that had Cyrus cautiously stepping away. "I've raised them as if they were my own daughters, and I would hate to find out that you neglected them."
"Have a little faith, Eliza." Chamber matched her tone with her customary witticism. "Just because I find their mom to be an insufferable brute sometimes does not mean I despise their existence. On the contrary, I tolerate their mere presence as one would an annoying toddler."
Cyrus ignored the rest of their byplay mostly out of habit. The pair had a penchant for testing each other's nerves at every opportunity, and not even the passage of time could dissuade them from their typical antics.
Inevitably Eliza's antagonizing conversation ended with Chamber cutting her off mid-reply, but instead of the Matriarch's traditional steaming reaction, she smiled beneath her visor.
"I missed you too, Chamber." Eliza huffed through her nose, tapping Cyrus's elbow. "Can we go before I have a sudden urge to break her data crystal."
He offered no verbal reply.
Instead, he reared his leg and lashed out at the steel door barring their progress and sending half of it sailing into the next room. A chorus of gunfire immediately greeted him as his mind was consumed by the influence of Spartan time.
Cyrus stormed into the room, his eyes ignoring the red beams from each rifle as he slammed into a Vanyon, trying to run him through with a mono blade. His full weight fractured the Voodoo Boy's armor and sent his broken body spiraling to the floor.
The Vanyon reached for his sidearm, ignorant to the state of his disfigured arm. Cyrus raised his right foot and curb-stomped the Vanyons head into a red paste, silencing his silent cries of anguish and releasing his soul into the afterlife.
Eliza was quick to join her sibling, her armor undergoing the same violent greeting before her legs propelled her forward. She braced the Copperhead's stock against her shoulder and fired off a series of bursts that ravaged a group of Vanyons trying to pin her down.
The Rogue AI tried to utilize every tactic imaginable ranging from deliberate fire and maneuver to explosive traps designed to collapse the roof upon the Spartans. Once these means of engagement were deemed futile, it pushed for a full envelopment in the blind hope that numbers could succeed where ingenuity had not.
It failed.
The buck of Cyrus's Unity sent a Vanyon sprawling back with a fresh hole through his masked head. Eliza brushed past him and used her shields to tank a burst of heavy machine-gun fire, allowing his to recharge unabated. Cyrus used her as cover, establishing a well-practiced maneuver at Eliza's six o'clock and switching out before her shields could be compromised.
Each interchangeable movement did not temper their violent reprisals, for a host of Vanyons were killed with each passing second. The pair of Headhunters were death incarnate on a near biblical scale, uncaring of the incoming fire to the point that it grated on the years of combat training Chief Mendez imparted in each of them.
"Reloading!" Eliza spun backward, her back rolling off Cyrus's arm while he stepped forward and put three rounds into a Vanyon in the midst of firing off his underbarrel grenade launcher.
There should have been a cry of anguish or an audible noise of pain, but there was nothing from each slain Vanyon. It was a precedent mimicked by every Voodoo Boy and armed civilian sent out to face down the Spartans.
It emboldened the Headhunter's morale and pushed them to see this Rogue AI be brought to heel. Some would say the human cost of tonight would already be too high, but Cyrus and Eliza knew the price of a single human life.
And just how easily it could be taken away.
"Duck!" Cyrus crouched to his right, allowing Eliza to drive her fist through a rampaging Vanyons sternum. He returned the favor by gunning down a Berseker keen on tearing at his partner's flank.
"Crusher on the left!" Cyrus followed Eliza's callout and saw a Vanyon carrying a heavy-duty Carnage. His Unity barked once, embedding a ballistic round into the edge runner's shoulder, but a second pull of the trigger clicked empty.
Undeterred, Cyrus pulled his Kukri from its sheath and tossed the curved blade across the room, where it sheathed itself into the Vanyons forehead. A third edge runner charged his blindside with a series of heavy-duty buckshot from his Tactician.
Eliza linked an arm around his elbow, and instinct drove him to slingshot his sibling into the charging Vanyon. If there were even a trace of emotion left in the Voodoo Boy, his eyes would have widened in terror at a Spartan's foot severing his jaw from the rest of his body, but alas, all he gave was a blank stare as his body began to suffer from the severe trauma.
The pair dismantled another dozen Vanyons before an explosion rocked the building and bathed the interior in a wave of darkness. Cyrus and Eliza used the distraction to activate their active camouflage modules and bled into the shadows.
The Rogue AI activated the edge runners advanced optics and forced its drones to search for the Headhunters in a pattern formation.
The Headhunters fell upon the remaining Vanyons like the predators ONI spent a fortune to create, and soon the only discernible noise was the muffled booms rocking the Hotel's foundation.
"Ammo check." Cyrus inquired while ejecting a spent magazine from his Unity. He strode toward the dead Vanyon, acting as a temporary sheath for his Kukri, and pulled the curved blade free of its meaty home.
"Six mags, two grenades, and one breaching charge." Eliza counted off. "What about you?"
"Eight mags." Cyrus tossed an unspent magazine from his vest and grasped the Copperhead held in place by his MJOLNIR's mag locks. "And one grenade."
"Enough to last us the rest of the night as far as I'm concerned." The Spartan siblings approached another barred doorway, leading Eliza to bang her hand against its frame. "How many more rooms do we have to clear out?"
"This should be the last one," Cyrus switched on his comms device. "Chamber, do you have eyes inside?"
"Negative." Eliza didn't hesitate to mount her breaching charge and sync the explosive to her HUD. "That's the beating heart of the Rogue AI's Data Fortress, and it's completely hard locked out of my reach. You're rolling blind for this one."
"We'll make do." The comms channel went silent, and Cyrus glanced toward his sibling. "Set?
"Det charge link is loud and clear," Eliza primed one of her last remaining fragmentation grenades and dug her heels into the floor. Cyrus braced his shoulder against the opposite wall, his Copperhead held across his sternum.
Their minds tempered any thoughts of hesitation or doubt as they entered an unnatural state of peace. The lull between gun battles was often more jarring to their dispositions than the pure adrenaline of combat.
Cyrus broke the silence with a single word spoken on a dozen different planets against a foe that they would forever despise.
"Execute."
*BOOM!*
The steel doors flew off their hinges and collapsed under the breaching charge's kinetic force. Cyrus turned the smokey corner with his rifle primed and ready to take down the last group of Vanyons in his path.
He was expecting to find dozens of Voodoo Boys armed to the teeth while sheltering behind any piece of solid cover available.
A fitting last stand that any soldier would prefer above surrender.
He didn't expect to find an oversized ballistic shield shooting toward his faceplate. Cyrus trapped the mechanical limb under his left arm and glimpsed a military-grade exoskeleton manufactured by Militech.
"Centaur!" Cyrus dropped his Copperhead and drove his free arm into the Centaurs sternum. He leveraged its momentum and tossed the exoskeleton clean over his shoulder, exposing the operator fighting to raise its massive thermal arm cannon.
The Spartan slid his Kukri from its sheath and jammed it into the Voodoo Boy's eye socket. A second Centaur stepped through the thick smoke, pointing its Thermal Cannon at Cyrus's helmet while he was dispatching its compatriot. Eliza intercepted the exoskeleton, her Copperhead barking a full magazine of 7.62 into the wrist-mounted weapon system.
The Thermal Cannon misfired, imploding into deadly sparks that blinded the operator's optics and forced him to raise his ballistic shield. Eliza holstered her firearm and grasped the protective aperture by its jagged edges. Her augmented strength wrenched the Centaur's arm from its socket, exposing the operator to a single round ejected from Cyrus's Unity.
A flicker of red appeared at the edge of Eliza's visor, and she turned just in time to catch sight of a half dozen Thermal Cannons coming to life.
"Cover!" She threw her full weight into Cyrus's side, driving them both underneath beams of pure energy that scorched everything in their path, setting off a volatile chain reaction
Metal was rendered husks of burning steel, Netrunner stations flickered with energy before imploding into a shower of embers, and any malleable material was scorched until it became nothing more than a blazing inferno.
Eliza felt Cyrus instinctively grab her waist and deftly switch their positions, shielding her from the rooftop collapsing atop them. A concrete slab slammed into the middle of his back, forcing Cyrus to drive his hands into the floor and pray it held underneath the added weight.
Eliza could only watch as Cyrus tanked chunks of heavy pavement with each passing second. His energy shields had long since broken, but augmented strength prevailed where technology did not.
"You ok?" Her inquiry received a grimacing nod from Cyrus. "Good. My motion tracker's lighting up, which means we're about to have company…Did you lose your rifle?"
"Down to my Unity and Kukri." Eliza used what little space existed between their MJOLNIR to flash her own sidearm and blade.
"We'll make do." Her assurance was a mere platitude, but he appreciated it nonetheless.
"You remember the Hunters on Arcadia?" Cyrus asked, his voice a low murmur as he hovered above Eliza's prone frame.
"I remember running out of ammo and how much of a bitch it was to kill them with a knife, but I remember." Reaper team's second visit to Arcadia wasn't exactly something she enjoyed reminiscing about. The graveyard of ruined skyscrapers and a million corpses was a memory she would rather do without.
"Then we treat them like the Hunters. Isolate and eradicate." Eliza smiled, her teeth shining like fangs from a hungry wolf.
The Spartans were outgunned against a pack of Hunter, but they were far from outclassed, and victory was a breath away from their grasp.
They need only take it by the throat.