Going inside the power plant through the main entrance was never considered as our route to take

The bridge leading to the entrance was heavily fortified with energy barriers and automated sentry guns, alongside bright spotlights that could shine the length of the whole bridge. Luckily, the Combine didn't seem to count on anybody going underneath the bridge to get inside, so we took that way inside. While there may have been better ways into the facility if we took the time to look for them, time was not our friend right now. We had to use what was available.

There were suggestions in the local geography that this chasm beneath the bridge used to be a river given the sloped and rounded features of the dry soil along the walls, indicating that it had been dried up for a long while. The water could have been dammed up somewhere, for I had heard of Combine irrigation projects before. Either way, we benefitted from the lack of flowing water as we carefully navigated down the shrubby decline in the terrain, making a tremendous effort to stay as concealed as we could until we made it below the cover of the bridge before eventually doing so.

There wasn't exactly a grated walkway beneath the elevated road; a line of large pipes ran from our side of the bridge to the end, which was a large concrete wall that alluded to the greater size of the facility hidden beneath the ground. It wasn't too obvious from where we stood, but there was a ventilation shaft positioned just off to the side of the right side of the pipe along a narrow ledge with very little relief. It was better than contending with security up topside.

We all followed Aaron in a line as we walked along the biggest of the three pips that ran into the wall thirty yards in front of us. It wasn't hard to traverse given its generous surface girth, but the thirty-foot drop and the lack of any safety railings endeavoured a rather tense experience. "So…Mr Beuford," Nuri eventually spoke as we neared the halfway point across the pipes, trying his very hardest not to look down, "we've been busy and all trying to sneak around, but I've been meaning to ask. Where do you expect to find this friend of yours?"

"In two places; possibly three," Aaron amended, keeping his wide mass balanced and steady without looking back. "Every good Combine stronghold serves as a regional prison. Hal could be in a pod in the incarceration wing, in a holding cell waiting to be personally interrogated, or they already got the info they needed from him and they've already roasted him alive."

"That almost sounded hopeful," Shephard noted. He was quite perceptive, as I confirmed his deduction with my telepathy. I did not like the implications of Aaron's unaired confession, and I allowed him to voice it after the giant bearded man sighed.

"Getting executed is a gift from the Combine. There are so many worse things that can happen to you if you defy them. So much worse…"

No one was able to muster a response to that. The rest of us didn't feel encouraged to ask what these punishments were, let alone wonder what they could be. Perhaps the less we all knew the better, otherwise, no one would have the courage to rebel. My heart went out to all of those who may have succumbed to these unspecified punishments that were left only to our imaginations. I was left to dwell on that as I looked up at the cooling tower beyond the bridge before it became completely obscured by the natural wall of rock as we neared our first destination.

It was an unpleasant experience trying to worm our way through this old ventilation track.

It was easily the mouldiest environment I had ever been in, so we all had to cover our mouths and noses before crawling in. We all envied Shephard when he whipped out his respirator mask and strapped it to his face moments before delving inside, fully completing the grunt attire that he wore when I found him. Small red lights spaced out lengthily provided the only illumination in this narrow corridor which soon grew into a small incline, which was made especially harder to overcome thanks to the overabundant moisture making the metal surface slippery.

Aaron continued to lead in front while I remained in the back, so it wasn't easy for me to see how much farther we had to go before finally breaching the exit. Much to my delight and everyone else's, we were not meant to inch our way through here for too long, for Aaron soon spotted the exit vent close up ahead. The rest of us that were behind him began to move more quickly in pursuit of that taste of spacious liberty.

Once we did make it to the exit, we had to wait for Aaron to remove the vent panel and check to see if the coast was clear, and we all spilt out urgently once the clear had been given. Poor Shephard had been a little overwhelmed by me and Nuri's dash for fresh air given how his experience was more tolerable with his respirator mask. We all emerged into a large corridor with a tall rounded ceiling that was devoid of personnel, which was confirmed by my telepathic sweep of the area.

It was a bit of a cluttered area; large sandbags and bright yellow barrels were placed in various sections of our emersion site, continuing further down the hall as it curved rightward. We all took a moment to stretch ourselves after being crammed in that vent. Shephard rolled his head as he shimmied his shoulders in adjustment before holding his rifle up.

"This is already feeling familiar," he said, his voice now slightly muffled by his mask. He looked down the corridor contemplatively. "Doesn't look like many come down here that often, but I got a feeling we still aren't safe. I do a little recon and see what lies ahead."

Shephard then began to trudge forward past the group, instinctually falling back onto his Marine Corps training until Aaron placed his big hand on his shoulder, effectively stopping. "We stay together for the time being, son," he warned gently. "Krystal's got us covered in that department, don't you, lassie?"

"I do," I said with a nod. "I don't sense any Combine units on this level, but I do sense animalistic ones. They could still pose a risk."

Shephard looked at me for a moment, his eyes tinted a bold green through the lenses of his mask. "Hmm," he grunted with acknowledgement. "That works just fine with me."

Shephard then wandered back behind Aaron, resigning himself to follow the leads of the residents who knew this dystopian future much more than he did. Shephard returned to avoiding eye contact with me after that, forcing himself to remain focused on the mission. It continued to sadden me that he now looked upon me with uneasy trust.

We followed Aaron's lead once more as we traversed this underground tunnel.

It became apparent that this section of the facility had been largely forgotten by the Combine. Patches of mould continued to cultivate along various sections of the wall, and much of the floor had been flooded deep enough that we almost had to wade our feet through. Even though the fluorescent lights fixed to the ceiling were on down the way of the rounding corridor, there was no indication that anyone had been back here in years―let alone Combine personnel.

Near the end of the tunnel, I felt the vapid cognitive traces of lifeforms closing in, which spurred me to deploy my staff. "Be careful, everyone, we have a few potential hostiles up ahead."

We soon came to the end of this neglected corridor to be confronted by a large metal door that had heaps of junk of all kinds scattered around it. "Combine?" Nuri wondered, pre-emptively raising his machine gun.

"No. They're stupid, for a lack of better words."

"Like…low IQ stupid?" Shephard wondered.

"She means nonhuman," Aaron clarified. "Likely wildlife of some kind."

"Let's hope it's just a stray dog or some rats…" Nuri hoped, heightening his caution anyway as Aaron reached for the door handle and opened it just as carefully. I didn't assume we were in immediate danger at first because I was detecting these signals in an area above us. A much larger corridor was then revealed to us on the other side, three times the size of the one we were standing in, running horizontally to the adjacent doorway.

Nothing stood out to us amongst the scattered garbage on the yonder floor, which I soon realised was a road for vehicles, but the long ropes dangling from the ceiling seemed rather out of place, it wasn't until we stepped outside the doorway did we realise that those ropes were actually tongues.

High up on the flat ceiling were six of those grotesque barnacle creatures that I had encountered only once before when infiltrating the outland depot with Aaron. Droning wet sounds could be heard clicking from them as their fleshy bodies twitched and convulsed slightly, waiting for any prey to wander right into their tongues and hoist them up for a quick meal. Seeing these ugly little stationary beasts was enough to soil anyone's good mood, but none more so than Shephard it seemed.

"Shit…" he cursed with trepidation. It was clear he had some experience with these creatures. "These things are here too?"

"They can be pretty common in out-of-the-way places," Nuri said. "Some spores might have crept through here while the Combine wasn't looking. Or maybe they just don't care. That's usually the case."

"It's all so counterproductive," I noted as we crept alongside the walls, very careful not to stray anywhere close to the dangling tongues that were secreting sticky mucus. "Did the Combine not tout the removal of stray alien flora and fauna that came through during the Resonance Cascade?"

Nuri looked at me and shrugged. "Who said they were good at doing it?"

I pondered at that for a second. "I suppose I know my answer considering that an infestation festers right within the borders of a stronghold without any notice."

"I would be happy to clear it up for them," Shephard said, tapping the end of his rifle's grenade launcher temptingly as he stared up at the ceiling, but he ultimately disciplined himself. "But they don't bug you if you don't bug them. They do make for some wicked improv grappling hooks, though."

"Oh, of course," Nuri nodded in agreement. He remained facing forward for several seconds before the absurdity of Shephard's last statement finally hit him. "Wait…what?" he asked, turning around in bewilderment at that statement.

It was not long before we finally came across the Combine, or at least their indirect presence.

Around the corner of this end of the tunnel meant for the passage of utility vehicles was a security checkpoint about twenty yards away with barricades, but no personnel were present. Bright light blue spotlights were shining onto the cracked asphalt and two mechanical arms could be seen fixed to the flanking walls just behind the barricades. Attached to their ends were flat panels with yellow lights on them, which made me quickly realise that they may have been cameras or turrets.

Aaron made us freeze behind the wall once he first spotted them, fearing that he may have revealed us by taking two steps out into the open too many. "Crap. Do we have company?" Shephard asked, already primed for a firefight.

"No. Just cameras," Aaron informed, keeping to the wall. "I don't think we'll have a good chance of going this way."

"We'll just end up back at that vent again, sir," Nuri reminded. "I don't know about any of you, but I really don't feel like crawling through a mouldy crawlspace again. I can take out the cameras without breaking much cover; I've got a good aim."

I silently seconded his first sentiment but felt wary of his second. "Destroying the cameras may alert them to our presence anyway. What we need is a diversion. To keep the cameras focused on something else."

"What do you suggest, Ms Krystal?" Nuri asked inquisitively, knowing my solutions tended to lean on the magical side of things. He wasn't incorrect about this, and he wasn't incorrect now in this instance either.

"I was considering blinding them," I said, lowering my staff's spearhead more closely to my muzzle. "I can ignite a few fires near the cameras; the light should be bright enough to overload their optics so they will not get a good image of us passing through."

The three men pondered my proposal, giving each other considering glances. "That could probably work," Nuri wagered. "But what if that is enough to trigger an alarm? Surely anyone, or anything, on the other end watching might see random fires starting in front of their security cameras as cause for concern."

"It's better than outright shooting them to bits," Aaron said. " That is what will alert some troops. There's a chance that can be avoided with the fire idea. Slim chances are often still the best we can get when putting up with our 'benefactors'."

Understanding that our options were extremely thin as we waded deeper into enemy territory, the three of them gave me an accepting look and allowed me to move in front of the group. I folded my ears to the back of my head as I cautiously peeked around the corner to sneak a view. The checkpoint was still unmanned, but the two cameras were facing forward, swivelling slightly from side to side.

I could easily conjure a few good fireballs at the walls so that their enchanted flames could spill over onto the floor before their optics. Hopeful that I would remain unseen as I was now, I carefully extended my staff out past my cover and aimed at the right wall. The golden spearhead clicked open as I commanded the flame spell to warm up its magic projectiles.

Without wasting another moment, I told my friends to ready themselves for an especially quick dash. All of their feet began to shuffle as they awaited the word. After squinting one eye, I unleashed a few streams of magical fire at both walls, predicably causing them to bounce off the walls and land in front of the cameras, which were both then engulfed in flames.

"Come on!" I hollered. The men took off like stampeding beasts as we all ran past the checkpoint accompanied by the frantic sounds of stomping boots and jostling gear. We cleared past the checkpoint entirely, and we kept running at this pace for a little while longer after. Whether that diversion helped out in the long term or not, we did not wish to remain in one place for very long to find out, especially now that we were certainly at the point where Combine surveillance would significantly higher and more enforced.

We found ourselves outside once more not long after.

The tunnel was revealed to have more fortifications, which were now being patrolled by Combine soldiers. Thankfully, we found a detour shaft that differed us out of the tunnel and out into an expansive concrete pathway with flat sloped edges, going on for what seemed like half a mile down in a straight line with a. A towering wall made of concrete with a seam down its centre rose about fifty feet high behind us. Something about it felt disconcerting to me, but the distant droning sound of dropships quickly grappled my attention.

Wherever we were, we were still someplace quite reclusive, but I knew we were well within the borders of the power plant. Towering featureless buildings that felt more than a hundred feet high surrounded us as we ventured down this expansive channel, now essentially appearing red from the still-setting sun and casting black shadows on their dark sides. The complex network of suspended piping that I could see from outside the facility was weaving right above, connecting to conduits that ran alongside the walls of our path, producing an almost semi-vertigo effect given how large and high up the pipes were.

We tried to stay underneath the cover of the pipes as a few dropships flew overhead past the giant buildings, which were also glowing bright orange from the sun as they soared against the backdrop of dark grey clouds. "Good God, were those flying whales?" Shephard asked, distraught by the sight of the synthetic ariel transports.

"Who knows? They look like they were animals at some point," Nuri guessed, keeping a sharp eye on the dark sky.

Shephard lowered his own head and began shaking it in disbelief. "This sucks…" he said with dismay. It sounded so defeating. He dearly missed the world that he knew, and slowly seeing what it had turned into was bringing him great unrest.

"The perfect duo of words to sum up these two decades, son," Aaron remarked, taking careful examinations of our surroundings as he led the way, despite knowing I was hard at work being the troop's telepathic radar. "All right, gang," he digressed, "let's keep it sharp. The Combine might not care to keep their junk drawers clean of pests, but they're gonna be ruthless if we're caught up here. If we can keep to routes like this, we should be good for a while before any heat picks up. Can you locate anything that might help us pinpoint our fellow rebel, lassie?"

I had been working my telepathy extra hard now that we were out in the open. I could sense Combine units all over the place topside and inside many of the buildings, but no trace or suggestion that led to Aaron's friend. "Nothing yet, I'm afraid," I relayed drearily. "I fear it is a possibility that Hal is being held in one of the structures made of that alien metal. It has resistance to my telepathy somehow."

"Oh dear," Nuri replied, a bit short of breath given our incredibly tricky circumstances. "I really wish we had time to make an actual plan before coming here. I can already see ourselves getting lost in here…"

"Keep your head on, lad," Aaron encouraged. "I've got a good sense of direction in parts such as these. Incarceration centres are not difficult to access or find. Finding Hal and getting him out will be a piece of cake if we all just stick together."

"Damn, I really miss cake…" Nuri moaned longingly.

"Devil's food," Shephard contributed. "Wouldn't mind a slice of that about now."

"No, son; pound cake is king," Aaron refuted, adding his own plank to the cake debate platform. "So fluffy you can use it as a pillow."

This random but pleasant exchange made me smile as I thought to contribute. "I'm partial to Doberian buttercream," I pitched. "It's like a little slice of paradise."

"Ooh. From your Corneria planet, right?" Nuri wondered.

"It is," I nodded. "Decadency so rich it makes the roof of one's mouth tingle."

"Yes. You get it!" Nuri nodded with a special kind of glee as if he had found an equal. It was an honour to achieve such a status within the realm of confectionary politics. I vividly recalled having a similar conversation like this not too long ago about ice cream. The places this girl had been to since then were too extreme to be believable, yet here I was. Even still, the parallel did manage to warm my heart during this period of intense infiltration.

The lovely moment we all shared between ourselves came to an abrupt stop when a round of Klaxon sirens began sounding off, though the reverberation caused by the towering buildings and pipework made it impossible to tell where it was coming from. All that mattered was that our rescue mission had now taken a turn for the absolute worst.

"Fuck…!" Shephard cursed venomously as his defences flared to a paradoxically restrained panic.

"We've been caught!" Nuri concluded, about to run for any cover he could find before I grabbed his arm.

"Wait! I haven't sensed any―"

A terrible groaning sound erupted in the aft distance, which spurred all of us to whip around, leading to a harrowing discovery. The mountainous wall with the seams was beginning to split apart as the Klaxons blared, and a ginormous surge of water began to pour through and crash into this wide lane we were following. It all suddenly made sense now why this lane appeared to be designed the way it was.

"CLIMB!" Aaron yelled ferociously as the tsunami rushed towards us at a monstrous speed. A line of ridged pipe was running along the wall to our right, and the sloped ramp leading up to it enabled us to rush up and try to climb up before the oncoming flood arrived. We ran for our lives as the roaring waves quickly closed in.

Aaron and Nuri were the first up and managed to climb on safely. I too secured a place on the pipe, but one of us was not so fortunate. Shephard would have made it if he jumped up a second earlier, but he got caught in the flood and was promptly swept away by the monstrous current, travelling at a frightening thirty miles an hour.

"Corporal!" I screamed, diving in after him without a second thought, and I found myself body-surfing as fast as the water took me as I swam after him. Aaron and Nuri both screamed my name, but the roaring water made their cries sound like whimpers. I was still holding my staff tightly in my hand, refusing to let go as I tried to use the current to swim faster.

I was able to see Shephard up ahead, tumbling around in disorientation, letting out garbled cries of desperation. "I'm coming! I've got you!" I called to him, swimming like a maniac to reach him. The most important thing at the moment was to keep him from drowning. I would figure out how to get the two of us ashore after I would claim that victory. I was about to learn in a moment that it was ultimately a meaningless one in the end.

In a fleeting moment of stabilisation, Shephard managed to see me coming to his aid and reach his hand out to mine. I then gasped in terror as I soon realised that we were surging straight for a great big hole in the ground―a drainage tube of some kind. There was simply no time to react. Before Shephard and I could grab hands, our tsunami ride quickly turned into a cascade, and the two of us were swiftly thrown over the edge, falling down the cavernous hole amidst the deafening sounds of roaring water which drowned out both of our descending screams as we freefell into the darkness.