Two Covenant Phantoms hovered a hundred meters from the warehouse and began deploying troops. Ghosts and soldiers. It seemed we had finally caught their attention. Expected, and therefore no cause for panic. Four Banshees scattered in different directions across the warehouse complex.
The Spartans and the Spectre took up positions by the windows and doors, while Noble Two and I prepared to drive the M15 Mastodon out of the hangar on command. We absolutely didn't need them tracking us from the air. Noble Five has a rocket launcher, and our APC has a railgun; that should be more than enough to handle the forces on the other side. A M15 Mastodon isn't a M12 Warthog; you can take it apart with handheld plasma, of course, but it's a long and difficult process. Oh, wait—the Banshees that scattered are returning. They have plasma cannons. That will be a problem if we don't suppress them first. The warehouse walls will simply melt under plasma salvos.
"Correction. Four birds in the sky."
Yeah, Banshees. Only...
"Everyone, stay out of sight. It doesn't look like they're after us," Noble One ordered, and the squad moved deeper into the shadows.
A few seconds later, the information was confirmed. The Covenant forces, under the cover of the hovering Phantoms, didn't head for our hangar. Instead, they took up positions and aimed at the next row of warehouses relative to ours. It was just as damaged, showing signs of battle and melted holes in the walls. But no corpses were visible.
And it had its own population. With a howl, creatures burst out of the building, and fire opened from the windows toward the Covenant.
"What the hell is that?" Tela whispered, watching the battle unfold.
Jumping and agile, partially blue and glowing, skinny zombie-Salarians with glowing eyes. Armor-clad carriers resembling Elites with assault weapons, clearly of Citadel manufacture. Definitely former Jackals, thin, covered by full-length shields and pushing into melee. With holes in their chests and tubes running from their abdomens to their necks.
A tall, screaming figure of a very thin Asari, seemingly starved to death with a sagging belly, bombarded the enemies with spheres of magic. And several insectoids with particle emitters were on the roof and in the windows.
The picture was completed by a giant, about three meters tall, who literally smashed through the hangar gates. A Krogan stretched over metal ribs, bloated. Metal legs and claw-hands were added, resembling half-meter hydraulic shears with blades, and a head on a long, thin neck. This rather large beast was clearly no longer just an infantryman. Though the three-clawed scissor-hands were suited for both crushing infantry and cutting through armor. The giant charged a Ghost with a grunt, which veered aside, peppering the creature with plasma. No shield, but the creature didn't even notice the plasma fire. Moreover, unexpectedly fast, it slammed its claws into the Ghost's roof, completely ignoring the point-blank fire, pinned the machine's nose to the ground, and reached for the pilot. The Elite was forced to abandon the vehicle.
The flashes of the Banshees' plasma grenades proved more effective. The first made the creature stagger and lose a limb, and the flesh caught fire. With a sharp strike, the monster impaled a Grunt on its claws, then stepped on a Jackal, just as two more plasma hits slammed into it, finally putting the creature to rest. The Elite driver lunged to pull the Jackal out from under the foot.
"Nasty creatures. In tight spaces, they could be a huge problem."
The Covenant responded to the attack with a hurricane of fire—flashes of Phantom plasma, the shrieks of Grunts, and an Elite drawing his blade, while three Jiralhanae peppered the numerous attacking, rotting, bluish Possessed with grenade launchers and automatic weapons. In open space, the Covenant's firepower was superior, but the enemies were several times more numerous. The beast distracted the Ghosts and Banshees, but in the open, the effect wasn't the same.
"Noble Six, wait, don't show yourselves. Do you know anything about the attackers?" the leader asked.
I knew. The Shadow Broker had passed on information about this. Husks, and not the most primitive ones. At the very least, Asari Husks and the Brute (that's what it's called) are more complex bio-mechanoids. You can't make them on spikes in six hours; you need a full production facility. And in the case of the Asari, you also need the right specimen—an Ardat-Yakshi. An Asari who, when Melding with the mind of another creature, destroys its nervous system. They don't just wander around anywhere; you have to storm monasteries on their territory or hunt down fugitives. An interesting situation.
We didn't expect to encounter them here and now. I'd have to update the intel. So, continuing to carefully observe the battle from our warehouse, I began to explain.
"These... creatures are called Husks. You've seen zombies in holofilms, the undead?"
"Fairy tales," Noble Five said. "Compared to the Covenant, they're just stories to scare impressionable civilians. I don't understand how anyone can even watch those movies; they show complete nonsense."
She fell silent when a glowing-eyed figure, covered in tubes and blue veins and sliced in half, not only failed to die but struck the Elite who cut him. The blow from the open palm, crackling with lightning, shorted out the Elite's shield, which the insectoids on the balcony exploited, focusing their fire on the opponent. There were also former Jackals with the same blue eyes, Elite marksmen, and a blue-eyed Grunt with burgundy skin who rushed to embrace a Jiralhanae, hung onto his leg, and exploded, tearing off the limb.
Both Phantoms and Ghosts were more or less managing to suppress the main mass of the enemy with crossfire. But there were losses. The Spartans went quiet, processing what they saw; the creatures were extremely reluctant to die.
"As you can see, Five, the fairy tales are a bit more real than we'd like. By the way, plasma weapons aren't very effective."
"Reason?" Noble One immediately clarified.
Tela Vasir chose to remain silent, but I was sure she was interested too. It was obvious how long it took for the Husks to die.
"According to available data, these... creatures feel no pain and have a synthetic replacement instead of a native nervous system. So plasma hits and all accompanying effects don't cause serious damage unless they destroy the CNS."
"So, the head," Noble Three said thoughtfully.
The Avatar snorted.
"The spine first and foremost. Or the base of the skull, for those who even have a skull."
Meanwhile, the battle concluded. The Covenant had lost a third of its soldiers and two Ghosts (the second was sliced by the insectoids' beams and finished off with a yellow sphere by one of the glowing-eyed ones). But the enemy stopped pouring out of the building. The surviving Covies, commenting on the events in their own language, moved cautiously forward into the warehouse. Before the smashed door, the squad stopped and clearly began to argue. An Elite grabbed a Grunt by the hump on his back and tossed the shrieking midget into the building.
"Boss, do we attack or wait?"
Noble One thought for a moment and replied:
"Wait. If we haven't been noticed, we'll move on without extra noise."
And it worked. The Covies inspected the warehouses closest to the battlefield, then unloaded a bomb from a Phantom, carried it into the building, and after the bomb leveled the warehouse, they boarded the transports and flew away. The fighting continued somewhere outside the city and the complex, but still without us. Finally, after one last look at the warehouse we were sitting in, we decided to move on.
"Where to now, guys?" the Asari asked.
I smirked.
"To where those trucks were taking the cargo, or more precisely, to their office first. That's where your clearance will come in handy. We'll see what we can extract from the manifests. Company names, routes, everything."
The Asari nodded, climbing into the M15 Mastodon. Outside, it had become more or less quiet; it seemed these warehouses weren't particularly important to the Covenant. Only corpses and the melted, sagging frame of a building remained among other standard but intact hangars.
"Do I know this company?" the Asari asked.
Noble Three looked at me and said:
"Telika Solinis. They produce agricultural chemicals. Officially."
The Asari pondered.
"Never heard of them. But I'll help find something interesting. Ultimately, that's why I'm here. Well, and to help the beautiful Shadow, of course."
It wasn't surprising she hadn't heard of them. I would have been much more surprised if a well-known corporation were used for clearly illicit operations. But one way or another, it was a lead we needed to check. So the M15 Mastodon drove out of the hangar, but hadn't even covered three hundred meters of the pavement, crushing a couple of the Possessed under its wheels, when Noble Two, operating the turret, announced:
"Banshees at eight o'clock!"
It seemed the Covenant had left a patrol at this warehouse after all. I jerked the steering wheel, dodging plasma bolts that exploded in green flames and left glowing craters. The projectiles were fairly slow, and the planes were still far enough away that dodging was just a matter of playing with speed and turning in time. On the concrete, this was easy to do.
Catherine-B320 opened return fire with the cannon. The first Banshee, taking a railgun slug to the nose, stopped mid-air; the hull split open, ejecting the pilot whose brains were scattered before he fell thirty meters to the ground. The second little ship pulled a sharp bank, hiding behind a building, then flew out from behind it, fired a burst, and hid again from the return fire. Two misses with heavy weapons, from both sides.
Plasma splashed across the M15 Mastodon's armor, leaving melted craters but failing to penetrate. A grenade went wide.
We raced across the flat warehouse pavement, maneuvering between trucks and ship hulks before anyone else arrived. Especially since the Banshee wasn't in a hurry to expose itself and attack, flying while hiding behind buildings. Twice more Catherine attacked the target, and twice it hid behind buildings, losing part of a wing the second time, but nothing more. However, the return shots didn't cause serious damage either.
"It's pursuing us. We need to lose it," Noble Two—Catherine, specifically—noted with annoyance.
I nodded.
"Just keep it away. The armor will hold against standard shots."
True, we were clearly being tracked, but to where? We successfully left the warehouse area, crashing through a fence and entering the city limits. The city had suffered significantly. The Atmospheric Domes were breached; what was clearly once an entertainment center was burned out, and traces of blood and fires were visible in the buildings along the road.
Some buildings had melted into bizarre shapes or partially slumped when they were liquefied, then solidified into a new, partially fused structure, creating—to quote—an "afterbirth of avant-gardism," whatever that meant. I had heard the term applied to such damage myself.
One high-rise lay propped against another, having buckled at the base. The roads were littered with crashed, burned, and torn-apart aircars or abandoned trucks. And corpses, of course. Often the bodies were not fresh, and the six wheels of the M15 Mastodon churned through them, leaving long trails behind the APC. Once, a group of the Possessed burst out of a building; Catherine fired at them, and we drove on. And not a single survivor.
"Where is everyone?" the Asari asked, peering through a firing port.
"I'd guess those zombies killed them and turned them into their own kind," Noble Two replied with a sigh, "since they exist. If I were a zombie, that's exactly what I'd do to make more zombies. Watch out!"
I slammed on the brakes. A building ahead exploded into a heap of rubble, from which a Scarab stepped with a heavy tread. A mining model, without the massive cannon on its back, just a beam emitter and plasma turrets. The giant began turning toward our M15 Mastodon. I floored the gas and veered the machine into an alley, while the mech's green beam plowed through the street where we had been a second ago, leaving a long, scorched trench several meters deep. The Spartans reacted indifferently; the Asari whistled.
"They really don't like us, do they, Shadow?"
I steered in silence, using the multi-ton M15 Mastodon to smash through containers in the alley and crush a car. I didn't answer immediately; it would be a bit suspicious. Especially since a few seconds later, that same Banshee flew into the alley after us. And our turret was facing forward, with no room to turn. The railgun was quite long.
Noble Three, the owner of a massive machine gun that had become handheld thanks to his MJOLNIR Armor, said:
"Open the hatch."
I complied, and the Spartan, held steady by his teammates, opened fire on the Banshee with his handheld weapon. The Covenant pilot tried to fire another green grenade, but a dancing APC clambering over rubble isn't the easiest target. The projectile passed high, and the machine gun burst raked the Banshee. But the Covenant pilot acted wisely here too: he accelerated, and the smoking machine flew over the M15 Mastodon, gaining altitude and escaping through a breach before the protruding Noble Three could finish his target.
"He's gone."
A few seconds later, our armored vehicle burst out of the alley just as the Scarab's leg came down behind us at the alley's entrance.
"Get us out of here, the cockroach hasn't stopped," Noble Three noted, closing the hatch and taking his seat.
The buildings behind us began to crumble and collapse as the walker started smashing right through them. I had to maneuver intensely among abandoned vehicles, leading the machine further down the streets through the locals' discarded transport.
"We need to get rid of the Banshee. That insect won't leave us alone as long as we're being tracked. Catherine, how's it going?"
"It's smoking," the Spartan noted with dissatisfaction, "but it's still hanging on our tail."
I had to maneuver intensely again to avoid a green beam plowing through the road surface and the rubble of a building the walker had stepped through without a care.
"I have two pieces of news!" the Avatar announced. "Good, not-so-good, and terrible! Which should I start with?"
At that moment, the M15 Mastodon flew into another turn, and the green beam, plowing through a building, did so slowly enough that we didn't burn up as we bounced over the debris. Even it doesn't burn through structures instantly. A tanker truck clipped by the beam detonated in a bright flash, blinding us for seconds.
"That's three pieces of news!" the Asari countered through gritted teeth. "And drive smoother!"
At that moment, Noble Two tried to hit the Banshee, but it pulled a barrel roll and vanished again.
"Start with the bad and work your way up," Noble One sighed.
Fine then.
"The bad news is that we drove past the building we needed." Seeing the turret jerk toward a structure destroyed above the third floor and clearly burned out, I confirmed: "Yeah, that's the one. Destroyed. I don't think anything's left there."
At that moment, another beam plowed through a building, pierced it right through, then the next and the next. About five seconds later, all three began to collapse with a roar, kicking up dust clouds that I immediately steered the transport into. It would be harder to detect us.
The leader thought for a moment and commented.
"Then we move to their factory. Maybe the necessary information is still there. There are two more pieces of news left, what are they?"
I emerged onto the highway and floored it, trying to outrun the Scarab. Something told me new competitors would be arriving soon. One good thing—Noble Two finally shot down the annoying escort, and it spiraled down to the concrete as a blue torch. Smirking, the Avatar turned at the intersection again, trying to hide from the pursuit.
"So, the good and not-so-good news. We're down to five wheels, and we have less than two days to vanish into the sunset."
The two-day part was news from the Vice Admiral. Command had looked at the number of Covies in the system and decided to test a new toy for the big boys: a NOVA Bomb. We needed to get out of the blast zone.
"And where's the good news in that?" the Asari grumbled.
Actually, there was some. Five wheels for a six-wheeled all-wheel-drive machine meant we kept our steering; it could have been worse. As for the bomb... an experimental superweapon, even more powerful than slipspace torpedoes. If it works, the Covies in orbit of Erinle are finished. Likely along with the planet's atmosphere. And I like my Avatar.
The armored vehicle continued to weave through the streets, occasionally firing back at Covenant patrols and the Possessed. But there were no locals to be seen. Either they were hiding well, or they had left. Or they were gone—unknown. If they were hiding, it made perfect sense. The M15 Mastodon didn't look like Covenant tech. In human cities, sooner or later, someone would have tried to break out of cover and throw themselves under the wheels. To be honest, I expected someone to jump out. But no.
The Scarab fell behind about ten minutes later, getting lost in the ruined city. There were more Banshee patrols, but we managed to descend into a transport tunnel under the city, though we didn't get far here either. The oval tunnel ahead was blocked by armored blast doors, in front of which was a jam of abandoned vehicles, and there was movement among the jam. The Avatar immediately reported:
"Enemy ahead. The Possessed. And the tunnel is blocked."
Tela Vasir immediately noted:
"The tunnel isn't a problem if the terminal is intact. Spectre access provides certain opportunities; I can let us through."
Noble One immediately clarified:
"You can block streets with a personal code?"
The Asari replied smugly:
"Yep. All Spectres can. Not everywhere, of course, but in the worlds of Citadel Space, we have plenty of privileges. If absolutely necessary, we can even blow up a skyscraper with everyone in it. But you need a serious reason or the right reputation for that. After all, we're on a mission, not just blowing things up because we feel like it."
Noble One clearly didn't believe her, but I had seen the files on her from the Shadow Broker. And the Asari wasn't joking; she had a reputation as a psychopath, meaning she would smash through obstacles to achieve her goal, ignoring moral or ethical norms. If she needed to block a tunnel to catch a criminal, and a couple of hundred civilians smashed against the blast door—she'd do it without any regret. So nothing new there. But what was happening in the tunnel was interesting.
About a dozen creatures resembling bloated purple sacks and skinny parodies of Salarians, under the control of two Possessed Elites with glowing blue eyes, were throwing bodies onto tripods, after which a spike would emerge from the corpse's abdomen. And there were nearly a hundred such spikes with bodies impaled on them here.
The tunnel clearly had both ground and flying traffic, and after the blast door closed, a traffic jam had formed. The large amount of abandoned civilian vehicles testified to this. And the holes in the vehicles and the bodies told the story of what happened next. The spikes with impaled corpses were located right between the cars, wherever they fit. The Possessed had come and staged a massacre. We hadn't been noticed yet; we were standing quite far back, and not all the lighting in the tunnel was working, and I didn't need headlights. I navigate perfectly well in the gloom.
"Can you drive through if we open the passage?" Noble One immediately asked the Avatar.
It wasn't an idle question; there was a lot of abandoned tech near the blast door. Aircars, buses, trucks. I ran a few simulations and replied:
"I can. I'll need to squeeze through the technical zone on the left, but I can. And crush a couple of cars, but that's minor. I don't think they'll send us an insurance bill."
That was enough for the leader.
"Then destroy the enemy."
Catherine immediately took out one of the Possessed Elites with a railgun shot, to which the enemies reacted instantly. The other Possessed Elite hid behind a pile of vehicles with a long leap, while the rank-and-file Husks rushed toward us with shrieks.
"Out! Go! Go!" Noble One barked, jumping out of the M15 Mastodon's hatch and being the first to open fire on the Possessed.
At that moment, something lunged at him with a roar... In a freeze-frame, I identified it as a Jiralhanae, bald and covered in blue veins, eyes glowing blue, with a hole in its chest. Overall, the creature looked like a not-so-fresh zombie gorged on stimulants with machine oil running through its dark veins.
Noble Two tried to pick it off with the cannon, but the turret's rotation speed wasn't enough, and the beast dodged, landing on the M15 Mastodon's nose in a single fifteen-meter leap, resembling a dead bald gorilla. Noble Three opened fire on it with the machine gun, but the fire was completely ignored, as was the fact that the creature's flesh was tearing on its side.
The monster prepared to break our transport's weapon, but the Asari fired a purple sphere, and upon contact, the monster floated up, experiencing all the delights of anti-gravity. Then came a rocket salvo from Noble Five, which tore apart the creature's upper half. During this time, the four Spartans and the Asari suppressed the running and jumping rank-and-file specimens. An unpleasant enemy, but not particularly smart, creating problems only through the non-standard behavior of certain individuals.
For instance, the Possessed Jiralhanae charges head-on with large leaps; the Salarians also jump, but in zigzags, so ordinary soldiers have trouble hitting them. Jackals cover themselves with full-length shields to get closer, and they have enough physical strength (unlike living Jackals) to withstand bullet fire. The Elite (the second one took a slug right through a car, which wrecked both him and the vehicle) provided covering fire, like the insectoids earlier. But with the Spartans' reactions and magical support, the problem was solvable. If they had attacked from an ambush instead of head-on, it would have been worse.
There were no more moving targets.
"How about we shoot the spikes? I wouldn't want the impaled ones attacking us while we're making an entrance," Noble Five suggested.
I refined the idea:
"Better to damage the spine. If the main systems are located there, it'll be more reliable."
The decision was supported, and the Spartans used mighty blows to tear the heads off the victims of forced mechanization and knock down the spikes. While they were doing that, the Asari found a technical room with a control terminal near the airlock, and I, with Noble Two's help, used the M15 Mastodon to tow cars away, clearing our path. All in all, a calm working atmosphere.
Several of the Possessed woke up during the disposal process; the spike retracted, and the monsters tried to attack the Spartans with howls. Not very successfully—Noble Three with the machine gun and the heavy kicks of boots encased in MJOLNIR Armor put the fresh undead to rest. The head isn't a particularly weak point for them, but the spinal cord and vertebrae are. And a broken neck does the job.
The doors began to open with a hiss, revealing even more spikes, more of the Possessed, more signs of battle, and abandoned cars. Obviously, they had just been locked in the tunnel and a cleanup crew had been let in.
"You know, I was thinking," the Asari said thoughtfully, "maybe to hell with these tunnels? The surface would be faster and safer. These ones on the spikes look already processed. Who knows, they might jump on the hull; maybe there are a couple more beasts or those brutes with blades hiding up ahead? I'm for breaking through on the surface."
True. If the ones impaled on our side still looked like civilians, on the other side they were already shriveled, dried-out, and completely unlike living beings. And there really could be all sorts of things hiding there. The leader looked into the distance and the darkness of the tunnel, at the many hundreds of spikes, and said:
"Agreed. Six, turn around and let's leave quietly."
The Avatar pondered.
"What if we build a train?"
"What?" neither the Spartans nor the Asari understood.
The Avatar sighed.
"You know, a train. Turn around, then wake these guys up and lead them to the surface. I think the Covies will get distracted by them. And we'll vanish into the sunset." From the driver's seat, I raised a finger and explained: "A diversionary maneuver!"
"Or we'll be noticed and they'll keep chasing us," the Asari countered.
Noble Five took my side here.
"Six's suggestion makes sense. The more targets for the Covenant, the easier for us. We'll have to move outside the city anyway. Let them be distracted; Covies don't like humans, it would be bad if they got on our tail again."
The decision, though not immediate, was made. We turned the M15 Mastodon around, and then the squad, raising their weapons, began firing at the spikes, damaging them, the bodies, and breaking the vehicles. A shot from the cannon tore open a chemical tanker, causing the alarm system on the ceiling to light up and wail. That was enough for dozens, then hundreds of the Possessed to start falling from their spikes. More massive and bulky figures emerged from the dark corners. They howled and rushed toward us, and I, hooking cars and creating even more clatter and noise, drove toward the exit.
At the tunnel exit, we found four Jackals and an Elite, whom the M15 Mastodon immediately tried to run over. Seeing us, they scattered, screaming. Seeing the glowing-eyed, howling crowd running after us, they panicked and fired in all directions. Meanwhile, the armored vehicle drove through the city streets, including through semi-ruined houses. A couple of blocks later, Noble Two, sitting at the turret, reported:
"Phantoms flying. Not toward us."
I stopped the machine in an alley, and then we heard gunfire, screams, and howling. Banshees appeared, the roar of an explosion followed, then another. Noble One said with satisfaction:
"Excellent. Take us to that factory. Let's see what's there."
I looked at the dashboard, listened to the first drops of rain, and glanced at the sky covered in dark, leaden clouds.
"Yes, boss. Hold on to your seats; it's going to be a bit bumpy."
The Asari sighed.
"Can we be a bit more careful, Shadow? You're not hauling corpses."
I spread my hands and drove forward under the intensifying rain. The APC, bouncing over rubble, drove through the first glass-walled floor of the nearest building, leaving the Covenant forces and wet tracks behind. And the further we drove, the more noise and flying ships there were. It seemed the Covenant really had become interested in the neighbors. Just what we needed. And ahead of us lay the Salarian warehouse. I hope they managed to delete the data. Or that they're alive so we can kill them for such stupidity.
***
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