//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Every Freakin' Time // Story: Mares of War // by LeafLock //------------------------------// Chapter One: Every Freakin' Time! Delta Squad. The group was well known throughout the COG forces as being some of the toughest Gears in the service. They were an elite group of, reputedly, unbeatable soldiers. They always accomplished their objective. Come Hell, high water, or giant glowing monsters. They had taken out thousands of enemy soldiers, fought nightmares that other hardened soldiers could scarcely imagine, and they always beat the odds. Delta got the job done. “So why the hell are we having such a hard time taking back this god damned drill?” thought Sergeant Marcus Fenix. The Locust had never been a faction to retreat, to show any sign of weakness. They fought without mercy, and their cruelty was matched only by their absolute disregard for human life. But the way these Grubs defended this old drill, it was beyond anything Marcus had ever seen. It wasn’t out of duty, or service, but sheer zealotry. They held ground as though the run-down Imulsion mining platform was sacred territory. Marcus hadn’t seen anything like it since Delta actually invaded the Locust Queen’s Palace, and even then it was different. Today, the Locust were almost literally jumping in the path of the Gear’s bullets, as if their lives were worth every precious second the COG force was delayed. And it seemed there was just no end to their numbers. Baird had also seemingly noticed this disturbing fact. “What the fuck? Where are they all coming from?” The blonde engineer had a special talent for sounding annoyed rather than stressed, even under the most dire circumstance. “Hell if I know! Just keep shooting!” Marcus shouted, letting loose another burst from his Lancer. Two more of the pale monsters fell to his assault. “They must have dug in through the bottom.” Dom said, priming a grenade, “There could a whole damned nest pouring in!” Dom tossed the explosive down a stairwell. There came in response a very disappointed sounding moan from below. A percussive “WUMP”, and a wet splashing sound later, and the Gears pushed forward down the stairs, and passed the remains of the Locust troops that had been guarding the bottom. After dispatching several more enemies, they found themselves in an old locker room, likely used in the past by the platform’s engineers and rig dogs to gear up for performing maintenance on the lower pumps and drill motor. The room seemed secure for a moment (or at least no one was trying to kill them), so Marcus ordered Delta to take a breather. In a fight like this, you had to take what rest you could. Get sloppy, and you get someone killed. Marcus had seen it happen before, and wasn’t about to let it happen on his watch. “Alright, let’s assess the situation. Try to figure out what the fuck the Locust are up to.” Baird plopped down on a bench. “I’ve been looking at the equipment they have rigged all over the derrick, and from what I’ve seen, it seems like they’re using the station’s built in refineries to tamper with the properties of the Imulsion.” Cole, who had been guarding the door, swiveled his head back at Baird. “The hell are they gonna do, messin’ with the juice?” “I don’t know, make it cherry flavored?” the resident sarcastic replied, “All I know is that my field kit says that it’s chemically different from what we normally see, and that the Grubs are pumping it back downstairs once it’s been altered.” Marcus considered this for a moment. “Whatever they’re up to, it can’t mean good news. We’re putting a stop to it.” He ordered them to police any ammo they could find, while he reported in what they had learned to Mission Control. “Control, this is Delta. We have confirmed Locust presence within the platform. Baird’s been looking at the gear they’re hooking into the existing machinery, and it appears they are chemically altering the Imulsion for reasons currently unknown. We are proceeding to investigate where they’re pumping it to, then we’re going to shut down whatever they have planned.” “Roger Delta, proceed with caution. Support is on standby. And Marcus? Be careful.” “Thanks Anya, Delta out.” The Gears swapped out fresh magazines, and refilled the ammo pouches built into their armor. “Alright, we’ve gotta be near the bottom of the platform. Move out Delta.” They moved quickly. All of the resistance they had faced only minutes ago seemed to have vanished. Dom was the first to speak up. “Marcus, I don’t like this. One minute we’re flooded by creeps, now this place is a freakin’ ghost town.” “They’re probably regrouping up ahead. Eyes open Delta.” Marcus hated being right. Minutes of careful progress later, they reached (according to the schematics provided by Control) the bottom floor of the Imulsion derrick. They walked down a relatively dark hallway, and came to an open doorway. Having thought he heard something, Sergeant Fenix silently signaled for Delta to hold position, then used his pocket mirror to peer cautiously around the corner, into the next room. It was swarming with Grubs. “Shit.” The Drones weren’t the worst of it either. Marcus had also spied a couple of Grinders, the big heavy S.O.B.’s with rapid fire chain guns. The guns alone were pretty devastating(COG troops often referred to them as “mulchers”), but the real trouble were the over-sized brutes carrying the weapons. The room was fairly tight, having so many troops packed in. A few successive grenades could wipe out the lion’s share of the Locust forces, but the heavy bastards would likely shake off the explosions and unload the full force of those “confetti sprayers” on the Gears. Marcus withdrew his mirror and silently relayed his findings to his team, as well as his plan. Moments later, numerous grenades flew into the crowded room, and the air was filled suddenly with screeches of alarm and panic, and with a series of piercing *BANGS*, those cries fell suddenly silent. As Cole and Baird leaned in from either side of the doorway, picking off any remaining Drones, Marcus and Dom charged in headlong at the Grinders, closing the gap in seconds and getting behind the slow-turning behemoths while they were stunned from the grenade blasts. From the monsters' most vulnerable spots, the Gears revved up the built-in chainsaw bayonets of their Lancers, and proceeded to carve the giants to pieces. “Most satisfying part of my job.” Dom muttered, as much to himself as anyone, as he wiped the blood and grime from his face and spit on the remains of the eight foot tall walking murder machine. After gathering up what useful tools and weapons they could find from the dead Locust (Cole in particular had happily picked up one of the chain guns), they inspected the room further. It appeared to be the coring room, where the long drill would normally be. It was conspicuously absent however, and the large hole in the floor where it had been previously was now lined with hoses, pumping raw Imulsion up into the facility, while the strange modified fuel flowed back down into the abyss. Marcus ordered them to equip rappelling gear. As he staked an anchor, Cole grumbled unhappily, “Man, why is it we always end up going underground?” “Stow it Cole, let’s get moving.” “You know, he’s right?" chimed in Baird," It’s like every FREAKIN’ time, we end up crawling down into some dark, nasty hole, and picking a fight with every unpleasant, smelly, pointy-toothed thing we find.” Marcus was getting annoyed, “Focus Gears. We have a job to do.” “Alright, but if run into any gargantuan city-chomping worms, don’t come crying to me…” Delta slid down their ropes, using one hand each to brake, the other hand occupied with a rifle pointing below. They reached the bottom without incident, and followed the Imulsion hoses down a series of rough hewn tunnels. They traveled for what seemed like hours, occasionally running into Locust patrols, but quickly putting them down before any sort of alarm could be raised. Finally, the tunnel seemed to be widening. “Heads up Gears,” Marcus said, barely above a whisper, “Structure ahead. Fan out, and stay in cover.” The COG soldiers pressed onward, and soon the full scope of the “structure” came into view. A massive spherical building, suspended by enormous wire tendons anchored to the surrounding bedrock. Though large in scale, the structure appeared rudimentary in design, and was seemingly built in haste. The tubes of fuel that had lead them here dumped into large tanks, which spilt the supply of tainted Imulsion into smaller pipes, all of which bled into the super structure. Baird spoke up, “So this is what they were hiding. Erm…what is it?” “Let’s see if we can get inside.” The only sign of an entrance was a tapered opening across a bridge, which at that very moment began retracting toward the spherical edifice. They narrowly made the jump onto the receding platform, and rode it all the way to the entry. Inside was a curved hallway that seemed to follow the exterior wall, with archways leading further into the interior at regular intervals. Marcus gazed around the corner of one such archway. There was but one giant inner room, and in the center was a strange device. All of the pipes carrying the tainted Imulsion led here, and dumped into this machine. It looked like an elevated ring, easily twenty feet tall and standing on its side. Several Locust were working various controls, causing the apparatus to spark and shudder. Whatever they were doing, Delta planned to put a stop to it. Of course, this was made far more difficult by the fifty or so Theron Guards standing watch over the machine. Elite units far better trained and better armed than the run-of-the-mill Drone. Delta wouldn’t be able to move against numbers like that. So they would wait. The COG troops watched intently as the sinister contraption began to kick and spin to life. The ring glowed blue as it rotated rapidly, creating a field of energy. From an injection port at the base of the ring, copious amounts of the corrupted Imulsion began to flow upwards into the luminescent field. “We have to do something about this, Marcus.” Dom whispered, his eyes full of anxiety. “Not yet Dom, we don’t have the munitions to take on a force like that. We don't even know what the hell that thing does. Let’s wait it out, look for a chance to get back across that bridge, and signal for Control to start dropping troops in here via Grindlifts. Then we’ll storm right back here with enough Gears to wipe this whole place out.” Marcus could see that Dom wasn’t comfortable with the idea of waiting while the Locust carried on with whatever plans they had in mind, and frankly it didn’t sit right with him either. But they simply didn’t have the force to stop it, and Marcus wasn’t exactly feeling like committing suicide today. Inside the chamber, the device’s force field had filled to the brim with Imulsion, but still more poured in, powerful pumps compressing more and more of the contaminated fuel into the machine. As the befouled liquid coalesced within the ring, the air around the soldiers started to buzz, things began to fall in and out of focus. “Hey Marcus, this ain’t cool, man.” the voice of Cole shook Sergeant Fenix out of a daze he hadn’t realized he had fallen into. “They’re up to something down right dirty in there.” “As much as I hate to agree with the Cole Train, something’s not right here. This ain’t good.” Baird chimed in. Dom looked his old friend in the eye, “Marcus….we have to stop them.” Marcus looked at them all, then back to the turmoil beginning to rage in the inner chamber. “Ahhh…shit. Alright. Let’s do it before I change my mind.” Delta Squad flipped around the corners of the arches and opened fire. Cole laid down heavy suppressing fire with his confiscated chain gun, while the rest of Delta hurled their remaining grenades into the fray before spraying near-molten lead from their assault rifles. The elite guards quickly retaliated, firing back with heavy Boltok pistols and burst-fire Gorgon smg's, and a number of exploding arrowheads were sent the Gears’ way, courtesy of several Torque Bows. Marcus started taking hits on his armor, even through the cover of the archway. He sighed. Now that they were committed to this, he was determined to at least put that strange machine out of commission. Swapping his Lancer out for his Longshot sniper rifle, Sergeant Fenix prepared himself to make a single shot. It was all he would have time for with the amount of enemy fire coming his way. He took a breath and thought of Anya, of his Father, his Mother, and of all the people he had lost or cared about. He even spared a (brief) moment for Colonel Hoffman, the magnificent bastard. He rolled halfway across the archway, stopping in the prone shooting position. Eye down the scope, Marcus took only a fraction of a second to line up the shot with the base of the swirling ring, the spot where the Imulsion flowed through. The shot was beautiful. The heavy caliber, armor piercing bullet struck the device full on, and the spinning ring came to a sudden and immediate stop. All of the energy built up in the force field began to bulge out as the sphere weakened, and then ripped apart altogether. Waves of radiant energy crashed through the halls, light consuming everyone. Marcus could feel his body vibrating. No, not quite his body. It was as if the very molecules that made up his being shook of their own accord. The world shattered. Everything fell apart. It was as though the entire universe dissolved. Marcus would later remember how strange it felt to seemingly watch the end of his own existence, and how oddly calm his mind had been through it all. Darkness overtook him. Then, slowly at first, but growing like a flame, a warm glow faded in all around him. Soon enough he could feel his limbs, and cool grass on his face. He could hear the sounds of wind in the trees. Birds chirping. Birds? Marcus opened his eyes. He was laying on a forest floor, Delta Squad sprawled out around him. After taking a moment to check all of his limbs, he stood and looked around. The bright dell was wholly unfamiliar to him. “Where in the hell am I?”