Mass Effect: The Complete Novels 4-Book Bundle (3 page)

“Batarians, sir?”

The question came from Gunnery Chief Jill Dah. A year older than Anderson, she’d already been an Alliance marine on active duty back when he was still taking N7 training at Arcturus. They’d served in the same unit during the First Contact War. She stood just over six foot three, making her taller than most of the men she served with. She was stronger than a lot of them, too, judging by her wide shoulders, the well-defined muscles of her arms, and her generally large but not ill-proportioned frame. Some of the other soldiers in the unit had called her “Amy,” short for Amazon … but never to her face. And when the fighting started they were all glad to have her on their side.

Anderson liked Dah, but she had a habit of rubbing people the wrong way. She didn’t believe in diplomacy. If she had an opinion she let everybody know it, which probably explained why she was still a noncommissioned officer. Still, the lieutenant realized that if she asked a question it meant most of the others were probably wondering the exact same thing.

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions, Chief.”

“Any idea what they were working on over at Sidon?” This time it was Corporal Ahmed O’Reilly, technicians expert, asking the question.

“Classified. That’s all I know. So be ready for anything.”

The other two members of the team, Private Second Class Indigo Lee and PFC Dan Shay, didn’t bother to comment, and the team lapsed once more into an uneasy silence. Nobody felt good about this mission, but Anderson knew they’d follow his lead. He’d brought them through the fire enough times to earn their trust.

“Approaching Sidon,” the intercom crackled. “No response on any frequencies.”

That was grim news. If any Alliance personnel were still alive inside the base, they should have answered the
Hastings
’s call. Anderson slammed his visor down to shield his face, and the rest of the crew followed suit. A minute later they felt the turbulence as the ship entered the tiny planet’s atmosphere. At a nod from Anderson his team made a final weapons, com, and shields check.

“We have a visual of the base,” the intercom crackled. “No ships on the ground and we’re not picking up any non-Alliance vessels in the vicinity.”

“Damn cowards already cut and ran,” Anderson heard Dah mutter over the radio in his helmet.

With the
Hastings
’s quick response time, Anderson had been hoping they’d arrive to catch the enemy in the act, but he wasn’t really surprised there were no other ships in the area. A raid against a target as well defended as Sidon would have required at least three vessels working together. The two larger ships would land on the surface and unload assault teams while a small scout vessel would stay in orbit, monitoring the nearby mass relay for any signs of activity.

The scout must have seen it spring to life as the
Hastings
approached the connecting relay on the far side of the region and radioed the ships on the ground. The advance warning would have given them just enough time to lift off, clear the planet’s atmosphere, and engage their FTL drives before the
Hastings
arrived. The ships involved in the attack on the base were long gone … but in their hurried escape they might have been forced to leave some of their troops behind.

A few seconds later there was a heavy thump as the ship touched down at the landing port of the Sidon Research Facility; the interminable waiting was over. The pressure door of the
Hastings
’s cargo hold hissed open and the gangway ramp descended.

“Ground team,” came Captain Belliard’s voice over the intercom, “you are cleared for go.”

TWO

Gunnery Chief Dah and Lee, the two marines on point, scuttled down the gangway. Weapons drawn, they scanned the area for a possible ambush while Anderson, O’Reilly, and Shay covered them from the hold above.

“Landing zone secured,” Dah reported across the radio frequency.

Once the entire team was on the ground Anderson took stock of the situation. The landing port was small—room for three frigates, or maybe a pair of cargo ships. It was located a few hundred meters from a pair of heavy blast doors that led into the structure of the base itself: a rectangular single-story building that barely looked large enough to house the thirty-three people assigned to the project, let alone any kind of labs for research.

The exterior looked eerily normal; there was no hint that anything was out of the ordinary other than a half dozen large crates near one of the other landing pads.

That’s how the attack began,
Anderson thought to himself. Equipment and supplies coming in would have been ferried by hand from arriving ships on cargo sleds up to the doors. Sidon must have been expecting a shipment. When the raiders touched down they would have begun unloading the crates. Someone inside would have opened the blast doors and two or three of Sidon’s security detail would have come out to help with the cargo … and been gunned down by enemy troops hiding inside the holds of the ships.

“Strange there are no bodies out here,” Dah noted, echoing Anderson’s own thoughts.

“Must have dragged them away after they secured the landing port,” Anderson said, not certain why anyone would want to do that.

Using hand signals he motioned his team across the deserted landing port and up to the entrance of the base. The sliding blast doors were featureless and smooth—they were controlled by a simple security panel on the wall. But the fact that the doors were closed didn’t sit well with the lieutenant.

Anderson was at the head of the team; they all stopped short when he crouched down and held up a raised fist. He held up two fingers, signaling for O’Reilly. Hunched over, the corporal moved to the head of the line and fell in beside his leader, resting on one knee.

“Any reason those doors should be closed?” the lieutenant asked him in a sharp whisper.

“Seems a little weird,” he admitted. “If someone wanted to wipe out the base, why bother sealing the doors when you leave?”

“Check it out,” Anderson told his tech expert. “Take it slow and careful.”

O’Reilly hit a button on his assault rifle, causing the handle, stock, and barrel to fold in on themselves until the gun was a compact rectangle half its normal length. He slapped the collapsed weapon into the locking holster on his hip. From a pocket on his other leg he pulled out an omnitool and crept forward, using it to scan the area for faint signals that would indicate the presence of any unusual electronics.

“Nice catch, LT,” he muttered after checking the results. “Proximity mine wired to the door.”

The corporal made a few adjustments to the omnitool, emitting a short energy pulse to jam the sensors on the mine so he could creep forward close enough to disarm it. The entire process took less than a minute. Anderson held his breath the whole time, only releasing it when O’Reilly turned and gave him the thumbs-up to indicate that the trap had been rendered harmless.

A nod from Anderson sent the rest of the team rushing forward to breach the door, taking up their preassigned positions. Anderson and Shay moved to either side of the entrance, backs pressed against the exterior wall of the building. Chief Dah crouched low in line with the door, a few meters away. Behind her and slightly off to the side Lee had his assault rifle raised and pointed at the entrance, providing Dah’s cover.

O’Reilly, crouched down beside Anderson, reached up and punched in the access code on the panel. As the doors slid open, Dah tossed a flash-bang grenade from her belt into the foyer beyond, then dove to the side and rolled for cover. Lee did the same as the grenade detonated with a blinding flash of light and a fog of thin, wispy smoke.

An instant after the blast Anderson and Shay spun in through the door, rifles raised and ready to gun down any enemies inside. It was a classic flash-and-clear maneuver, executed with flawless precision. But the room beyond the door was empty, save for a few splatters of blood on the floor and walls.

“All clear,” Anderson said, and the rest of the team came in to join him. The entry was a plain room with a single hallway leading off the back wall deeper into the base. There was a small table flipped in the corner and several overturned chairs. A monitor on the wall showed an image of the landing port outside.

“Guard post,” Dah said, the evidence confirming for her what Anderson had suspected earlier. “Probably four of them stationed here to keep an eye on the space port. Must’ve opened the blast doors when the ships landed and went out to help them unload their cargo.”

“I’ve got blood smears heading down this hallway, Lieutenant,” Private Indigo called out. “Looks like the bodies were dragged out of this room and back into the facility.”

Anderson still couldn’t figure out why anyone would drag the bodies away like this, but at least it gave them a clear trail. The ground team slowly made their way deeper into the base, following the smears of blood. The trail took them through to the cafeteria, where they saw more overturned tables and chairs, as well as holes in the walls and ceiling—clear indication that the room had recently been witness to a brief but intense firefight.

Further in they passed two separate dormitory wings. The door to each individual room had been kicked open and the interiors, like the cafeteria, were riddled with bullet holes. A picture formed in Anderson’s mind: the attackers, once inside, systematically going from room to room, massacring everyone in a hail of gunfire … and then dragging the bodies away with them.

By the time they reached the back of the building they had yet to see any sign that enemy troops were still here. They did, however, make a separate discovery that none of them had been expecting. At the very rear of the facility was a single large elevator going straight down into the earth below.

“No wonder this base looks so small,” O’Reilly exclaimed. “All the good stuff is buried underground!

“Damn, I wish we knew what they were working on,” he muttered a moment later in a more somber tone. “God knows what we’re about to walk into.”

Anderson agreed, but he was concerned with a more immediate detail. According to the panel on the side of the wall, the elevator was down at the bottom level. If someone had gone into the lower floors of the base only to flee when they got word the
Hastings
was coming, the elevator should have been on the top floor.

“Something wrong, LT?” Dah asked.

“Somebody took that elevator down,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the panel. “But they never took it back up.”

“You think they’re still down there?” the gunnery chief asked, her tone making it clear she hoped they were.

The lieutenant nodded, the hint of a grim smile on his lips.

“So what happened to their ships?” Private Shay asked, still not piecing it all together.

“Whoever attacked this base came for something,” Anderson explained. “Whatever they were looking for wasn’t up here. They must have sent a team down to the lower levels to finish up the job. Probably only left a few men up here to keep an eye on things.

“But they weren’t counting on an Alliance patrol ship being close enough to respond to the distress call so quickly. When their scout ship sent word someone was coming through the mass relay they knew they had about twenty minutes to pick up and clear out. I bet they never even bothered to tell their buddies down below.”

“What? Why not? Why wouldn’t they tell them?”

“These elevators might go down two full kilometers,” Corporal O’Reilly chimed in, helping to spell it out for the inexperienced private. “Looks like the com panel to the lower level was destroyed in the gunfire. No chance of getting a radio message to anyone down below through that much rock and ore. And it could take ten minutes for the elevator to make the trip one way.

“If they wanted to alert their friends in the basement, it’d take half an hour: ten minutes to call the elevator up from the lower floor, ten minutes to send someone from the top down to warn them, then ten more minutes back up again,” he continued. “By then it’d be too late. Easier just to bug out and leave the others behind.”

Shay’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “They just abandoned their friends?”

“That’s what separates mercenaries from soldiers,” Anderson told him before turning his focus back to the mission. “This changes things. We’ve got an enemy unit down there, and they have no idea an Alliance squad is up above waiting for them.”

“We can set up an ambush,” Dah said. “As soon as those elevator doors open we start firing and rip those sons-of-bitches to ribbons!” She was speaking quickly, a wicked gleam in her eye. “They won’t stand a chance!”

Anderson thought for a second, then shook his head. “It’s obvious this is a seek-and-destroy mission: they aren’t planning on leaving any survivors. There could still be Alliance personnel alive on the lower levels. If there’s any chance we can still save them we have to try.”

“Could be dangerous, sir,” O’Reilly warned. “We’re assuming they don’t know we’re here. If they somehow do, then we’ll be the ones walking into an ambush.”

“That’s a risk we have to take,” Anderson said, slamming his fist against the wall panel to call the elevator back up to the surface. “We’re going in after them.”

The rest of the group, including O’Reilly, responded with a sharp, “Sir, yes, sir!”

The long, slow elevator descent was even more agonizing than the wait in the ship’s hull at the start of the mission. Minute by minute the tension grew as they sank deeper and deeper beneath the planet’s surface.

The lieutenant could hear the faint hum of the elevator winch, a dull drone boring into the back of his skull that grew steadily fainter but never entirely disappeared as they dropped ever farther down the shaft. The air became heavy, warm, and moist. He felt his ears pop, and he noticed a strange smell in the air, an unfamiliar stench he imagined was a mixture of sulfurous gases mingling with alien molds and subterranean fungi.

Anderson was sweating profusely beneath his body armor, and he kept having to reach up with a free hand to wipe away the fog condensing on his visor. He did his best not to think about what would happen if the doors opened and the enemy was ready and waiting for them on the other side.

When they finally reached the bottom of the shaft the enemy
was
waiting for them, but they sure as hell weren’t ready. The elevator opened into a large antechamber—a natural cave filled with stalagmites, stalactites, and thick limestone columns. The artificial lights strung across the ceiling illuminated the entire chamber, reflecting off thick veins of glistening metallic ore in the cavern’s countless natural rock formations. At the far end was a passage that served as the cave’s only other exit, a long tunnel that wound around a corner and out of sight.

The enemy forces, close to a dozen armed and armored mercenaries, were coming toward them from the far side of the chamber. They were laughing and joking, weapons at their sides as they headed for the elevator that would bring them back to the planet’s surface.

It only took Anderson a fraction of a second to decide they looked like murdering raiders and not Alliance personnel, and he gave the order to fire. His team had been poised and ready as the elevator doors opened and they reacted almost instantaneously to his command, charging forward from the elevator with a barrage of gunfire. The first wave of their attack ripped into the pack of unsuspecting mercs. The fight would have ended right then if it wasn’t for their body armor and kinetic shields.

Three of the enemy combatants dropped to the floor, but enough of the deadly projectiles were deflected or absorbed so that the rest of them were able to fall back and dive for cover behind the boulders and stalagmites that littered the cavern’s floor.

The next few seconds of the battle were utter chaos. Anderson’s team pushed forward, scrambling to use the cave’s rock formations for cover. They had to fan out quickly, before enemy crossfire could pin the entire group down in a single location. The cavern echoed with the staccato recoil of assault rifles and the sharp
zip-zip-zip
of bullets ricocheting off the rock formations and walls, and the incandescent tracer bullets that made up every fifth round ignited the room with a ghostly luminescence.

Sprinting to a nearby large stalagmite, Anderson felt an all too familiar shudder as his kinetic shields repulsed several shots that would have otherwise found their mark. He hit the ground and rolled as a line of bullets struck the floor just in front of him, disintegrating the stone and sending tiny showers of water and dust up under his visor and into his face.

He came to his feet spitting out the foul grit, instinctively checking the remaining power on his shields. He was down to twenty percent—not nearly enough to give him a fighting chance if he had to make another run through direct enemy fire.

“Shield status!” Anderson shouted into his radio. The numbers came back at him rapid fire: “Twenty!” “Twenty-five!” “Twenty!” “Ten!”

His team was still at full strength, but their shields had taken a beating. They had lost their initial advantage of surprise, and they were now facing an enemy squad nearly double their number. But Alliance soldiers were trained to work as a team, to cover each other and watch one another’s back. They trusted their teammates, and they trusted their leader. He figured that would give them the edge they needed over any band of mercs.

“Dah, Lee—move up on the right!” he barked. “Try to flank them!”

The lieutenant rolled to his right, emerging from behind the stalagmite shielding him from view and firing a quick covering burst in the direction of the enemy. He wasn’t trying to hit anything; even with the smart-targeting technology built into all personal firearms it was almost impossible to hit a humansized target without taking at least a half second to steady and aim. But inflicting damage was not his goal; all he wanted to do was disrupt the enemy so they wouldn’t have time to line up Lee or Dah while they alternately advanced, darting in and out of cover.