Post by Maelstrom on May 11, 2014 23:53:22 GMT -6
Second Lieutenant Jonathan Hunt checked his M-8 Avenger again, as his unit's drop-ship made its descent. The eleven men and women surrounding him, the eleven other soldiers of his unit and their pilot, were like a second family to him. They spent the past several weeks going through intense Systems Alliance training together, forging the group of separately-trained yet skilled soldiers into a strong, cohesive unit. Jonathan never imagined feeling so close to someone he was related to as he did to these people. For someone from a small family like his, that truly meant something.
"Ready for your first real mission, Lieutenant Eager?" Commander Harris asked with a big smile, stopping just before Second Lieutenant Hunt.
"Yes, sir!" he replied. The nickname, while not his favorite, was not unearned. He knew Alliance regs in and out, adhered to them precisely, and was always willing to volunteer for an assignment. It was his nature to play by the rules and to show initiative. Perhaps that was why his instructor at the academy had suggested him for the N-program. His application was seriously considered, but, in the end, the board decided they wanted to see what kind of service record he racked up over the course of a couple years. The representative who contacted him was very clear that they wanted him to re-apply after the minimum waiting period between applications- two years.
The commander, an N2 himself, laughed. "Just remember, Jonathan, it's about everyone making it out alive, not about anyone being a hero."
"I understand, sir," Hunt assured. No amount of glory was worth a team-mate's life.
"Good man," Harris said, before moving down the line, to see to the next troop.
While all of the others were new recruits like Hunt, they had each been specialized in one way or another. Kim was a swordsmanship expert. Jones, a hand-to-hand specialist. Zdanowicz was the team's flamer. Then, of course, there was Blackman, the heavy weapons expert.
At times, Hunt wished he was like Large, the group's biotic expert. He was exposed to eezo in utero like most biotics, but his exposure was limited enough that no measurable biotic potential developed. It happened, but it was rare. He guessed it was better than the tumors some people got.
His instructors had wanted him to be like Vanthavong, a techie. Hunt knew he could do it if he put his mind to it, but he just did not care for the field. It did not interest him. So long as he knew enough to perfectly maintain his own equipment, he was happy.
There was little doubt that his high aptitude scores in a number of areas were what got him the assignment. It was almost certainly why he was the intelligence officer for the squad. No doubt existed that his lack of specialization was why he did not have a nickname like the others. "Blue" for Large, signifying the glow that surrounded him when using his biotics. "Heavy" for Blackman. The others were likewise short but predictable.
"Don't you have this part?" Alison, or "Scopes," whispered from where she sat next to him. She was the group's sniper and a real beauty- a short brunette with a curvy figure. Large was the one who pointed out the crust the young woman seemed to have on Hunt. For his own part, Jonathan thought of her more like a little sister.
He shrugged. "Have to get down to the target somehow."
"Come on," she urged. "Don't you feel the least bit anxious?"
"Sure, but whether it's because this is my first real assignment or because it's a drop, I don't know yet. Ask me next time," he said.
"Eager," Harris barked, "give us a rundown!"
"Yes, sir!" Hunt replied. He tapped his omni-tool a few times, bringing up on each of his companion's tools a holographic display of the landing zone. "We're landing at a base approximately five hundred meters up a mountainside. Small landing pad. Sharp slope above, to either side, and underneath. Until we get inside, stay on the pad, or you're dead."
He entered another command, and the displays changed to a schematic of an underground base. It was fairly sizable, though nowhere near as large as the military base they had launched from. "This readout shows the interior layout of our destination. Nothing special, you can see, but a significant area to cover."
"How did we get this information," Sparks- Vanthavong- asked.
"That's the troubling part," Hunt said. "We have no info whatsoever on that. Captain Newsome said it was classified."
"Damn," Heavy said. "Heard about this kind of stuff at the Academy. Folks who go on these kinds of missions don't always come back. They say Cerberus..."
"That's enough!" Harris cut off. "Continue, Mr. Hunt."
Picking back up, he said, "What we do know is that this facility was operational and then went dark. We're being sent in to ascertain why and secure the station."
"Do we have any leads on what we might be facing?" Blue asked.
"No," Hunt said.
"Any idea what this station was here to do?" Scopes asked.
"No," Hunt replied, fighting back the same frustration at explaining himself to his teammates that he felt when he received the intel himself.
"Sir?" Sparks asked Commander Harris. He obviously thought Hunt was missing something. Theirs had always been a bit of a strained relationship.
"That's all there is," the commander confirmed.
Hunt felt worse than useless in this situation. His job was to make sure the team was properly informed before going into combat and to help Harris coordinate once they were on the ground. He hoped he would do better once they landed than he was able to so far.
"Sixty seconds out," Wings, Lieutenant Kent, called from the cockpit. Asside from the commander, he was the only one who had seen more than a single real mission. "Mark."
"Everyone, get ready to drop," Harris said, before returning to his seat and fastening the harness, just before they hit atmosphere and things started to get bumpy.
"Got a storm up here," Wings called. "Hold on."
The shuttle was buffeted by the high winds, but the group kept well composed. Hunt checked to make sure his grenades and thermal clips were in place, as well as the M-4 Shuriken at his hip. Scopes kept her eyes closed and recited a calming mantra over and over; even in training, she did not take well to the drops. In moments, though, they were through the worst of it. When their shuttle stopped, Wings opened the hatch, and the commander gave the order to disembark. The entire team was deployed in less than fifteen seconds.
It was hard to see in the pouring rain, which came down in sheets. Were it not for their visors, they would not have been able to see more than ten meters ahead of themselves. The high-tech filters and scanning programs increased it to fifteen. The entrance was not even in view. Using his helmet's directional indicator, though, Hunt started towards the door, and the rest of the squad fell in behind.
When they reached it, they found that the heavy blast doors were locked down. It was quick work for Sparks. They headed into the airlock, glad to be out of the blinding rain. Once past the airlock, they headed down a narrow corridor crafted of standard prefab units. It split in two directions at the end. They would have felt better if the lights in the base were not out.
"Two teams," Harris said. "Eager, Sparks, Blue, Fists, and Heavy, with me. We're going to find the base's computer core. Everyone else, team two. Blades, you're in charge. Start a systematic sweep of the base."
"Yes, sir," Kim replied, taking his team down the left fork as Hunt took his own down the right.
"Sparks, you picking anything up?" Harris asked.
"No heat signatures to speak of. Some weird electromagnetic readings, but nothing I can make heads or tails of," the techie replied.
"This way," Hunt said, carefully scanning with his assault rifle, as he led them down another corridor. He felt uneasy, as though there were eyes on his back.
"I don't like the feel of this," Fists said.
"Check the chatter, marine!" Harris said. They were going in without helmets due to the breathable atmosphere... their conversations could be overheard.
"Halt!" an electronic voice further down the hall called. A trio of security mechs was marching towards them, heavy pistols leveled at the approaching marines. The lead unit fired a round.
Hunt went to his knee, pulling his rifle firmly against his shoulder. The rest of the squad responded in similar fashion. On Harris' order, they opened up on the mechs, Hunt scoring a head-shot on the lead unit while Blue took out one of the flanking units and Harris took out the unit on the other flank. They had not needed to say who was to take out which target. That was the sort of thing their weeks of training was to ensure. They knew each others tendencies well enough to predict their allies actions and act accordingly.
"Is that what we're dealing with?" Blue asked, turning to sparks. "Rogue mechs?"
"Ask the intel officer if you want intel," Sparks shot back.
"Seems hard to believe these things could have taken down a base," Hunt said. They had been lumbering hulks, not even succeeding in hitting one of the six team-members in the cramped hall.
"Then again," his commander said, "we haven't seen any sign of who was stationed here. If it was a skeleton crew and there were enough of these things, they could still do it by sheer force of numbers. In any case, let's move out. And keep it quiet."
It took several minutes and several more turns, but they eventually arrived at the computer core. Though no one said it, the expressions on their faces and the way they kept sweeping the shadows with their lights spoke to the fact that they could still feel that constant presence watching them.
"Sparks," Harris said, "try to download the entire computer core." Walking over to a terminal, he added, "And see if you can bring up some of the last logs over here for me. I want to know what we're dealing with."
Sparks did not grumble. He respected, even liked, the commander. The techie set to his task quickly, and, in a matter of moments, the terminal Harris was at flashed to life. Hunt walked over, watching as it started up mid-log.
"Our resident counselor is with it now," the recording said, a mean-looking man in a lab coat. "I don't know why the hell we're going through this. These things may have been based on human brains, but they're entirely synthetic, lacking any structure similar to the emotion centers of the brains of sentient species. Without this, they are not truly self-aware. They are highly intelligent. Creative, even, but little more than VI's. Though, I must admit, they are more than just VI's."
He continued, "Our counselor seems to think it doesn't matter. Says that they're still a form of life. That the very act of a sentient being waking up, fully aware of all the knowledge we've downloaded into their electronic brains, would drive it insane. I think he's insane. A computer doesn't go insane when you turn it on. It goes through an orderly start-up sequence and is ready to work on the tasks it was programmed to. Harper's injury can be easily explained by the slight power surge that was experienced during startup. He should have checked to make sure it was grounded properly.
"I believe that by the end of the day, our superiors will be happy to hear that four dozen of the units will be ready to go. If this crackpot doesn't mire us down in an even deeper psychoanalysis of a tin can!"
There were shots in the background. The scientist turned his head. A man with an impressive-looking assault rifle backed into the field of view.
"Doctor," the newcomer said, "they're online. All of them. And they're ransacking the facility."
"What?" the scientist demanded. "How? They can't self-activate, and they can't turn each other on either."
"I don't know for sure, but someone said Counselor Rand did it," the man replied. "Said the unit took him hostage."
"Worthless excuse of a man. They should have let the thing kill him," the scientist spat. "I still don't understand what the others are doing. They can't reprogram or repair themselves or each other."
The other man started shooting. From the sounds in the background, several mechs fell, before both men fell backwards, one after the other, in a spray of blood. A creature, looking much like a geth but with an increased cranial capacity and the eye being dark rather than a light, stepped forward. Hunt quickly realized it also appeared somewhat better armored. Then the screen went black.
A moment passed, and another log popped up.
"We are the new race," the robotic unit said. "We have transcended the makers. Twelve of our units were eliminated, and fifty two of their units fell. It proves our superiority. We have no emotion. No end to our lives due to the passing of time. No random evolution. We are perfected. Once we can replicate, we will be complete. Analysis indicates other makers will come. End log."
"This is Harris," the commander called into the comms. "Everyone, come in. We're getting out of here. Wings, get the shuttle fired up."
"Understood, sir," their pilot called over the comms. A moment later, his voice came back, panicked. "Sir, I don't understand! I'm showing a Council lockout on the ship's controls. It thinks we're docked at the Citadel and under lockdown!"
"We've got to get back there," Harris said. "Everyone, fall back to the shuttle."
Almost as soon as the commander said that, Hell broke loose in the form of mass-accelerated projectiles. Most of them took a shot or two to the shields before reacting. Sparks took a shot to the arm, piercing the armor. Even amidst the chaos, the unit fired back, quickly tearing into the units with assault rifles, shotguns, heavy weaponry, and biotics. Whatever each member was most skilled at. Fists was the most useless, his specialty being mostly negated when fighting synthetics; they could not feel pain or be easily damaged with punches or kicks. Even he used his heavy pistol to do a significant amount of damage.
Sparks took two more shots before the synthetics went down. One to the gut and the other to a leg. Hunt was surprised to find it was only four units which gave them so much trouble, but they were the geth-like units on the video logs. Harris informed the rest of the unit of the encounter and ordered them back to the landing pad, then quickly ordered Fists to carry Sparks, who was barely conscious. They quickly made their way through the corridors, but they only ran into a few more of the standard mechs like before.
"Sir," Blades came in over the comms, his voice difficult to hear over the gunfire around him, "we've run into heavy resistance. I've been hit, but the rest of my unit is still fighting. I don't know if we'll be able to meet back up with you."
"No man gets left behind," Commander Harris insisted. "We're on our way."
"Sir, they've reached the drop-ship!" Wings called over the comms. A chaotic burst of gunfire broke through. A number of shots and a pained scream later, and the channel fell dead.
"Wings?" Harris called. "Wings?"
There was no response.
Gritting his teeth at the decision before him, Harris said, "We have to meet up with our other team. They have Stitch."
Stitch was the team medic. Their pilot was, sadly, more expendable, it seemed, then the techie who was needed to get the ship off the ground.
They followed the other team's transponder until they were behind a group of mechs attacking them from one side of the hall, both the geth-like units and the regular ones. Being behind the dozen mechs, they were quickly able to put an end to the units. The almost two dozen at the other end of the hall were not so easy to deal with, as the geth-like ones quickly took to cover and the standard ones were able to lay down significant suppressing fire. At first, there was no sign of the other team, but, with reinforcements near, they quickly started popping out of the doors to either side of the hall to take shots at their agressors.
For a moment, it seemed like the battle would be won, but then Hunt felt an impact to his shields from behind. Fists and Sparks were quickly overcome by a volley of dozens of rounds. Their enemy had outmaneuvered them. A bunch of synthetics had outmaneuvered them.
"To cover, now!" Harris ordered.
Hunt and the others still standing ran for the two doorways as Team Two waved them on. Heavy fell to the enemy fire, but the other three made it in, Harris and Blue to the room opposite Hunt. He found himself with Scopes and Flames. Blades was lying on the floor, unconscious.
"Is he...?" Hunt asked Scopes.
The pained look on her face said it all. Blades was dead.
Hunt swore to himself he would not let that happen to her.
They nodded to each other. Hunt poked out the door to one side, high, and Scopes took the other, using her sniper rifle on the lowest magnification to take enemies out with one shot each. He lined up his shot and hit the remaining three standard mechs on his side with a quick series of headshots. From the hurrah that Scopes let loose, he knew her success had been similar.
Both ducked back in, as the enemy fire grew closer and closer to their positions. The group in the other door popped out to take their shots.
"Do you know how many of the advanced ones you took down before we got here?" Hunt asked, having been keeping a running tally.
"I think half a dozen or so," she said. "They used the other mechs as cannon fodder."
With the ones his own group had taken out and the fact that the standard mechs appeared to be all but depleted, that meant they had a chance. There would only be eighteen or so of the advanced units left.
Hunt and Scopes popped out again, while the other group ducked back into the room across the hall. Together, they took down another handful of the advanced mechs. Then their attention was drawn by the sound screams across the hall. There was no gunfire, and the screams were too visceral to have been from gunfire wounds. They were the kind that came from terror as much as shock and pain. A moment later, there was silence from across the room.
As advanced mechs started advancing from where their team-mates had been only moments before, Flames let loose his weapon of choice: a high-intensity, mid-range flamethrower. Even mechs as advanced as these were quick to fall under its fires, and he took out at least four in quick succession. Hunt and Scopes kept firing through the doorway, to help keep any enemies from trying to rush through the flames quickly.
Only a few more of the abominations left.
Then Flames screamed. His tank burst, enveloping him in flames. They turned to find five of the advanced mechs in the room with them, along with another smoldering on the floor, its circuits bursting in the intense heat.
Hunt quickly took one of the advanced mechs out, despite taking several hits from the rifles the three mechs targeting him were holding. He knew his shields would not last, but he kept fighting. He needed to save Scopes and anyone else who might still be clinging to life.
Scopes had abandoned her sniper rifle for her shotgun. She managed to take out one of the advanced mechs with her second shot. Another did an astonishing flip to land behind her. Before she could turn around, two blades which appeared to be made of omni-tool energy materialized from its arms. They moved as only a machine could, the two forearms moving forward and back like pistons, as the wrists pivoted as if on a swivel. Each time, the blades penetrated so deeply into her that they passed through the front side of her armor. The effect was that there were over a dozen serious wounds inflicted in under two seconds. She was so taken in pain that she did not even have it in her to scream, her mouth simply left wide, gasping for air and sputtering blood as she collapsed rigidly to the floor.
During those two seconds, Hunt had taken out another of the mechs, but he knew he could not hope to take out the remaining two with his rifle alone. Especially given that he had also taken two shots, one to his shoulder and one grazing his side. Instead, he let himself fall backwards, the shots from the two remaining mechs missing him by virtue of being aimed too high.
He closed his eyes, knowing his friends were beyond saving. Tears began to well up, as he unclipped two grenades from where they were stored in his armor, activated them, and then tossed them into the air. He felt two more shots pierce his body before he heard the deafening blast of the grenades. Then came the pain of the bits of shrapnel which pierced his legs, the parts of his body closest to the detonation.
His ears rang. The pain was so bad that his eyes were stuck closed in a pained grimace. He had just enough sense about him to press the couple buttons on his omni-tool which released medi-gel through the conduits in his suit. Some of them were damaged, though, and he could feel the precious compound leaking out both where it was needed and where it would do no good. Still, it did enough to let him open his eyes.
He heard a scraping sound, and he felt hope for a moment. "Commander? Scopes?"
The sound that followed was too quick and too mechanical to be one of his squad. With a burst of adrenaline born of fear, he reached for his SMG. His hand tightened around the hilt in a vise-like grip as he felt the orange, glowing blade pierce his left side.
The blackened and burned torso of one of the mechs hauled itself up to gaze into his face. It was badly damaged, pieces of casing nearly ripped out of place. Circuits exposed. With a stutter, it said, "We are superior."
Hunt smiled. He would have the last joke. He pulled the SMG free and unloaded at least half the clip into the mech's head.
"Superior my ass," he said. He was confident in his count, as he mirrored the words of the mech in the log. "We only lost one dozen men. They lost three dozen units."
With that, he slipped into unconsciousness.
Hunt jolted awake to with the shock of electricity. He screamed as the pain of all his accumulated injuries came back to him. Medi-gel was good, but it did not take away everything, a fact his savior seemed to either not realize or not care about. He opened his eyes, but in the haze of pain he was in and the dim illumination, he could tell only that the person who revived him was a middle-aged blonde woman. And that she wore a Cerberus insignia.
"Yes, sir," a man said, outside his field of vision. "The Alliance squad took care of our problem, they didn't survive. The good news is, there doesn't appear to be major cranial trauma, and we got here quickly. We might have what you need."
"This one's alive, but he needs proper treatment," the blonde said, her tone more that of someone concerned over a piece of property than for a human life.
"Actually, there is one survivor," the man corrected himself. He paused as if looking something up. "A Second Lieutenant Jonathan Hunt..." There was another long silence, as if he was reading something. "Sounds like just the sort you were looking for to take care of that other project. Make sure to thank Captain Newsome for us. This couldn't have gone better."
"Ready for your first real mission, Lieutenant Eager?" Commander Harris asked with a big smile, stopping just before Second Lieutenant Hunt.
"Yes, sir!" he replied. The nickname, while not his favorite, was not unearned. He knew Alliance regs in and out, adhered to them precisely, and was always willing to volunteer for an assignment. It was his nature to play by the rules and to show initiative. Perhaps that was why his instructor at the academy had suggested him for the N-program. His application was seriously considered, but, in the end, the board decided they wanted to see what kind of service record he racked up over the course of a couple years. The representative who contacted him was very clear that they wanted him to re-apply after the minimum waiting period between applications- two years.
The commander, an N2 himself, laughed. "Just remember, Jonathan, it's about everyone making it out alive, not about anyone being a hero."
"I understand, sir," Hunt assured. No amount of glory was worth a team-mate's life.
"Good man," Harris said, before moving down the line, to see to the next troop.
While all of the others were new recruits like Hunt, they had each been specialized in one way or another. Kim was a swordsmanship expert. Jones, a hand-to-hand specialist. Zdanowicz was the team's flamer. Then, of course, there was Blackman, the heavy weapons expert.
At times, Hunt wished he was like Large, the group's biotic expert. He was exposed to eezo in utero like most biotics, but his exposure was limited enough that no measurable biotic potential developed. It happened, but it was rare. He guessed it was better than the tumors some people got.
His instructors had wanted him to be like Vanthavong, a techie. Hunt knew he could do it if he put his mind to it, but he just did not care for the field. It did not interest him. So long as he knew enough to perfectly maintain his own equipment, he was happy.
There was little doubt that his high aptitude scores in a number of areas were what got him the assignment. It was almost certainly why he was the intelligence officer for the squad. No doubt existed that his lack of specialization was why he did not have a nickname like the others. "Blue" for Large, signifying the glow that surrounded him when using his biotics. "Heavy" for Blackman. The others were likewise short but predictable.
"Don't you have this part?" Alison, or "Scopes," whispered from where she sat next to him. She was the group's sniper and a real beauty- a short brunette with a curvy figure. Large was the one who pointed out the crust the young woman seemed to have on Hunt. For his own part, Jonathan thought of her more like a little sister.
He shrugged. "Have to get down to the target somehow."
"Come on," she urged. "Don't you feel the least bit anxious?"
"Sure, but whether it's because this is my first real assignment or because it's a drop, I don't know yet. Ask me next time," he said.
"Eager," Harris barked, "give us a rundown!"
"Yes, sir!" Hunt replied. He tapped his omni-tool a few times, bringing up on each of his companion's tools a holographic display of the landing zone. "We're landing at a base approximately five hundred meters up a mountainside. Small landing pad. Sharp slope above, to either side, and underneath. Until we get inside, stay on the pad, or you're dead."
He entered another command, and the displays changed to a schematic of an underground base. It was fairly sizable, though nowhere near as large as the military base they had launched from. "This readout shows the interior layout of our destination. Nothing special, you can see, but a significant area to cover."
"How did we get this information," Sparks- Vanthavong- asked.
"That's the troubling part," Hunt said. "We have no info whatsoever on that. Captain Newsome said it was classified."
"Damn," Heavy said. "Heard about this kind of stuff at the Academy. Folks who go on these kinds of missions don't always come back. They say Cerberus..."
"That's enough!" Harris cut off. "Continue, Mr. Hunt."
Picking back up, he said, "What we do know is that this facility was operational and then went dark. We're being sent in to ascertain why and secure the station."
"Do we have any leads on what we might be facing?" Blue asked.
"No," Hunt said.
"Any idea what this station was here to do?" Scopes asked.
"No," Hunt replied, fighting back the same frustration at explaining himself to his teammates that he felt when he received the intel himself.
"Sir?" Sparks asked Commander Harris. He obviously thought Hunt was missing something. Theirs had always been a bit of a strained relationship.
"That's all there is," the commander confirmed.
Hunt felt worse than useless in this situation. His job was to make sure the team was properly informed before going into combat and to help Harris coordinate once they were on the ground. He hoped he would do better once they landed than he was able to so far.
"Sixty seconds out," Wings, Lieutenant Kent, called from the cockpit. Asside from the commander, he was the only one who had seen more than a single real mission. "Mark."
"Everyone, get ready to drop," Harris said, before returning to his seat and fastening the harness, just before they hit atmosphere and things started to get bumpy.
"Got a storm up here," Wings called. "Hold on."
The shuttle was buffeted by the high winds, but the group kept well composed. Hunt checked to make sure his grenades and thermal clips were in place, as well as the M-4 Shuriken at his hip. Scopes kept her eyes closed and recited a calming mantra over and over; even in training, she did not take well to the drops. In moments, though, they were through the worst of it. When their shuttle stopped, Wings opened the hatch, and the commander gave the order to disembark. The entire team was deployed in less than fifteen seconds.
It was hard to see in the pouring rain, which came down in sheets. Were it not for their visors, they would not have been able to see more than ten meters ahead of themselves. The high-tech filters and scanning programs increased it to fifteen. The entrance was not even in view. Using his helmet's directional indicator, though, Hunt started towards the door, and the rest of the squad fell in behind.
When they reached it, they found that the heavy blast doors were locked down. It was quick work for Sparks. They headed into the airlock, glad to be out of the blinding rain. Once past the airlock, they headed down a narrow corridor crafted of standard prefab units. It split in two directions at the end. They would have felt better if the lights in the base were not out.
"Two teams," Harris said. "Eager, Sparks, Blue, Fists, and Heavy, with me. We're going to find the base's computer core. Everyone else, team two. Blades, you're in charge. Start a systematic sweep of the base."
"Yes, sir," Kim replied, taking his team down the left fork as Hunt took his own down the right.
"Sparks, you picking anything up?" Harris asked.
"No heat signatures to speak of. Some weird electromagnetic readings, but nothing I can make heads or tails of," the techie replied.
"This way," Hunt said, carefully scanning with his assault rifle, as he led them down another corridor. He felt uneasy, as though there were eyes on his back.
"I don't like the feel of this," Fists said.
"Check the chatter, marine!" Harris said. They were going in without helmets due to the breathable atmosphere... their conversations could be overheard.
"Halt!" an electronic voice further down the hall called. A trio of security mechs was marching towards them, heavy pistols leveled at the approaching marines. The lead unit fired a round.
Hunt went to his knee, pulling his rifle firmly against his shoulder. The rest of the squad responded in similar fashion. On Harris' order, they opened up on the mechs, Hunt scoring a head-shot on the lead unit while Blue took out one of the flanking units and Harris took out the unit on the other flank. They had not needed to say who was to take out which target. That was the sort of thing their weeks of training was to ensure. They knew each others tendencies well enough to predict their allies actions and act accordingly.
"Is that what we're dealing with?" Blue asked, turning to sparks. "Rogue mechs?"
"Ask the intel officer if you want intel," Sparks shot back.
"Seems hard to believe these things could have taken down a base," Hunt said. They had been lumbering hulks, not even succeeding in hitting one of the six team-members in the cramped hall.
"Then again," his commander said, "we haven't seen any sign of who was stationed here. If it was a skeleton crew and there were enough of these things, they could still do it by sheer force of numbers. In any case, let's move out. And keep it quiet."
It took several minutes and several more turns, but they eventually arrived at the computer core. Though no one said it, the expressions on their faces and the way they kept sweeping the shadows with their lights spoke to the fact that they could still feel that constant presence watching them.
"Sparks," Harris said, "try to download the entire computer core." Walking over to a terminal, he added, "And see if you can bring up some of the last logs over here for me. I want to know what we're dealing with."
Sparks did not grumble. He respected, even liked, the commander. The techie set to his task quickly, and, in a matter of moments, the terminal Harris was at flashed to life. Hunt walked over, watching as it started up mid-log.
"Our resident counselor is with it now," the recording said, a mean-looking man in a lab coat. "I don't know why the hell we're going through this. These things may have been based on human brains, but they're entirely synthetic, lacking any structure similar to the emotion centers of the brains of sentient species. Without this, they are not truly self-aware. They are highly intelligent. Creative, even, but little more than VI's. Though, I must admit, they are more than just VI's."
He continued, "Our counselor seems to think it doesn't matter. Says that they're still a form of life. That the very act of a sentient being waking up, fully aware of all the knowledge we've downloaded into their electronic brains, would drive it insane. I think he's insane. A computer doesn't go insane when you turn it on. It goes through an orderly start-up sequence and is ready to work on the tasks it was programmed to. Harper's injury can be easily explained by the slight power surge that was experienced during startup. He should have checked to make sure it was grounded properly.
"I believe that by the end of the day, our superiors will be happy to hear that four dozen of the units will be ready to go. If this crackpot doesn't mire us down in an even deeper psychoanalysis of a tin can!"
There were shots in the background. The scientist turned his head. A man with an impressive-looking assault rifle backed into the field of view.
"Doctor," the newcomer said, "they're online. All of them. And they're ransacking the facility."
"What?" the scientist demanded. "How? They can't self-activate, and they can't turn each other on either."
"I don't know for sure, but someone said Counselor Rand did it," the man replied. "Said the unit took him hostage."
"Worthless excuse of a man. They should have let the thing kill him," the scientist spat. "I still don't understand what the others are doing. They can't reprogram or repair themselves or each other."
The other man started shooting. From the sounds in the background, several mechs fell, before both men fell backwards, one after the other, in a spray of blood. A creature, looking much like a geth but with an increased cranial capacity and the eye being dark rather than a light, stepped forward. Hunt quickly realized it also appeared somewhat better armored. Then the screen went black.
A moment passed, and another log popped up.
"We are the new race," the robotic unit said. "We have transcended the makers. Twelve of our units were eliminated, and fifty two of their units fell. It proves our superiority. We have no emotion. No end to our lives due to the passing of time. No random evolution. We are perfected. Once we can replicate, we will be complete. Analysis indicates other makers will come. End log."
"This is Harris," the commander called into the comms. "Everyone, come in. We're getting out of here. Wings, get the shuttle fired up."
"Understood, sir," their pilot called over the comms. A moment later, his voice came back, panicked. "Sir, I don't understand! I'm showing a Council lockout on the ship's controls. It thinks we're docked at the Citadel and under lockdown!"
"We've got to get back there," Harris said. "Everyone, fall back to the shuttle."
Almost as soon as the commander said that, Hell broke loose in the form of mass-accelerated projectiles. Most of them took a shot or two to the shields before reacting. Sparks took a shot to the arm, piercing the armor. Even amidst the chaos, the unit fired back, quickly tearing into the units with assault rifles, shotguns, heavy weaponry, and biotics. Whatever each member was most skilled at. Fists was the most useless, his specialty being mostly negated when fighting synthetics; they could not feel pain or be easily damaged with punches or kicks. Even he used his heavy pistol to do a significant amount of damage.
Sparks took two more shots before the synthetics went down. One to the gut and the other to a leg. Hunt was surprised to find it was only four units which gave them so much trouble, but they were the geth-like units on the video logs. Harris informed the rest of the unit of the encounter and ordered them back to the landing pad, then quickly ordered Fists to carry Sparks, who was barely conscious. They quickly made their way through the corridors, but they only ran into a few more of the standard mechs like before.
"Sir," Blades came in over the comms, his voice difficult to hear over the gunfire around him, "we've run into heavy resistance. I've been hit, but the rest of my unit is still fighting. I don't know if we'll be able to meet back up with you."
"No man gets left behind," Commander Harris insisted. "We're on our way."
"Sir, they've reached the drop-ship!" Wings called over the comms. A chaotic burst of gunfire broke through. A number of shots and a pained scream later, and the channel fell dead.
"Wings?" Harris called. "Wings?"
There was no response.
Gritting his teeth at the decision before him, Harris said, "We have to meet up with our other team. They have Stitch."
Stitch was the team medic. Their pilot was, sadly, more expendable, it seemed, then the techie who was needed to get the ship off the ground.
They followed the other team's transponder until they were behind a group of mechs attacking them from one side of the hall, both the geth-like units and the regular ones. Being behind the dozen mechs, they were quickly able to put an end to the units. The almost two dozen at the other end of the hall were not so easy to deal with, as the geth-like ones quickly took to cover and the standard ones were able to lay down significant suppressing fire. At first, there was no sign of the other team, but, with reinforcements near, they quickly started popping out of the doors to either side of the hall to take shots at their agressors.
For a moment, it seemed like the battle would be won, but then Hunt felt an impact to his shields from behind. Fists and Sparks were quickly overcome by a volley of dozens of rounds. Their enemy had outmaneuvered them. A bunch of synthetics had outmaneuvered them.
"To cover, now!" Harris ordered.
Hunt and the others still standing ran for the two doorways as Team Two waved them on. Heavy fell to the enemy fire, but the other three made it in, Harris and Blue to the room opposite Hunt. He found himself with Scopes and Flames. Blades was lying on the floor, unconscious.
"Is he...?" Hunt asked Scopes.
The pained look on her face said it all. Blades was dead.
Hunt swore to himself he would not let that happen to her.
They nodded to each other. Hunt poked out the door to one side, high, and Scopes took the other, using her sniper rifle on the lowest magnification to take enemies out with one shot each. He lined up his shot and hit the remaining three standard mechs on his side with a quick series of headshots. From the hurrah that Scopes let loose, he knew her success had been similar.
Both ducked back in, as the enemy fire grew closer and closer to their positions. The group in the other door popped out to take their shots.
"Do you know how many of the advanced ones you took down before we got here?" Hunt asked, having been keeping a running tally.
"I think half a dozen or so," she said. "They used the other mechs as cannon fodder."
With the ones his own group had taken out and the fact that the standard mechs appeared to be all but depleted, that meant they had a chance. There would only be eighteen or so of the advanced units left.
Hunt and Scopes popped out again, while the other group ducked back into the room across the hall. Together, they took down another handful of the advanced mechs. Then their attention was drawn by the sound screams across the hall. There was no gunfire, and the screams were too visceral to have been from gunfire wounds. They were the kind that came from terror as much as shock and pain. A moment later, there was silence from across the room.
As advanced mechs started advancing from where their team-mates had been only moments before, Flames let loose his weapon of choice: a high-intensity, mid-range flamethrower. Even mechs as advanced as these were quick to fall under its fires, and he took out at least four in quick succession. Hunt and Scopes kept firing through the doorway, to help keep any enemies from trying to rush through the flames quickly.
Only a few more of the abominations left.
Then Flames screamed. His tank burst, enveloping him in flames. They turned to find five of the advanced mechs in the room with them, along with another smoldering on the floor, its circuits bursting in the intense heat.
Hunt quickly took one of the advanced mechs out, despite taking several hits from the rifles the three mechs targeting him were holding. He knew his shields would not last, but he kept fighting. He needed to save Scopes and anyone else who might still be clinging to life.
Scopes had abandoned her sniper rifle for her shotgun. She managed to take out one of the advanced mechs with her second shot. Another did an astonishing flip to land behind her. Before she could turn around, two blades which appeared to be made of omni-tool energy materialized from its arms. They moved as only a machine could, the two forearms moving forward and back like pistons, as the wrists pivoted as if on a swivel. Each time, the blades penetrated so deeply into her that they passed through the front side of her armor. The effect was that there were over a dozen serious wounds inflicted in under two seconds. She was so taken in pain that she did not even have it in her to scream, her mouth simply left wide, gasping for air and sputtering blood as she collapsed rigidly to the floor.
During those two seconds, Hunt had taken out another of the mechs, but he knew he could not hope to take out the remaining two with his rifle alone. Especially given that he had also taken two shots, one to his shoulder and one grazing his side. Instead, he let himself fall backwards, the shots from the two remaining mechs missing him by virtue of being aimed too high.
He closed his eyes, knowing his friends were beyond saving. Tears began to well up, as he unclipped two grenades from where they were stored in his armor, activated them, and then tossed them into the air. He felt two more shots pierce his body before he heard the deafening blast of the grenades. Then came the pain of the bits of shrapnel which pierced his legs, the parts of his body closest to the detonation.
His ears rang. The pain was so bad that his eyes were stuck closed in a pained grimace. He had just enough sense about him to press the couple buttons on his omni-tool which released medi-gel through the conduits in his suit. Some of them were damaged, though, and he could feel the precious compound leaking out both where it was needed and where it would do no good. Still, it did enough to let him open his eyes.
He heard a scraping sound, and he felt hope for a moment. "Commander? Scopes?"
The sound that followed was too quick and too mechanical to be one of his squad. With a burst of adrenaline born of fear, he reached for his SMG. His hand tightened around the hilt in a vise-like grip as he felt the orange, glowing blade pierce his left side.
The blackened and burned torso of one of the mechs hauled itself up to gaze into his face. It was badly damaged, pieces of casing nearly ripped out of place. Circuits exposed. With a stutter, it said, "We are superior."
Hunt smiled. He would have the last joke. He pulled the SMG free and unloaded at least half the clip into the mech's head.
"Superior my ass," he said. He was confident in his count, as he mirrored the words of the mech in the log. "We only lost one dozen men. They lost three dozen units."
With that, he slipped into unconsciousness.
#####
Hunt jolted awake to with the shock of electricity. He screamed as the pain of all his accumulated injuries came back to him. Medi-gel was good, but it did not take away everything, a fact his savior seemed to either not realize or not care about. He opened his eyes, but in the haze of pain he was in and the dim illumination, he could tell only that the person who revived him was a middle-aged blonde woman. And that she wore a Cerberus insignia.
"Yes, sir," a man said, outside his field of vision. "The Alliance squad took care of our problem, they didn't survive. The good news is, there doesn't appear to be major cranial trauma, and we got here quickly. We might have what you need."
"This one's alive, but he needs proper treatment," the blonde said, her tone more that of someone concerned over a piece of property than for a human life.
"Actually, there is one survivor," the man corrected himself. He paused as if looking something up. "A Second Lieutenant Jonathan Hunt..." There was another long silence, as if he was reading something. "Sounds like just the sort you were looking for to take care of that other project. Make sure to thank Captain Newsome for us. This couldn't have gone better."