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

After a two-second burst he rolled back behind his own cover; it wasn’t good to stay out in view in one place for too long. Even as he did so, Shay popped out from behind a large boulder to lay down another covering burst for his squad-mates on the move, and as he ducked back to safety O’Reilly filled in.

As soon as the corporal pulled back, Anderson poked his head out and fired again. This time he emerged from the left side of the stalagmite; jumping out from behind cover in the same position twice in a row was a sure way to catch an enemy round in the teeth.

He ducked back in and heard Dah over his radio saying, “In position. Laying down cover fire!”

Now it was his turn to move. “I’m on the go!” he shouted just before he scrambled out into the open, crouched low and running hard for another nearby piece of the cave’s natural architecture that was large enough to protect him from enemy bullets.

Skidding to a stop behind a thick column, he had just enough time to catch his breath and lay down covering fire as he ordered Shay and O’Reilly to make their runs.

Again and again they repeated the process; Anderson sending one person on the move while the others laid down covering fire to keep the enemy on the defensive. He varied who would go each time; the key was to keep the team moving and keep their opponents off balance. Staying in one place would let their enemies focus on them and bring multiple shooters to bear or, even worse, start lobbing grenades in their direction. But there had to be purpose and direction to the movement; they had to follow a plan.

For all the mayhem and random confusion of battle, the lieutenant had been trained to approach firefights like a game of chess. It was all about tactics and strategy, protecting and defending your pieces as you maneuvered them one by one to develop a stronger overall position. Working as a single unit, the Alliance squad was pushing its advantage one soldier at a time, slowly maneuvering themselves to where they could flank the enemy, drive them from their cover, and catch them in the crossfire.

The mercs could feel it happening, too. They were pinned down by the coordinated efforts of Anderson and his crew, trapped, virtually helpless. It was only a matter of time before they launched a suicidal counterassault or broke ranks in a desperate retreat. In this case, they chose the latter.

It seemed to happen all at once; the mercs burst from their cover, backpedaling toward the passage behind them as they fired wild bursts in the vague direction of the Alliance soldiers. Exactly what Anderson and his team had been waiting for.

As the mercs fell back Anderson stood up from behind the boulder he was using for cover. He was exposing his head and shoulders, but someone running backwards while shooting an assault rifle would be lucky to hit the broadside of a battleship, let alone a target half the size of a human torso. He braced his weapon on the top of the boulder to steady it, took careful aim at one of the mercs, let his weapon’s auto-targeting systems get a hard lock, then slowly squeezed the trigger. The merc did a short, stuttering dance as a steady stream of bullets depleted his shields, shredded his armor, and ripped through his flesh.

The whole sequence took maybe four seconds from start to finish—an eternity if they had been worried about someone on the other side calmly lining them up in their sights. But with that threat now gone, Anderson had more than enough time to guarantee his aim was lethally accurate. He even had a chance to line up a second merc and take her down, too.

And he wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the situation. All told his team dropped seven of the mercs during their desperate retreat. Only two managed to escape with their lives, making it to the safety of the passage and disappearing around the corner.

THREE

Anderson didn’t immediately send his crew chasing after the fleeing mercs. As soon as they lost visual contact with their enemy, pursuing them turned into a fool’s game. Every corner, turn, or branching hallway they’d come across would represent a chance for a potential ambush.

Instead, Dah, O’Reilly, and Lee took up defensive positions guarding the passage in case the mercs came back, possibly with reinforcements. With the only point of insurgence covered, Anderson and Shay were free to examine the bodies.

They’d killed ten mercs in the battle. Now they were picking through their corpses—a ghoulish but necessary denouement to every engagement. Step one was to identify any wounded survivors who could pose a potential threat. Anderson was relieved to find all of the downed figures were already dead. It wasn’t Alliance policy to execute helpless foes, but taking prisoners would have introduced a whole new set of logistical problems to a mission that was already complicated enough.

The next step was to try and identify who they were working for. Five of the dead were batarians, three were humans, and two were turians: eight males, two females. Their equipment was a hodgepodge of military and commercial arms from a wide variety of manufacturers. Officially recognized military units tended to be made up of a single species and carried only one brand of weapons and armor; the inevitable result of corporations signing exclusive supply contracts with the overseeing governments.

These were most likely soldiers of fortune, members of one of the Verge’s many freelance mercenary bands that hired themselves out to the highest bidders. Most mercs had tattoos or brands burned into their flesh proclaiming their allegiance to one group or another; usually prominently displayed on the arms, neck, and face. But the only markings Anderson found on the fallen were indistinct splotches of raw, scabby skin.

He was disappointed, but not surprised. For jobs where secrecy was important crews often had their markings removed with an exfoliating acid wash, then reapplied after the mission: a simple but painful procedure that was charged back to whoever had hired them. Obviously the group hired to attack Sidon had feared Alliance retaliation and done their best to remove anything that might expose them if something went wrong.

There had still been no counterattack from the enemy by the time Anderson and Shay finished stripping the bodies of grenades, medigel, and anything else useful and small enough to easily carry.

“Looks like they’re not coming out again,” Dah grumbled as Anderson came over to stand beside her.

“Then we have to go in after them,” Anderson replied, slapping a fresh power pack into his kinetic shield generator. “We can’t wait out here forever, and there’s still a chance we’ll find some of our own people alive down here.”

“Or more mercs,” O’Reilly muttered, replacing his own power pack.

The corporal was only saying what they were all thinking. For all they knew there was another full enemy squad deeper inside the base, and the two men who’d fled the battle had already managed to warn the reinforcements. But even though they might be walking into a trap, they couldn’t turn back now.

The lieutenant gave the rest of the team a moment to gear up before shouting, “Dah, Shay—take the point. Let’s move out!”

They advanced into the rough-hewn passage, maintaining a standard Alliance patrol formation—the two marines on point up front, Anderson and O’Reilly three meters behind them in the middle, and Lee three meters behind them watching their backs. They all had weapons raised and ready as they made slow but steady progress through the uneven, irregular tunnel that had been bored through the rock. They were officially in a hot zone now, and caution was more important than speed. One moment of careless inattention could cost all of them their lives.

Ten meters in, the corridor turned sharply to the left. The team stopped short at a hand signal from Dah, who crept forward and poked her head around the corner, momentarily exposing herself to possible enemy fire before ducking back. When she gave them the “all clear” they continued on.

Beyond the corner the passage continued for another twenty meters before reaching a sealed security door. The heavy metal barrier was closed and locked. Anderson signaled to O’Reilly, and the corporal moved forward to work his tech magic and override the lockdown codes. The rest of the team assumed standard positions for another flash-and-clear procedure.

“If those mercs are locking the security doors,” Dah whispered to her commanding officer as they waited for the door to open, “then that means they have codes for the base. Someone on the inside must have been working with them.”

Anderson didn’t reply, but he gave a grim nod. He didn’t like the idea that someone inside Sidon had betrayed the Alliance, but it was the only explanation that made sense. The mercs had known the facility was expecting an off-world shipment, and they must have had the proper landing codes to get their ships on the surface without raising any alarms. They’d been familiar enough with the layout to clear out the upper area and make their way to the elevators at the back without letting anyone escape. And they had to have access to restricted lockdown codes to seal the security door. All the evidence pointed to the inescapable conclusion that there had been a traitor at Sidon.

The door slid open and the team sprang into action, using a flash grenade to blind anyone on the other side, then charging in only to find the area beyond empty. They were now standing in a large square room, about twenty meters on each side. The shiny metal walls, ceiling, and reinforced floor made it clear they were now entering the heart of the research facility. Everything had a sleek, modern feel; a sharp contrast to the rough-hewn natural tunnels they had just passed through. There was a hall leading off to the left, and another to the right.

“I’ve got a blood trail over here,” O’Reilly called out on the left. “Looks fresh.”

“We follow it,” Anderson decided. “Lee and Shay, set up position here.” He didn’t like splitting up the team, but they didn’t know the layout of the base. He didn’t want any of the mercs doubling around behind them and making it back to the elevator. “Dah, O’Reilly—fall in!”

Leaving the two privates to guard the only way out, Anderson and the others set off down the hall on the left, moving ever deeper into the research complex. They passed several more intersections, but Anderson wasn’t willing to split his squad up yet again. Instead, the three of them simply followed the blood trail. Along the way they passed a number of rooms, most of them small offices, judging by the desks and personal workstations. Like the dorms on the upper levels, each had been thoroughly ravaged by gunfire. The killing spree that began on the surface had continued unabated underground. And once again the mercs hadn’t been content to leave their victims where they had fallen, but for some inexplicable reason had dragged them off.

It was five minutes later when they finally came across the source of the blood trail they’d been following. A turian lay facedown on the floor in the middle of a medium-sized room, bleeding profusely from a wound to his leg. Anderson recognized him as one of the mercs who had fled the recent battle. Approaching carefully, he knelt down beside the motionless figure to check for a pulse but found nothing.

There was only one other exit from the room, another sealed security door off to one side.

“You think his buddy’s inside there?” Dah asked, using her assault rifle to point to the closed portal.

“I doubt it,” Anderson replied. “He probably knew we’d be following the blood trail. I bet he ditched this guy at one of those other branches farther back. Probably waited for us to go by then made a mad dash back to the exit.”

“I hope Shay and Lee are on their toes,” Dah muttered.

“They can handle him,” Anderson assured her. “I’m more interested in what’s behind this door.”

“Probably leads to the primary research lab,” O’Reilly guessed. “Maybe we’ll finally get some answers in there.”

They rolled the dead merc out of the way; there was no sense taking the chance of someone tripping over his body if there was another firefight waiting for them beyond the door. Then, on Anderson’s command, the corporal set to work overriding the security lockdown while the lieutenant and Chief Dah took position for another flash-and-clear operation.

Dah was the first one through this time, and once again there was nobody on the other side. Nobody alive, anyway.

“Sweet mother of mercy,” she gasped.

Anderson stepped into the room and felt his stomach lurch at the gruesome spectacle before him. O’Reilly had been correct; they were standing in an enormous lab dominated by a massive central server. The only way in or out was the door they had just come through, and like the rest of the base every piece of equipment in the room had been blasted beyond all hope of repair.

But none of that was what had evoked their reactions. At least thirty corpses were strewn about the room, most piled along the walls on either side of the entrance. Their uniforms marked them as Alliance personnel; the guards and researchers killed throughout the other sections of the facility. The mystery of where all the bodies had gone was solved, though Anderson still couldn’t figure out why they’d all been dragged to this single location.

“Check for survivors, sir?” Dah asked, her voice not holding out much hope.

“Wait,” Anderson said, holding up his hand to freeze his team in place. “Nobody move a muscle.”

“Oh my God,” O’Reilly whispered, just now recognizing what Anderson had already seen.

The entire room was wired with explosives. Not simple proximity mines, but countless ten-kilo detonation charges placed strategically around the lab. For Lieutenant Anderson, all the pieces suddenly fell into place.

There were enough explosives here to vaporize everything inside the room, including the bodies. That was why they’d been so carefully collected here. There’d be no way to positively ID the remains, meaning whoever betrayed Sidon would be presumed dead with all the others. They could assume a new identity and live off the profits of their crime with no chance of repercussions.

A soft electronic beep made Anderson realize that finding the traitor was the least of their problems.

“Timer!” O’Reilly hissed, his voice raw with fear and nervous energy.

A second later it beeped again, and the lieutenant knew the dying merc had lured them into a trap. The detonation sequence was counting down and their fate—survival or death—would very likely be determined by the next order he gave.

In the split second between beeps his mind analyzed and evaluated the situation. The size of the blast from the explosives would be enormous, more than enough to destabilize the entire underground complex. It would probably cause a cave-in, collapsing the huge natural chamber back by the elevator. Even if they were far enough away to survive the blast, they’d run out of air long before rescue workers would ever find them.

O’Reilly was a tech expert; there was a chance he could disarm the trigger before it went off. If they had enough time to find it. And if there wasn’t a backup. And if it was a manufacturer he was familiar with. And if there weren’t any built-in fail-safes to prevent manual overrides.

Too many ifs. Disarming it wasn’t an option, which meant the only thing left for them to do was …

“RUN!”

Responding to his order, all three of them wheeled around and sprinted back down the halls the way they had come.

“Shay, Lee,” Anderson shouted into his radio. “Get to the elevator. Now!”

“Aye-aye, sir!” one of them shouted back.

“Wait for us as long as possible, but if I give you the order, you go without us. Is that understood?”

There was silence on the other end of the radio—the only sounds were the clomping boots and heavy breathing of the three Alliance soldiers sprinting down the hall.

“Private! Do you hear me? If I say go, you damn well go whether we’re there or not!”

He was rewarded with a reluctant, “Understood, sir.”

They were racing through the halls as fast as they could run, slipping and skidding around corners in a desperate attempt to beat out the timer that could go off at any moment. There wasn’t time to check for enemy ambushes; they just had to hope they didn’t run into one.

Rounding the corner into the room where Anderson had earlier ordered Shay and Lee to wait for them, their luck finally ran out. Gunnery Chief Dah was in the lead, her long legs allowing her to eat up extra ground with every stride, and she had pulled a few meters ahead of her two male companions. She ran full speed into the room … and right into a spray of gunfire.

The lone surviving merc, a batarian, was waiting for them. He must have stumbled into the room after Shay and Lee had pulled back to the elevator on Anderson’s command. Since then he’d been waiting patiently, just hoping for a chance to extract some form of petty revenge.

The force of the bullets picked Dah off her feet and sent her crashing to the ground in a heap. Her forward momentum caused her body to somersault across the floor until she stopped, crumpled and motionless in the corner.

Anderson was the second one into the room; he charged in with his weapon already firing. Normally, running straight at a stationary enemy with a loaded assault rifle was pure suicide, but the merc had foolishly kept his attention on Dah as she’d tumbled and fell—he wasn’t even looking in Anderson’s direction. By the time he tried to spin around and fire back at his charging foe the lieutenant was virtually on top of him; so close that even while running he was able to aim accurately enough to blow a hole in the batarian’s chest.

O’Reilly arrived a split second later, coming to a stop when he saw Dah lying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood.

“Go!” Anderson shouted at him. “Get to the elevator.”

O’Reilly gave a curt nod and took off, leaving Anderson to check on their fallen comrade.

The lieutenant dropped to one knee and rolled her over, then nearly jumped back in surprise when her eyes flickered open.

“Stupid bastard aimed too low,” she said through gritted teeth. “Took me in the leg.”