Chapter 10 – Descensus
January 4th, 2552 - (14:30 Hours - Military Calendar)
Daedalus system, Ballast
Kassarina Nature Preserve
:********:
Crouching, Deaks raised his rifle and pulled out the bipod. He put his freehand into the weeds and lay down on his stomach. He laid the sniper on its mount and carefully pressed the barrel through the bush in front of him. The wind had reversed course from its earlier easterly direction to a westerly one so that his cover was constantly being pushed back into his face. Putting his weight on one elbow, he navigated the barrel through a sizable space in the lattice of branches while pushing aside the rustling leaves with his helmet.
The view on the other side of his oracle scope was relatively hazy. Still, he could make out the basic details.
To him, the Kassarina Nature Preserve was nothing more aside from a plot of land maybe 15 acres in size. There were dozens of clusters of atypical greenhouses, roads and interior parks formatted neatly together into a circular perimeter. There were a handful of solid structures scattered loosely throughout the arrangement, the largest of which stood ten stories tall at the center. The latter caught his eye for two reasons.
One; its steel walls.
Two; its centralized alignment with the corvette hovering several hundred meters overhead. The lights of the enemy ship caused the glassy sphere of its rooftop to shine like an eerie disco ball. He lingered on the sight of the plasma cannons on its port and starboard sides. He gave thanks that he wasn't on the north or south ridges. He wouldn't have to work with those heavy guns staring him down the whole time.
He sighted down and scanned the interior roads. The circular dot of his targeting reticle flashed from a faint blue to a vibrant red each time it passed over a worthy target. There were scores of Grunts and Jackals meandering about on the sidewalks along with the rarer Hunter pairs. Squads of them were walking around, placing down ammunition crates, breaking into the greenhouses, scavenging destroyed Warthogs and strolling past the dead humans cast about the place. He spotted a distinction between the corpses by their dress. There were white lab coats, blue and gray jumpsuits and black-vests. Another distinction was the way they died. Many were bloodied, singed by plasma bursts, blown open by needler shards or torn into barely recognizable pieces. Most lay where they died, sprawled out on the street or lying halfway in the doors of the structures they failed to escape into. Some appeared to have kept moving even after they were wounded, leaving long blood trails smeared across sidewalks. The more mangled and pulpier the bodies were, the more Deaks suspected that a Brute or two had a personal hand in ending them. Excessive blood and gore were their trademark. Elites were too methodical for that. They focused on cutting a person in half then leaving it at that, but Brutes had a habit of enjoying themselves.
He had already gained his own long history with them. He knew their sadistic side. In theory, he possibly couldn't fault them for it. They were animals, weren't they? Did one fault an animal for killing when it needed to eat? But then again, he would fault it if it bit him in the leg just because, if it maimed his mother right in their living room or if it drove a bayonet through his father's chest in the driveway. Animals didn't do that. Brutes did. Animals killed and ate. Brutes killed and defiled. So if he did the same to them then who could fault him for it? No one. His conscience wouldn't. Neither would his comrades. Knowing that was enough.
Deaks panned his scope over the facility, spotting Brutes strolling here and there. Their movements in the preserve's inner grounds seemed mostly directionless. They meandered about, perhaps waiting. Every now and again a few would turn towards the main observatory as if expecting something to happen. When nothing did, they returned to their conversations with one another on the street-corners or mulled about in the greenhouses, scaring off the Grunts and Jackals that actively stayed away from them. He counted close to 50 Brutes doing nothing of interest. Those that were actually moving were patrolling the perimeter in a counter-clockwise pattern. He scoped in on the patrol moving around the east and counted eight. He scoped in on the patrol moving south. Another seven who were being led by a golden armored type with a knifed grenade launcher on its back. Deaks thought it looked angry with its hunched shoulders and lowered head, as if it wanted to kill again. He briefly thought of returning the favor when his reticle turned red on the right eye-slit of its helmet. Then he thought better of it and eased his finger off the trigger.
He couldn't shoot, not yet, even with such a good target. He reminded himself he still needed to wait and see if they could withdraw without any-
Deaks flinched at a new sight. He immediately turned northward towards one of the concrete buildings near the northwestern corner of the preserve. Standing on the rooftop were a trio of Brutes. Two sported the golden armor he saw before. However, the third who stood between them wore little to no armor besides a grenadier belt, some shoulder pieces and his abnormally white-fur. Then there was the mohawk of hair which he found strange, but nowhere near as concerning as the stone-headed hammer strapped to its back. He'd never seen anything like it. There was an imposing quality to the aged yet sturdy weapon that gave him a further impression: this Brute had to be their leader. The unique yet powerful looking weapon. The commanding vantage point. The golden entourage. It all made perfect sense.
Why it didn't have that much armor, Deaks couldn't understand. He riddled it down to Brute arrogance. The thing might have thought it was braver, or perhaps more intimidating to show up to a gunfight with no armor aside from its own muscles; a show of confidence. He had to admit if that were the case, it was working.
His reticle turned red over the leader's right eye socket. The alien and his entourage were gazing southwest towards the main observatory. They couldn't see him. He was too far from their sightlines so they wouldn't have any way of reacting to his first round. Just one. One 14.5-millimeter gift moving at 920 meters per second could get the job done.
His tense forefinger relaxed off the trigger, remembering that that wasn't the job he came to do.
Deaks exhaled his building frustrations. Here he was no better than a kid in a candy store being told by a parent not to touch anything. They were just passing through it to go somewhere else.
"4-Actual to Ep-3, how's that position turning out?"
Speaking of parents.
Deaks forced himself to tune back into the broader conversation. "It's...not the best. I'm in a bit of a tight spot here. These branches are pretty tough to maneuver around. My movement range will be limited."
"I hear you. Well, it's the best sightline towards the observatory from the west so make good use of it however you can."
"Will do, sir."
Deaks tried again to maneuver his barrel. The act in itself was made difficult by the zig-zagging nature of the twigs within the bush. He had to either maneuver through the maze of branches or break them down. Maintaining his stealth or his efficiency in this situation long-term was less than ideal. At this rate he would have to sacrifice one for the other.
He checked left then right to observe the visually unoccupied ridges to the north and south of the preserve. There were a greater number of the giant sequoia trees growing on and along the ridges as well as throughout the area leading up to the facility. It was as if they were attracted to the preserve itself. He figured the botanical researchers here had probably transplanted the species to Ballast, bringing them first to the soil around the Kassarina. From there, they may have grown to begin populating the rest of the region as one of the many non-native species he noticed. He gave silent thanks to the scientists for thinking so well ahead. Not that they would do those that planted them much good, but the trees' massive barks would give the ODSTs the cover they needed from the corvette. From smallest to largest, the trees and the bushes beneath them were swaying in the breeze, never exposing a hint of those hidden both beneath and behind them.
The rest of 2nd and 4th platoons were doing the same on the northern and southern ridges that they were on the west. Although he couldn't see any of them, he knew they were there. He admired them for it. If he couldn't see them with his optical magnification then the enemy definitely wouldn't, especially with nothing but their bare eyes and no suspicion that anything was amiss.
Then he sighted down from the underbrush of the northern ridgeline, across the open ground and stopped at the northwestern area of the preserve. He froze there.
At the base of the same concrete building where he'd seen the Brute leader was where he found the third patrol of Brutes. They were beginning to round the corner as they came in from the north, turning south.
The one leading them was a chieftain. Deaks deduced that right away from its armor, its headpiece and most noticeably the hammer on its back. What he couldn't figure out right away was why he felt the alien seemed familiar, like he'd seen it before somewhere. The brown fur was a giveaway to a hazy memory he was struggling to revive. It came back in pieces, pieces which slowly formed an image.
2545.
Actium.
The city of High Mediolanum.
Sycion Block.
A four-way intersection at the end of a boulevard strewn with human dead.
A search for Colonel Taylors.
A chase.
Captain Asana's killer.
Company Commander Baccara's abductor.
The shards of memory forged together into a complete picture when he doubled his magnification on the creature's right eye. There was a long, old scar running over the lids. It marked the spot where Deaks' last bullet had failed to penetrate, leading to the untimely demise of several ODSTs.
The hair on the back of his neck bristled. He felt an icy cold sensation pulse through his body.
He knew this thing, this Brute.
He tried to kill it before.
Back then, aside from a couple Grunts, it was working alone. Today it had an entire pack of Brutes trailing after it, each one capable of dishing out similar damage to what he saw that day.
All at once, a severe sense of guilt washed through his being. His breathing sharpened. His heartbeat quickened. He took several deep breaths to try to calm himself.
The comm was active with chatter between ODSTs. There was talk about the new experimental armor the Brutes were wearing that no one had ever seen before, a feature Deaks cared less about than actually getting the chance to kill them. His addled mind caught on to one word: "Chieftain".
It broke him from his daze. He recognized the voice as belonging to King-4, one of Baelson's sharpshooters. He spoke into his comm unit. "Ep-3 to King-4, you have eyes on that chieftain from your position?"
King-4 sounded caught off guard. "Y-, yeah. I've got a monopoly on most of the northwestern sector so-"
"Switch places with me."
"Wh-, what?"
"Why do you ask, Ep-3?" Baelson intruded. "Spotted something?"
"You can say that. I think I can get a better angle on some very important targets if you let me take that spot."
Baelson went silent. He didn't seem convinced. Deaks moved to sweeten the deal. "You know I'm the best shot you've got, sir. That's why you pulled me. Put me there and I can do a lot more damage than any other shooter here...if we need to."
After a shorter silence, Baelson replied. "King-4, switch out with him."
"Ay ay, boss." The trooper answered.
Deaks pulled his rifle back through the bush. He slapped his bipod in place and got up. He kept his head low as he moved left down the length of the ridgeline, weaving around the browner chestnut trees and the whiter birches that acted as natural palisades. Thankfully the section of the ridge they'd chosen to use was wide so there was no risk of a bad fall. He slid a meter down a mossy dip before crouching along a line of trees and low-lying ferns. There, he passed a lineup of half a dozen other ODSTs crouched or lying prone. They were peering through the underbrush towards the preserve, some with sniper rifles. They briefly looked up at him as he passed then returned to their scopes. He remained careful not to step on their legs which tended to meld with the exposed roots of the nearby trees.
On his way, he saw another ODST cradling an SRS-99 like himself while crouching along in the opposite direction. King-4 looked up and spotted him too.
Deaks opened a private comm-link to him. "Yeah, trooper, switch out." He echoed in a mocking voice.
King-4 shook his head at him, chuckling. "The best shooter we've got, huh?"
Deaks shrugged. "I needed to make it sell."
"Stay humble, corporal. Stay humble."
"And you get out of my way already."
"Ay ay, sir."
As they shuffled past each other, Deaks fist-bumped him on the shoulder and moved on. He eyed the spot that was vacated for him. It was an opening between a thick fern and the trunk of a massive sequoia. Three ODSTs stood near it, two of which carried back-mounted radios. The one crouching in the shadows furthest away from the line-up was King-5, Baelson's radioman. The other directly in Deaks' path was Zack who was leisurely peeking through the brush towards the preserve. The last was Baelson who was busy bracing himself against the bark with one hand and holding a pair of software integrated binoculars up to his visor.
Deaks maneuvered around Zack, slapping him in the back of the helmet along the way. Zack had a muted panic attack for a moment as he turned to see who hit him. He calmed once he saw Deaks giving him the ok sign.
"Why does everyone want to mess with me today?" Zack grumbled on a private connection.
"Hey, you started it." Deaks replied. "Like the Staff says, if you minded your own business, you wouldn't have a problem." Arriving at his spot, he shared a nod with Baelson before setting down his weapon on an exposed root. The sequoia's roots were so large that he was able to lay his bipod down on it while still having enough elevation to crouch. A couple of lengthy ferns helped conceal the barrel while it emerged from the dancing shadows of the canopy.
He set his sights back on the chieftain. The Brute was halfway down the preserve's western perimeter with its squad. He quickly scoped up to the white-furred one on the rooftop. His reticle turned red at centering on the back of its head. He shifted back down to the chieftain and got the same red highlight. Deaks grinned in satisfaction. This way, if the occasion called for it, he would have a longer window during which he could plant a round in the back of their skulls. The last time, he failed because he shot the chieftain from a bad, crossways angle. Now it would be different. Now he had a straight shot to the weakest spot in its armor. In the right hands it could be an instant kill-shot. In his, it would be.
"Yeah, well, how was I supposed to know those two were going at it, huh?" Zack continued.
Barely focused on the conversation, Deaks replied. "To be fair, Ep-7, the writing was kind of on the walls for a while now. For God's sake, she's the only one in the squad that can speak Yuri."
"Ep-2 does."
"And understand him."
"Ah...well, to be fair back, I did sort of point it out to him first after Ep-8 did that...you know what I mean."
"That just means you have terrible memory."
"Yeah, I can't argue with you there. But still, it's no fair man."
Deaks patiently tapped his trigger as he tracked the chieftain. "No worries, Ep-7. You'll find someone."
"You really think so?" Zack asked hopefully.
"Yeah. Probably. Maybe not."
As he listened to Zack complain more, Deaks caught sight of movement in the lower view of his scope. He panned down to the building that the white-furred Brute was standing on. Past the front steps, in an alleyway between the building and another greenhouse, there were two Brutes in blue armor. They stood beneath the shade of the structure's wide gutters in one of the few locations in the preserve not covered by the corvette's shadow. Between them, against the wall, lay the unconscious figure of a woman in a lab coat. She was visibly bruised and her head hung low.
He wasn't sure what surprised him more. The fact she was still alive or the fact the Brutes were currently letting her live. "Ep-3 to 4-Actual, I've got my eyes on a civilian here, over?"
Baelson moved up behind him. "Drop the Nav."
Deaks planted a Nav point on the woman.
"...I see her."
"How's she still alive?"
"Great question. They're probably planning to take her prisoner."
"The Brutes don't take prisoners, sir. They take lunch."
Deaks waited for him to say more, to give him and a few others the order to engage or something along those lines. The lieutenant didn't speak for a worryingly long time.
He turned up to him. "Sir?"
Baelson lowered his binoculars in a contemplative silence. "Keep an eye on her for now, Ep-3, but don't engage." He said nothing more and withdrew to his original position.
Deaks wished he'd told him to empty his clip on the Brutes rather than to 'keep an eye on her'. However, he could put two and two together as to why Baelson wasn't giving him much to go on. There was no chance of rescuing the civilian apart from kicking the hornet's nest in the process. If he did that, he would also be forfeiting the lives of everyone in the recovery team. It was their lives or hers.
He clenched his jaw at the new conundrum. He wished he hadn't seen her. Then he could keep operating without the extra worry. More than anything, he wished Baelson hadn't pulled him from the rest of Epsilon. Then he would never have been placed in a tight spot where he could barely do anything other than watch a person soon to die. And worse yet, at the hands of Brutes. That meant maximum pain for maximum duration.
Zack chimed in on their private link. "I see your Nav, Ep-3. Dang. That's-...what do we do about that, man?"
"We can't do anything." Deaks grumbled. "If we make a move, we'll screw over the recovery team. If we don't make a move, we screw her over."
"Is...4-Actual asking us to..."
"I don't know." He zoomed in to the woman's face and saw how she twitched in her fitful sleep, unaware of the two giant nightmares standing guard over her. "But I'm not looking forward to when she wakes up."
:********:
Duncan's thighs were killing him, so much so that he was sure if he sat down he wouldn't be able to get back up again. The sewer pipe's low ceiling remained a consistent feature of the recovery team's passage. As his helmet brushed up against the damp ceiling, his knees regularly rubbed into his ribs. The angular design of his armor was less than helpful. His rucksack, like everyone else's, scraped along with each maneuver; a strange crossover between a stride and a crawl. A crabwalk.
With his VISR mode active, his world was painted over in that familiar, eerily green shade. Not that there was much of a world to see. The confines of the sewer tunnel yielded only a scene straight out of a claustrophobe's nightmare. Small, featureless walls made of precast concrete. Shaped into a long cylinder, its length gave it the feeling of an endless corridor...for dwarves.
The ODSTs were no dwarves. There was plenty of room to reach around but not so to stretch upwards. Everyone was moving in groups of three. Even the smallest among them had to bend their head a bit. The situation was far worse for the largest of them who resorted to hands and knees. Hector, of course, was one of them. He was in Duncan's group and had taken up the middle. He was so girthy that Duncan found he and Rico had less space than most. Every now and again, their shoulder pads would scrape the cement. To avoid the hassle of timing his own movements so that he didn't get elbowed by the big man himself, Duncan decided to crawl. If Ravenport had taught him one thing, if Drill Instructor Mahoney had taught him one thing, it was how to crawl.
He shifted his left leg up as his right arm reached out. He did the same with the right leg and the left arm. His MA5C safely secured to his back harness freed him to move slightly ahead of his group. The progress made was of little to no comfort, however, because of three glaring facts. One was that it felt like they had been moving in the sewers for hours. A quick look at his HUD's mission timer showed they weren't even at the five-minute mark. The second was that their Nav point showed '196m', indicating they were only a third of the way through the journey. Third, they would have to do all of this again on their way out. That thought alone was beginning to convince him that walking out the observatory's front doors and taking his chances with the corvette wasn't such a bad idea. It was more merciful at least.
Up ahead, Nova groaned from her forward position between the Staff and Mito. "Does 4-Actual really expect us to do all of this over again, with the assets and the survivors?"
"If there are any." The Staff replied, keeping his shotgun leveled with one hand while he and Nova both crawled forward. "Suck it up, Ep-2. We're-"
"ODSTs? Come on, you can't just use that as an excuse every time, sir. This? This is too much."
"For you maybe."
The two of them turned to Mito on their right. Unlike them, he was keeping on his feet in a surprisingly brisk crouch-walk. "For me, it's a non-factor. I'm a close quarters type of guy so I can handle close quarters like these."
"All I can see is people's close quarters." Rico grumbled behind them. Speaking of which, hey Ep-2, Dios mío, think you've done enough squats yet?"
"You're not my type, Ep-6." Nova growled. "Eyes down."
"Eww, no. I'm not checking you out. I'm making a statement of fact."
"Still."
"Wait, question, so who is red-woman's type?" Yuri asked as he moved behind Duncan.
"Not you either, that's for sure."
"Hey-hey-hey, never said I was. But it's interesting thought. No one here's getting younger so-"
Nova stopped, looked over her shoulder and glared at him. "Zatknis' naschet moyego vozrasta, ladno?"
Yuri defensively held up his hands. "Geeze, sorry."
They kept crawling.
"Don't know what you guys just said but I think Match just struck a nerve." Rico chuckled. "Nah, though, I'm pretty sure her type is somebody tall, somebody tan and somebody Portuguese. I picked up on that a few years back."
"Huh? How?" Renni asked from beside Yuri.
"Remember? That shore-leave trip we took in 47' to New Jeru? The bar?"
Renni thought it over and recalled the memory. "Oh yeah. She got a little flirty back then, didn't she?"
"Si, she did."
"What are you two going on about?" Nova hissed. "I don't remember any bar."
"Si, neither do I, Dama Roja." Rico laughed menacingly. "Neither do I."
"You're a shady guy, Ep-6." Hector commented.
"Si, that's what they all said too."
"Who?"
"Who?"
"...No, who are you talking about?"
"Escucharme, big man. If you don't got no names, you don't got no evidence."
Rico sped up his crawl, leaving a bewildered Hector in his wake. Duncan stifled a laugh as he carried on. The brief moment of light-heartedness gave him a bit more fuel to work with. The tight walls felt less constricting. They took up less of his focus. The squad returned to their operational silence, leaving Duncan with nothing other than the mission's details to hold his attention.
Go in.
Assess the situation.
Grab surviving personnel and special assets.
Get out.
And then there was his own personal objective: don't' die.
Some of those were easier said than done. Scratch that, he thought. All of those were easier said than done.
For a second, he wanted to ask what the others thought the Covenant's objective was. What they were really after here, or what ONI was after for that matter? But seeing their determination to keep on keeping on assured him that no one was in a mood for questions. They wanted out. Out of the sewer, and once the job was done, out of the preserve. He kept the question to himself, not that he could answer it anyway.
What did they want? What were they after? Or who? And why?
The darkness yielded him no answers aside from the Nav point which showed him, albeit slower than he wished, how close they were coming to their insertion point.
At 150 meters he knew that they were no longer on the outskirts. Rechecking his TACMAP, he saw that they were crossing directly beneath the last of the western ridge and were now coming below the grounds of the main facility.
Baelson chose that moment to comm them. "This is 4-Actual to recovery team. I see you on the map. Take it nice and slow. That corvette may be able to pick up on our communiques in the next 25 meters. Maintain radio-silence beyond this point except between members of the team. Comms only. We don't know who might be able to hear you from up top."
"Ep-1 to 4-Actual, roger that. Maintaining radio-silence. We'll only make contact with you if absolutely necessary."
"Roger that. Good luck."
"Same to you, sir. Ep-1 out."
The Staff peered over his shoulder at the team. The members of Epsilon and the closest of squad Kilo nodded back. They got the message.
Duncan swallowed hard as they pushed on to the 100-meter mark in abject silence. Their movements became slower, more purposeful. They were mindful that they were now directly beneath the enemy with less then perhaps several meters of earth separating them.
"Loose lips sink ships."
No one said it out loud. Rather, Duncan heard it in his head. Something about the occasion made him remember the speaker. Commander Tarkovsky was the one who told a younger Epsilon the old saying as they left ONI's service for the safety of the UNSC Trafalgar's hanger bay. There was some truth to that here too. If anyone said a word, they could get them all exposed. All it would take was loose lips and some unexpectedly loose soil.
No one said a word though. The same couldn't be said for those above. The noises of the surface filtered down to them through earth and cement. Occasionally, he heard the demonic squawk of a Jackal or the squealing native language of some Grunts having a chat. Less frequent was the dull growl of a Brute lurking somewhere above.
The team stopped dead when a pair of loud stomps came to ear. Dirt fell from the ceiling with each step. Duncan reflexively put a hand to his MA5C. So did everyone else to their weapons. The stomping got closer and closer. Then it passed them.
"Brutes?" Rico whispered.
The Staff shook his head. "Too heavy."
"Hunters." Mito said, his hand already gripping his katana.
The Staff nodded. After a few more seconds of quiet, he pointed forward. Their progress resumed.
Duncan checked the Nav point and realized how little he'd been paying attention. They were much closer than he actually thought they were with the Nav showing '20m'. That was a good sign in itself. It was also a bad omen. He pieced together what it meant that they heard a Hunter pair so close. If they raised any alarm, the heaviest of the Covenant's armored warriors could come to the front doors and block them in. Or worse, come inside after them. Close quarters with Hunters was an idea he was sure even Spartans wouldn't fancy. Not Mito though. Duncan saw that he still gripped his katana as he crawled one-handed. Like that was going to do them any good. They traded in most of their heavier ordnance in exchange for speed. Grenade launchers like Rico's was the best they had. An M319 could only do so much good against two-ton pavise shields. And that was without factoring in the corvette. Yet another reason why the mission had to go off without a hitch.
Despite their diminished speed, the last 20 meters went by in a blink. Duncan knew they had arrived when he saw a light, and not sunlight. Artificial, interior lights. The sight of it filled him with relief. A non-proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
The Staff held up a fist and they stopped.
Duncan peeked past him.
There was a circular barrier of metal grating in front of them. A bright light-source lay beyond, casting lateral shadows over them. Nova motioned towards her blowtorch. The Staff held up a hand for her to wait. He looked around the rim. His search stopped at a trio of latches labeled 'Emergency Release' setup at varying intervals near the bottom of the grating. He pointed to Nova and Mito then to the latches. Each of them grabbed one. The Staff held up three fingers and counted them down. At one, they pulled together.
A mechanical hiss emanated from the grating. It gave way, slowly falling back like a drawbridge until it stopped at a near horizontal position. The way was clear.
The Staff crept forward, his shotgun leading. He stopped at the edge and looked down, then up. By then Duncan had switched off his VISR mode. His visor adjusted to the increase in light so that he could see where they were.
Steel.
A wall of stainless steel existed a short distance from the edge of the threshold. Its surface was damp and reflecting an overhead light, rounding out of sight to either side of the exit.
The Staff grabbed something on the left side of the wall outside the sewer. A couple of tentative pulls assured him it was safe. He pointed to everyone then pointed up. Then he grabbed what Duncan figured to be a ladder with both hands and swung his legs in. He climbed up without a sound. Nova went next, reaching out and pulling herself along. Mito followed. Rico and Hector mirrored their actions, the latter taking longer thanks to the extra weight. Still, his ascent was quiet.
Duncan crawled up to the edge. He reached out and caught hold of what he rightly assumed to a be a metal ladder. He carefully pulled his legs out of the sewer, planted them on a set of lower bars and started climbing.
While on the move, he got an eyeful of where they'd just come out. It was a metal vat. A large one with a 5-meter diameter and at least a 10 meter height. The sewer exit was a meter short of the bottom where a minor pool of water lay stagnant.
Epsilon was clambering up a ladder that ran the full height of the container. A catwalk spanned over the top of the vat and the ladder just so happened to make the connection. The Staff reached the top first. He silently slipped onto the walk and started checking the immediate area. The rest of the squad streamed up after him. They moved left down the catwalk with their weapons raised while Yuri and Renni arrived, making room for the troopers of Kilo and Lima to follow.
Duncan scanned their surroundings from behind his rifle.
The environment beyond the railings was nothing short of a botanical garden. They had entered into an auditorium-sized chamber. It followed a basic rectangular format with three floors and catwalks running the length of the two upper floors. A dozen of the same metal vats stood on either side. A webwork of pipes braced them to the walls, presumably connecting them to the larger water system. Smaller networks of copper pipes branched out from them like roots. They connected to a dozen rectangular pools that dominated the entirety of the bottom floor. Inside these pools were what seemed to be transparent strip platforms floating in the water. Within them were housed an array of plants large and small. A rainbow of colors in the form of flowering plants and shrubs were organized according to species so that each pool looked unified. Much of the flora was visually more native to Ballast due to the unique geometric patterns of pigmentation on their flowers.
A wide sign extended from the ceiling, its electronic lettering dim but otherwise discernable: '(HSCR) Hydroponics and Special Crossbreeding Chamber – 5'.
Duncan wanted to sigh with relief. Their intel was right.
He noticed a number of smaller signs hanging over the vats, one reading: 'Distillation Vat - A – 10kl Max'. He looked back to the one they came from where Lima was beginning to slip onto the catwalk. Their vat was noticeably bigger than the rest. The sign over it made its purpose clear: 'Distillation Vat – Reserve 2 – 15kl Max'.
"Heads-up, Grunts on the first floor." The Staff said.
Duncan instinctively dropped to a crouch beside the rest of the squad and sighted down. His rifle's reticle twitched from left to right down the lanes between the pools. Two seconds was all he needed to locate them.
A squad of four Grunts were scattered around the room. They were waddling here and there, gravitating towards the strange plants to pluck at their leaves or to sniff their blossoms. Eliminating them would be a non-issue.
Duncan spotted one of them passing a broad doorway that was shut. Beside it was an elevated console with an inactive screen.
"Got eyes on an access terminal by the door in the far-left corner."
The Staff planted a new Nav point on it. "That's our way in. We'll secure the room first." They stopped to let the last of Lima get in position. Quickly assessing the situation, Lima-1 made his squad flank right.
"No fireworks this time around, team." The Staff said. "Kilo, Lima hold off. Have your best CQC guy get to work down there."
Kilo-1 and Lima-1 both replied. "Copy."
The Staff pointed towards a set of ladders leading down to the ground floor. "Ep-9, you're on duty. Ep-8, you too. Once the job's done, see what you can do about that terminal."
"Copy." Duncan replied.
"I thought you said you didn't want me to go at it?" Mito asked sarcastically.
The Staff gave him a faceless glare. "Don't make me take it back."
Mito traced a smile over his visor with a finger. Duncan followed him to the closest ladder. Kilo-4 and Lima-7 went for the next.
The room's interior lighting was bright but was concentrated primarily on the hydroponic pools. The uneven exposure left the upper catwalks in darkness. The Grunts patrolling below were unable to see the silhouettes gradually encircling them above. They were also too distracted with the plants to notice the four dark figures quietly descending a pair of ladders.
Mito was the first to hit the ground, doing so without a sound. Duncan seconded him and stayed low. Kilo-4 and Lima-7 landed with similar stealth. They crouched towards the nearest pool which turned out to be taller up-close.
The four of them broke into binaries. Mito led the way off to the left while the other pair went right. They slipped around the corners and into the maze of long lanes between the pools. Duncan and Mito stopped at an intersection between a neighborhood of ferns and blue azaleas. The walls provided plenty of cover aside from the long lanes which presented a new problem. If they were seen, there was plenty of room for them to get shot at.
They braced themselves against a pool wall and glanced down the left lane. A Grunt was making its way up from them towards another pool that lay closer to the door. Simultaneously, a second passed by the end of the lane straight ahead, headed in the opposite direction.
"Conehead number one is mine." Mito whispered and moved left without any further conversation. Duncan nodded. He planted his MA5 onto his harness. He whipped out his combat knife as he crouched across the intersection. He briefly glimpsed Mito doing the same far behind the first Grunt. The ODST effortlessly unsheathed his katana and brandished it at his side. The overhead lights reflected off the Yamamoto Murasakino's purpling blade like running water. Its prey remained aloof.
Duncan haunted down the next lane. He halted at the end and peeked around the corner. His quarry had stopped at the long side of a nearby pool. It leaned on the wall to see what was inside. It reached a hand into the waters beneath the roots of the azaleas. Its plasma pistol was left buckled to its belt, unattended.
Duncan held his knife at the ready. Taking a few tentative steps forward brought him into the shadow of the chamber's far wall. He crept along without any sign that the Grunt heard him coming. It was too busy splashing the water around.
He slowly came within striking distance. The alien dipped its hand deeper into the pool. He lunged. His left hand grabbed its mask and pressed it hard into its mouth while his right plunged the knife deep into its neck. The blade passed up to the hilt. Blue blood streamed out. The Grunt tried to squeal but Duncan kept the mask pressed in, muffling its cries. But its hands flailed about to try to grab him. One of them caught a hold of his shoulder and squeezed hard. He shrugged it off. He drove the knife up through its neck. The creature's struggles died down. Its hand limpened. He eased its slackening body to the ground before pulling out his knife. He only released the mask once he was sure it was down for the count. Its hands fell into the new pool of blue blood gathering around it.
"One down." He whispered.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. Another Grunt emerged from a lane further down. The two locked eyes. It froze in place, trembling at the sight of a trooper standing over its dead comrade. Duncan reached for his magnum but was beat to the punch when an arm lunged out and rammed a long combat knife into the Grunt's throat. Halfway out of the lane, Kilo-4 grabbed the alien by the mask and pulled it out of view.
Duncan breathed out. He eyed Lima-7 a few more lanes away who was taking hold of another Grunt's head. A quick twist got the job done. Seeing that they were about finished, Duncan looked to where he last saw Mito.
There was no sign of him or the Grunt he was pursuing. Duncan brought his knife back to ready. He crouched towards the area of the door.
Then his skin bristled at hearing the mechanical hiss of the door sliding open.
Two Jackals strolled in. Their shields, one blue and one red, lay passively at their sides. They looked like striding peacocks when they weren't hiding behind them.
They stopped in front of the nearest pool of ferns, briefly unaware of what was happening around them. Until they looked around.
Duncan stuck as close to the shadow of the wall as possible. The newly arrived patrol appeared to be searching for the Grunts. There were none to be found. Then one of them spotted him in the shadows. It gave an alarmed squawk and turned to level both shield and plasma pistol.
A figure burst from the water of the nearby pool. There was a flash of lightning, of light passing off a blade.
The Jackal's right-hand flew away from its wrist in an arc of blue blood, still clutching the pistol. Another flash ran across its throat before it could scream.
By the time Duncan recognized the figure as a drenched and fern-covered Mito, the second Jackal was rounding on their ambusher. Mito was still recovering from his swing. Duncan ran forward and managed to catch the Jackal's gun-arm in time to force it down. With surgical precision he stabbed his knife between its thumb and forefinger to keep the metacarpal bones jammed, stopping it from firing. The creature grunted, ready to scream, only to be silenced by a swift elbow to the mouth. Not wanting to risk it getting off any stray shots, he withdrew his blade and plunged it with just as much precision into the bare flesh of its upper arm. He yanked the blade up and out of its shoulder with all his strength, separating bicep from bone. The pain was enough to make the Jackal drop its pistol. Again, it tried to scream. Again, it was stopped as Duncan rammed his knife point-up through jaw and brain.
The Jackal groaned. It teetered then slumped to the floor.
Duncan yanked out his knife and rounded on his comrade. Mito was pulling himself out from the pool. He looked like a bushman the way he was covered in soaking shrubs. His boots settled on the floor and left a track of water behind him. He walked up beside the Jackal he'd struck. The creature was grasping at its ruptured throat. Its mouth stayed shut against the tide of blood seeping through its teeth. It glared up at him. Mito's unexpressive visor stared back. As if it was nothing more than a chore, he planted a wet boot on the alien's chest. He raised the Murasakino then brought it down with surprising swiftness. The blade tore through its hand and slipped into its throat. The Jackal squirmed. Mito carried on pushing until something in the creature's body gave way and the Murasakino dipped down several centimeters.
"There it is." Mito said with the matter-of-factness of a surgeon.
He suddenly twisted the hilt. There was an audible crunch as he split its spine with a flick of the wrist. The Jackal's squirming ceased.
Duncan came up next to him. "I think you've been hanging around Ep-3 too much."
Mito withdrew his katana. He whipped it back a few times to toss the blood off. "Probably."
"So, where's the-...why are you-...how did you-"
Mito pointed to the pool he came out from. Duncan looked inside. Between the floating aisles of ferns there was also a Grunt leisurely bobbing along. The water around it was turning blue.
"When did you get in there? I didn't even hear a splash."
"Like I said," Mito slid the Murasakino reverently into its sheath. "I'm a close quarters guy."
Duncan kicked the alien at their feet. "That was too close." He peered around. "This place is a lot bigger on the inside than on the TAC."
"Agreed. The swim was nice. Now let's see what room service is like."
The Staff comm'd in. "You two like close-calls too much. Ep-8, stay on task."
"Right." Duncan turned to the access terminal. "Ep-9, cover the door. I'm going for it."
Duncan moved past the Jackal corpse to the console by the door. He made sure to keep a certain distance from the motion sensor in the hopes that if there was anything waiting on the other side, it wouldn't shoot him in the face right off the bat. Mito stepped in front of it. Seeing him line up his own assault rifle with the threshold gave Duncan the extra assurance he needed to get to work.
The access terminal was a podium-like consular station that had gone offline. He cracked his knuckles and touched the screen. A warm-up protocol winked on. The infamous black and white pyramid of ONI signaled the boot-up process. A moment later and he was face to face with the main interface.
An empty interface. There was no sign of any application software. The most he found was a function that let him pull out a keypad projection. His fingers danced more freely over its surface, lining out command prompts and summoning up source codes for the applications he needed. There was little to find beyond the features of a gutted operating system.
"Ep-8 to Ep-1, I hate to tell you this, sir, but this thing's been wiped."
"Wiped?"
His fingers typed furiously to double-check. "Yeah. No administrational functions. No databases. Nothing. This thing's clean. Guess that means whoever was in charge of the systems did their job once the Covenant showed up."
"Sounds like the local AI was reliable. Too reliable. At least that's one objective we might not have to worry about. Ep-10, get down there and help him."
Renni flashed her acknowledgement. She skidded down a ladder and jogged up beside him. Duncan didn't need to say a word. A cursory observation of his screen was all she needed. "Step aside, Ep-8. I can handle this."
He moved aside. Her fingers shot to the keypad and manipulated them like a piano. She opened a command prompt and typed an unfamiliar, alphanumeric code-string 26-characters in length. She pressed enter. The ONI symbol returned...inverted. The colors were in the wrong places as well. It was there one moment then gone the next, leaving behind a screen filled to the brim with applications ready to be used. She casually stepped aside and held an offering hand towards the device. "All yours."
Duncan stared at her, uncertain. "How'd you do that?"
"Do what?"
"That? The applications are back now. They were wiped before."
"They were."
"So how'd you do that?"
"Do what?"
Duncan frowned. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
She shook her head. "No."
With a sigh, Duncan stepped back in front of the terminal. He honed in on an administrational suite in the bottom left corner. The software opened and exposed a long list of strobing options. They were all related to the facility's services, compartmentalized to various areas such as 'Lounge-Aria' and '(HSCR-1)'. One in particular captured his interest: '(HSCR-5)'. He pressed it. A sub-list rolled out showing access links to electrical and water systems as well as surveillance. He opened another sub-link to the cameras and chose the first option on the list. A side-window opened, displaying the chamber they were in from an elevated view. It was in a corner with a view from behind and above several ODSTs that stood on the catwalk. He quickly recognized the one with the M90 as the Staff.
"Ep-8 to Ep-1, I've got camera access over here."
The Staff nodded. "Sounds good. Is it just for this room or the entire facility?"
"Just this room for now. The system's compartmentalized. I can only access one space at a time. I can check the rest if you want me too but it'll take some time."
"Scratch that. See if you can find an overall schematic for the whole building. We need a basic idea of where we are right now."
"Copy. Want me to upload it to everyone's TAC when I'm done?"
"Be my guest."
Duncan backed out of the cameras and out of the hydroponics chamber. He scrolled down the list of areas before stumbling into an assortment of seemingly miscellaneous functions. At the very bottom he spotted the last: 'General Schema – Updated, 07/12/2551'. He pressed it.
ONI's boot-up screen ambled past. The pyramid slowly minimized off to the upper left corner. A new image appeared. Duncan was almost overwhelmed by the magnitude of its details. He summed it down to a three-dimensional cross-section of a small plant with disproportionately massive roots. He counted six different layers in the overall layout. The topmost layer was a display of the main observatory building as it appeared from the outside, basic and inconspicuous. No one would know otherwise that it was really the beginning of something much greater, a facility whose size would have spanned much of, if not all the preserve's grounds were it itself not underground. Next were five layers of hanger-like chambers, honeycomb-shaped generator clusters and vast spiderwebs of interconnecting hallways, corridors and elevators running between them. An architectural bunny burrow of epic proportions.
He touched the screen and moved the image around. Notifications blinked on, highlighting the different components and titling them by name. He saw offices and research rooms, more hydroponic chambers and server rooms. Sub-notifications displaying distance from the surface showed that the furthest layer was at maximum 1 kilometer below ground level. Not 2.5 kilometers. Unless he was wrong, the recovery team's main objective lay outside the bounds of the schematics in a place that, if the map was to be trusted, didn't exist.
He found HSCR-5 in the first subterranean layer and held his finger on it for a reference point. "We're here." With another finger he pointed down to where he estimated their objective was. "The beacon's somewhere around there."
"I can't see where there is, Ep-8."
"Oh, right."
He backed out of the schematics and journeyed to the 'Inter-link' option above it. Initiating a hand-shake protocol between his BDU's BIOS software and the terminal, he connected his armor to the device's local network. Some special maneuvering, data compressions and transfers later, he uploaded it to the recovery team's collective TACMAP with a marker set on their location. "Can you see it, now?"
The ODSTs in the room stopped to check their maps. A few whistled and commented over the team-comm.
"Man, how'd they get all this down here?"
"In the middle of nowhere too."
"That's ONI for you."
The Staff breezed through it. "And what's our problem, Ep-8?"
"Our problem is that this doesn't show any more details beyond the 1-kilometer mark, sir. Either we're looking in the wrong place or..."
"Or?"
Duncan exhaled. "Or this schematic is incomplete."
"They're hiding something." Nova stated.
"From who, themselves?" Hector asked. "ONI personnel are the only ones who work here, right?"
"No." Renni assured. "This whole thing reeks of one big front operation. This is all just to convince UEG inspectors, and maybe a few actual conservation society botanists working here, that they're actually doing what they say they are."
"Could they really pull off something this big?" Rico asked.
"You'd be surprised what they could pull off."
Duncan bit back the urge to tell her that they might be surprised, albeit far less than most people. That was the case for Epsilon at least.
"So where can we find access to the info we need?" The Staff asked.
Renni cupped her helmet's chin thoughtfully as she examined the diagram on the terminal's screen. "Ep-8, zoom in on that sub-structure in the third layer. The one in the middle that's set apart from the others."
Duncan did so. The screen zoomed in to a three-dimensional schematic of a room wedged between two lengthy passageways. Its shape was that of a box in-laid upon a crescent. The sub-notification that appeared confirmed Duncan's suspicions: 'Central Control'.
"Bingo." Renni whispered. "Sir, we've found a control room a few levels below us."
"Specifics?"
Duncan sifted through the layers of the facility on his TACMAP and found the room. He marked it with a Nav and sent it out to the rest of the team. "There, sir."
"...Okay, I see it. And the information we need will be there?"
"Well, it technically is and isn't there." Renni said. "I'll need to resurrect the residual data pathways that the AI left behind. Thankfully it wasn't so thorough that it knew how to clean those up."
"Is that what you did to this terminal?" Duncan asked.
Renni turned to him. "Did what?"
"Never mind."
"Yeah, I thought so."
The Staff considered it. "Okay, that's looking like a solid trek. Our probability of running into a shootout gets higher the more we move about. If we're going to do this, we'll need to be purposeful in our movements. Scan through the surveillance system. See if you can pick-out a good route. We need as little contact and as short a distance there as we can get."
"Copy."
Duncan went back into the surveillance functions. He mulled through the cameras throughout the facility, prioritizing those that ran along prospective routes from their location to central control. The scenes he found ranged from mild to grizzly. There were numerous empty lounges and abandoned staff kitchens with the normal trappings of life, even sometimes with food still on the table. Then there were long corridors filled from one end to the next with the dead bodies of scientific, maintenance and security personnel. The mixture of the preserve's staff were mangled, burned or eviscerated. Sometimes all three. More deceased security guards were clustered near staircases and elevators with busted doors. The signs of a firefight trended more in those areas with guards cast about among the bodies of Grunts, the rarer Jackals and the rarest; Elites. Closer to the offices and janitorial closets were where the corpses of the non-combatants were to be found. They were all scattered where they were killed.
He briefly stopped at an office-room with a desk. A man sat behind it facedown, turned away from the angle of the corner mounted camera. A small picture stood on the desk. It showed a man, his wife and a little boy smiling in a grassy park. Duncan almost thought he was still alive. Then he noticed the still smoldering wound in his back and the last pieces of gore covering a partially exposed spine. The work of an energy sword. He forced himself to move on.
There was so much death that he became desperate just to find anything alive. He did. Patrolling through some of the hallways and rooms were roving bands of Grunts and Jackals led by Elite Minors. They too were scouring for the living, going door to door and corridor to corridor, their plasma weapons at the ready.
He switched to a link that showed the foyer of the main observatory. Before the encircling staircases there were more dead gathered on the ground floor. Amidst the mess there were Elites meandering about, bathed in the corvette's light which gleamed through the upper dome. His camera's elevated vantage point gave him a view of the front doors. Outside, near the threshold, a Hunter pair stood guard. He had a sneaking suspicion they would come charging in at the first sign of trouble.
He toggled through a route of interest. Compared to the others he checked, this series of hallways and rooms had few if any Covenant on patrol. The route mainly revolved around the western wings of the subterranean layers. A good sign considering the recovery team's proximity.
Before he told the Staff, he made certain to check the control room itself. The first thing he found were the two perpendicular corridors. They were mostly empty save for human corpses. Their parallel nature made for a decent entrance and exit route. Then he switched to a new feed. The new angle showed the short passage which bridged the two corridors by passing the door to central control.
There he found their first problem: two orange-armored Elite Majors standing to either side of the entrance. He switched to the next feed inside the room. The space looked just as it registered on the schematics; a standard boxy room but with a semicircular extension. A number of consular stations were arranged in a crescent-shape against the walls. Their screens remained inactive, their lights offline except for several directly opposite the door.
Four new problems revealed themselves right away. In addition to the Majors outside, there were two pairs of Covenant. One he recognized as the blue, jellyfish-look-alikes known as Engineers. Two of them were levitating above the forward consoles. They wore a strange armor on their inflating sacs while their tentacles waved across multiple interfaces at the same time. Their fine cilia manipulated them so that various streams of data passed over their screens. That was worrisome, but not as much as the other pair supervising them.
Standing behind them were two Elites dressed in an armor type he'd never seen before. Their ornate design, their crimson color and blue accents along with their wide-rounded helmets assured him they were bad news. Ever more intimidating were their weapons. One carried a needle rifle; perfect for the long corridors outside. The other carried a concussion rifle; a devastating weapon at close range.
Renni leaned in. She spotted the same thing and sounded just as worried. "That's not good."
"No kidding. Hey, Ep-1, I've got a route. However, it looks like we aren't the only ones going after data. There are at least six contacts at central control. Two Majors standing guard at the door. Two Engineers sifting through the systems. Two...special Elites."
"Special?"
"The armor's weird, sir. I've never seen anything like it in the field. These have to be some kind of special ops."
"...Alright. That's something we'll have to work around. Weapons?"
"Not the Engineers but they're armored. The Majors are packing plasma rifles. Those specials have a needle rifle and a concussion rifle."
Following a contemplative silence from the Staff, Duncan asked. "Think we'll have to go loud, sir?"
"Upload the route to the team, Ep-8. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
"Copy..."
"Everyone else, down the ladders. Stack up on the door. We're moving out."
Duncan didn't like their odds. Everything seemed fine except for central control. He got the uneasy feeling that things would hit the fan the instant they arrived. Still, he held his peace. The Staff was right. They would cross that bridge when they came to it.
He uploaded the route to the recovery team's TACMAPs. He then carefully logged his armor out of the network before preparing the system's automatic memory worm. He activated it and began its sequential breakdown of every data pathway, expunging the residual information.
As the rest of Epsilon, Lima and Kilo headed down the ladders and gathered behind him, the terminal's process concluded with a casual ping.
The troopers stayed partially hidden behind the nearest hydroponic pools while the Staff approached the door. Mito joined him. They came close enough to trigger the motion sensor. The door slid away, revealing a long hallway with many adjoining passages and rooms. The lights flickered down its length.
"We're clear." The Staff said.
The recovery team emerged. They maneuvered into two columns behind Mito and the Staff.
Taking one last look, the Staff started them off. "Let's move."
:********:
The ODSTs filed down each passageway along their route with deftness and hyperfocus. They checked each corpse-strewn intersection and open door with methodical accuracy. They were operationally OCD, and very good at it. They needed to be for the situation they were in, and for the destination they were heading to.
Central control lay 50 meters below their original entry point. To reach it, they were made to go through a zigzagging assortment of hallways. The enemy had already made their presence known in the area via the many dead humans they left in the aftermath. The best the team could do was step over the bodies while they moved forward. That wasn't always possible. At one point Duncan nearly slipped in a pool of human blood congealing over 2 square meters of flooring. Everyone had to mind their step over the red puddles that seemed so prevalent. They managed to hold their nose at the odor of carbonized flesh, a stench that routinely overpowered their helmet filters whenever they passed a patch of bodies. Neither smell nor sight could keep them from peering into open doors, turning corners with weapons raised or pushing down long staircases with their focus set on the next flight.
The lighting inside the facility was not always constant. Some sections were experiencing electrical shortages, creating a distraction for those watching for signs of movement. Much worse off areas were completely dark. For these, they implored their helmets' VISR modes to see their way through to the next staircase.
What Duncan found to be the hardest thing to deal with was the lack of sound. Besides the light clatter of their boots or his own breathing, he could barely pick-up on anything. The passages they moved through were utterly dead. On the one hand he was glad that they didn't run into anything. His choice of routes was proving to be solid. On the other hand, he was unnerved by it. There was no telling when a Grunt might wander unawares into their path. Or a Jackal, an Elite or a Brute for that matter. There would only be the brief surprise followed up with rifle-fire and finally a mission quickly going sideways.
He privately wished Vallejo station could have sponsored them quieter weapons like their traditionally silenced M7s. Sadly, the ODP's armory was lacking in much of anything in the realm of gun attachments. There was no time to have any shipped to them from the surface either. Since their initial deployment to assist the ODPs had next to no need for stealth, no one thought to bring along a suppressor. Now that decision was coming back to haunt them. One shot, one measly pull of the trigger was all it would take to change their mission from a recovery op to a running battle. From there the odds would continue to stack against them.
As always in these situations, Duncan relegated those less favorable thoughts to the back of his mind. His attention affixed itself to the world within and without his rifle's optics. The circular crosshairs stayed their neutral blue during each sweeping scan of the hallways. It remained so as it peered into rooms whose silenced guests lay or sat inside. The few occasions it turned green it was when he was aiming too close over the Staff's shoulder. The crosshair never turned red. Because of the long minutes of spotting nothing aside from his own comrades, he almost wished it did change. That would go a long way towards breaking a tension that was building with each subsequent descent.
Soon, they were pushing out from the last staircase that led onto the right floor. Duncan checked his TACMAP on the way. They were at the center of a convoluted mazework of hallways and chambers baring the vague impression of an electronic chip. Their route was fully highlighted in a distinct green. Left, right, straight then right again at one of the two intersections, the two connected by the same hallway that passed in front of central control.
They moved with greater deftness, never letting a boot come close to the diminishing number of corpses in their way. They went left, right then straight. But the Staff held up a fist halfway down the long corridor. They stopped. He pointed to a much closer intersection on their right that led into the adjacent corridor. "Ep-9, take your line that way. One-meter spread. We'll flank the room."
Mito flashed an acknowledgement and went down the intersection. The rest of his line followed him. The Staff carried on down their original route.
The final intersection came within sight. Their steps slowed the closer they came. Then they reached it. They braced themselves against the wall, staying at least one-meter apart from one another. That way they avoided grouping up and making themselves easier targets.
The Staff edged towards the end. He eased his head around the corner and looked. He didn't say a word or move for several seconds, at the end of which he retracted his head far more slowly. He nodded back at Duncan. "Two Majors. Right at the doors."
"What's the plan?"
The Staff was silent a moment longer. He chanced peering in again with the same caution before withdrawing. "Alright, everyone, listen up. Here's the play. Ep-9, you and me are going to walk out and lure off those Majors. We'll peel one off this way and one off that way. To do that, we'll need to go one after the other. Once they come into these hallways, we'll use our combined fire to bring them down. Then, if those in central control don't come out, we'll throw in some flashbangs and finish them off. We'll see if we can secure those Engineers. The second they're out of the way, Ep-8, I'm going to need you to get to work accessing what information you need to help us get to that beacon. Before you do that, flatline the lights in the upper layers. The enemy will know we're here. We'll need to confuse them in order to buy the extra time we need to get down there."
"We're going loud?" Kilo-1 asked.
"There's no way around it." The Staff replied.
"What about our exit?" Lima-1 asked. "If we do this, it's sure to cause a lot more of them to come pouring in. They'll probably block off our access to the hydroponics chamber. In that case, even if Baelson's boys intervene, they won't be able to hold back that tide for long. Not with that corvette. And we'll have nowhere to go ourselves. How are we supposed to get out of here then?"
"I'm surprised you haven't figured it out yet, Lima. Remember, this is ONI we're dealing with. Something's telling me they wouldn't just leave their sole escape route for this whole facility to the front doors. Not a chance. They have to have something else waiting for us down there. We'll have to find it and use it to get out."
"That sounds like an awfully big gamble, Ep-1," Lima-1 replied. "You're willing to bet our lives on that?"
The Staff took in an eyeful of the men and women behind him. "I'll be upfront with you. There's a pretty good chance that nothing's there but a dead end. There's a pretty good chance that we don't walk away from this. But the job fell to us. This is our point of no return. There won't be any going back after this. We have a job to do and a choice to make. And I'm asking you to make it. Are you with me, troopers?"
There was no hesitation in the collective replies of "Yessir", "Copy that" and "Roger that, Ep-1" that were exchanged for the question.
The Staff nodded. "Everyone, push back a few meters and take-up a zigzag. We'll make it hard for them to nail any of us."
The ODSTs in both hallways broke from their single line. Half of each line moved to the opposite wall while the other half remained where they were, utilizing their spacing to create a zigzagging formation. None of them would be easy targets. All would have a clear line of sight down the center of their corridor.
Again, the Staff edged towards forward. "Ep-9?"
"In position, sir." Mito replied. "Ready when you are."
The Staff took in several deep breaths. On the last, he relaxed and strolled into the intersection like a man coming to see old friends. He turned in to face the Elites. Duncan heard a surprised grunt quickly followed by another.
The Staff then turned and casually walked back towards them without the slightest hint that anything was wrong. That is until he was clear of the intersection. He slid back down to a crouch and swiveled about, his M90 leveled.
Heavy footfalls sounded through the adjoining passageway, heading towards both corridors. Duncan joined the rest in taking aim at the orange-armored biped that came dashing into view, its plasma rifle raised. He got to see the look in its dark pupils change from enraged to horrified before he pulled the trigger.
The silence was shattered by a sudden clamor of automatic and semi-automatic rifle-fire. There were so many shots fired that Duncan couldn't discern any of his own from the onslaught. The downpour of rounds lit up the corridor and the Major, turning it into the center of a solar system of bullets. The Elite seemed to dance to the rhythm of its own destruction. Its shields evaporated in a split-second. The armor flew away in chunks from around its center of mass, spewing fresh blue blood onto the surrounding walls.
Two seconds of continuous fire died down once its sizzling and maimed corpse fell to the floor. It never got off a single shot.
Duncan heard the last reports ring out from the adjacent corridor.
"Ours is down." Kilo-1 said.
"So, is ours." The Staff replied as he pumped new shells into his shotgun. He pressed back against the wall and looked gun-first down the intersection. "Troopers, move in!"
Duncan shot to his feet with the others and filed into the intersection with practiced swiftness. On the other side, Mito led the rest of the recovery team forward. They stacked up on the door to central control. It remained shut although its indicator lights showed that it wasn't locked. It would open the moment someone stepped in front of it.
The Staff and Mito whipped out flashbangs and hooked their fingers into the safety pins. The latter made the first move, stepping sufficiently close for the motion sensor to react.
The door slid open.
Pins were pulled.
Two flashbangs arced into the room beyond.
There was a bright flash and two cracks of thunder as the ordnance carried out its namesake.
"Go! Go! Go!"
In a blink, several ODSTs stormed into the room. Duncan found himself among the first inside. His perception slowed into a blur of lights and movement.
The interior appeared to him as it did on the cameras but wider and more visceral. So were their enemies. The two Engineers were pulling their tentacles away from the displays as they turned towards them in fear. The strange, crimson armored Elites were more imposing in person. The one to the left carried the needle rifle while its rightward comrade held the concussion rifle. Both were moving in slow-motion, holding one hand in front of their blinded eyes. Duncan hooked left with the Staff and another while Mito and three others hooked right. As time picked-up, they poured uniform streams of hot led into both enemies. Their shields flared though not as quickly as Duncan would have hoped. They were surprisingly resilient.
The enemy fired back. But as the rightward Elite let off thunderous bolts of pinkish-blue plasma with the concussion rifle, its partner turned and fired as well.
Three needle rounds punctured through the cyclopean helmets of both of the Engineers. The crystalline projectiles glowed and detonated, decapitating them. Even as their corpses were falling to the floor, the special Elite was turning to make its mark on the ODSTs. But they echoed its own tact by focusing their fire on its helmet. The heavy concentration finally overloaded its shields which popped away. The force of the collapse pushed it back, knocking it's rifle off course and leaving its head to receive ruthless blows of ballistic fury. It let out a deep groan before slumping back.
Duncan felt his rifle click empty. He released the spent mag and was moving for a fresh one. The momentary reload left him helpless to watch as a quartet of concussion rounds slammed into the other troopers. One struck an ODST square in the stomach, launching him back against the wall. A second trooper flew across the room in a bloody spiral. A third soared into him back-first, knocking him clear off his feet. He tumbled back beneath the man's weight. He struggled to push him off. As he did, he heard a renewed stream of fire pour into the last Elite from more troopers rushing in. The Elite gave a quick cry of pain before it too was overwhelmed.
Through his ringing ears, he heard the Staff calling: "Ceasefire!"
The fire ebbed for the most part with the exception of three troopers from Lima. They had run up beside the last downed Elite and were emptying their magazines into it with wrathful abandon. It took the Staff running behind them and yanking them by the shoulder, shouting "Conserve your ammo!" for them to get the message.
Duncan's mind gradually emerged from the haze of the moment. The groaning mass on top of him suddenly registered like a slap to his soul. He pulled himself out from under the ODST and carefully lowered him to the floor. It was Kilo-4, the same guy that had his back in the hydroponics chamber. The man's visor was cracked. He shook him. "Hey, you alright?"
"...No." He croaked.
"Medic! Ep-10, we need he-" Duncan stopped upon catching sight of Renni. She was already busy trying to manage another of the troopers that got hit. Mito wasn't among them. He helped Renni sit Lima-1 against the wall he'd been hurled into. They couldn't get him to stay upright. Renni pulled off his helmet. His head fell onto his chest; an old salt and pepper moustache, graying hair and a square-face, all bloodied. His eyes stared vacantly at the floor.
Duncan sighted steam wafting from a large tear in the man's left side. Amidst the mess of busted armor and red innards, he could make out exposed ribs. It was obvious he was dead. Renni came to the same realization as she solemnly reached for his neck. She pried his dog tags loose. One of the Lima troopers that had spent a clip into the last Elite came up beside her. She respectfully handed him the tags.
Duncan turned away from the sight. He immediately came upon a new one. The other trooper that was hit lay on her side. She was motionless while Kilo's medic pried away her helmet. They found a young, freckled face with cropped auburn hair and gray eyes dimmed. Kilo-6 looked like she'd dozed off. The medic, Kilo-5, crouched at her side. He squeezed her shoulder tight and closed her open eyes with a similar respect.
The Staff slipped down to Kilo-4's side. "I've got him, Ep-8. You go focus on getting us that access. Move."
The firmness and direction of his tone helped Duncan pull himself back onto his feet. He ran past the riddled bodies of the Elites and got between the corpses of the two Engineers. Their headless remains as well as their deflating sacks made him comprehend a greater reality that was at play. The reason the Elite with the needle rifle had killed its own allies was to win, regardless of its own death. It knew once the troopers got in the room that there was a chance of defeat. It killed the Engineers just to make sure they didn't fall into enemy hands. In the end, it was a smart call. Now they couldn't take any of the less combative aliens captive. If these Elites were capable of that level of rationality under such chaotic conditions, he shuddered at the thought of facing them without their earlier advantage. And that too was almost not enough.
He tried to remember which consoles he saw them use. Thankfully, their screens were still active.
He analyzed two of them. His immediate deduction from the many administrational suites that were opened was that the Engineers were actually looking into the system's near infinite functionalities. They were searching for something. Whatever Renni had done before, it was clear the aliens had done the same and much faster. He attempted to trace the data pathways they used. The memory of the Staff's instruction called him off the chase. He used one console to access the main directory. He found the building's light systems. However, these were unexpectedly more comprehensive than what he found in the first access terminal. There were locations listed in it that he never saw in the other directory. Unless...
"We found it." He said to himself.
Not getting too ahead of himself, he began systematically switching off the light-sources in each upper level of the facility.
Kilo-4 started crying out. He was shouting Kilo-6's name. The desperation in his voice pulled Duncan's attention away. He saw Mito and the Staff trying to hold him down, to keep him from running to his teammate's side while Renni pulled away his helmet to assess him. The Staff caught him looking. "Ep-8, get back on it."
"Yessir."
Duncan breathed in. With the last of the adrenaline fading off, he was able to pay extra focus to the task at hand. He found the 'Grand Schema V.4' link that he was looking for in the directory. He tried accessing it but received a password request in its place. "I need a password."
"Ep-10, any ideas?" The Staff asked.
"No, I-… wait, I think I know." Renni said. She left Kilo-4's side to join him. "Um, its..." She reached for the keypad. "I don't have the security clearance. I'm just guessing this but..." She started typing. "Let's see if this-"
A satisfactory ping emitted from the screen. The passcode request phased out. The new image that appeared was a three-dimensional diagram of the facility that came into being layer by layer. It reached the last layer Duncan had seen on the access terminal.
It didn't stop there.
Three new layers were added which were of much more complex architectural design than those that came before. Most distinct was a long, razor-thin line that went straight down from central control.
It kept going, passing the three new layers of the facility. It refused to stop until it reached a depth that a notification depicted as '2.5-Kilometers'.
Even then, it still refused to stop. Instead, it grew laterally into a broader passageway that travelled 100 meters before stopping at a large chamber.
Duncan double-tapped it. The screen zoomed in to show him more details.
It wasn't a line at all. It was an elevator shaft. What it led to was a long corridor. As for the chamber at the end, there were no clear details beyond a cave-like texturization and a highlighted title: 'Sarcophagus'.
"That-..." Renni said, amazed. "That...wasn't supposed to work."
"Well, it did." Duncan said, equally amazed. "Good work." He squinted at the title 'Sarcophagus'. He wanted to ask Renni what she thought of it. But she looked on the display with an air of decreasing amazement and increasing confusion at her own actions. He decided to press on the chamber but got no further functionality options or additional information. He tried the same on the long corridor. Though no functionalities appeared, a notification blinked on showing two updates. The light in the passageway was completely offline and there was some unexplained emergency lockdown in place. Something was blocking him off from affecting it directly. A high-level override perhaps?
The Staff came up behind them. "What do we got?"
Duncan pointed to the mysterious elevator and the distant corridor. "There are whole new layers to this facility, sir. Whoever has our beacon, they're likely waiting for us down there."
"I see." He pointed to the elevator. "Where's the access point for this thing?"
Duncan ventured to press that part of the image. A sub-prompt appeared, flashing 'Activate'. "No way it's that easy." He pressed it.
There was a rumble within the room itself.
Someone spoke up. "Hey, look, the wall...it's moving."
Their collective attention turned to the room's right side where a full six square meters of paneling slipped out from the rest of the wall. It groaned as it slid aside. What it exposed was the chromatic interior of an abnormally large elevator. To Duncan, he gauged that the space was wide enough to fit the entire recovery team and then sum. Maybe even a Scorpion tank.
The Staff came to the same conclusion. "Everyone, get on. We're going down. Gather our dead and our wounded. No one's getting left behind up here."
The ODSTs immediately got on top of the situation. Several cleared the interior and settled inside. Nova who was among them pointed out her findings: "We've got a control panel in here. I think we can use this for the ride."
"Copy that. Ep-8, did you find any additional routes we could use for our exfil?"
Duncan tentatively pointed at the chamber. "There's nothing else down there besides this big cavity near the end. Otherwise, no."
For the first time in a long while, Duncan saw The Staff hesitate. The leader of Epsilon's inner considerations brought him to stare at the chamber. He turned to the elevator, watching as the recovery team carried the bodies of Lima-1 and Kilo-6 inside. "Right now, we'll take what we can get. Are the lights out upstairs?"
"Yessir."
"Then that's all we need. Let's withdraw."
The Staff moved off to join those entering the elevator. Duncan manipulated his way through the system. He instigated a final memory worm wipe of the residual data pathways that Renni had introduced him to. On that note, he saw her follow those streaming into their exfil. Her air of uncertainty from before remained.
He waited until the worm was finished and the system's very foundations were wiped clean that he ran into the elevator.
Squad Kilo was the last to come inside, having secured the hallways at their backs. Nova selected the lowest level on the control panel which glowed green. The instant the last member of the recovery team came aboard, the doors moved to close. Their weapons stayed centered on the room outside. They refused to turn away from the entrance until the elevator's had closed and their descent commenced.
Descensus – Descent