49
The Phoenix Cluster. System: Sea of Hurricanes. Heretic Station
Here it is - Heretic Station. A really colossal iron thing, with 6.5 million Geth programs in it right now. And there are more lurking in various parts of the galaxy. As it turned out, after Nazara was destroyed, the Geths didn't shut down for good. It was a painful shock that knocked them unconscious, but a Geth is a Geth that can recover quickly. So now the heretics have been made to look like the backstabbing bastards, waiting for the Reapers to take over. And now we had to change them.
- Hadn't they seen us yet? - I asked. Still, we had yet to have time to upgrade the Light of Kila, so we were not equipped with a stealth system, which was very, very bad.
- Yes. The station's been alerted. Signals have been sent to all heretic ships. No way to block the calls," the pilot informed me.
- Damn it. All right, let's do it...
- Pa... [static] They're... [static]... are... [static]... Help! ... [static]... - Susie's voice came over, but I didn't know what was happening.
- What the... Stop!" I immediately started looking at the Virtual, but suddenly realised I couldn't get into it. - Shit, I can't get into the Virtual. They have blocked it somehow. They're doing something to Susie. All right, Xad, listen to me. You go in there with the Geths and download the algorithm to ours and all the Heretics. I'll tap into the Virtual directly and rescue Susie, and then I'll cover you from the Heretics' hacking attempts.
- Legate, you can't be reborn if you tap into the Virtual directly. If you get killed, it'll be for real.
- I don't care! I'm not gonna watch my daughter try to get killed. I may only be with her for a fortnight, but I won't let her get hurt.
- (sighs) All right. - Luckily, Xad now had a platform. It was made from his blueprints and protean technology. It was an AI platform that was in service with the Protean Empire. And now Xad was being pumped into it. A tank capable of defeating a Prime at close range without much effort. It's a scary thing. But that wasn't the point. This was about rescuing Susie. Shit, I should have known the heretics would try to attack in Virtual. And Suzie had offered to have her own Virtual, but I'd said you could use mine; I didn't mind. And lo and behold, Susie's in danger. No, you bastards, I might kill a couple hundred thousand, but I'll save Susie, and then you'll beg for forgiveness.
It was really dangerous to connect directly to the Virtual. Now all my processing power on Sur'kesh was on the server we had installed in the AI core bay, but the main CPU was still on my platform. And now I had to connect directly to the server and become an ordinary soldier, a mortal, just like any other combat program, just going to command everyone.
- Well, you were not. Also, Xad. - I turned, and his metal head turned towards me. - Good luck.
- You too. Just don't die.
- I'll try. - I said and logged on to the server.
****
Virtual.
And in the Virtual, it was a hell of a mess! The air defences are down. The army isn't performing. There are tens of thousands of heretic paratroopers in the sky. Who is making their way to my headquarters? Why didn't I know about this?! All right, time to rescue Susie.
She was now in a place she'd built for herself - a big cottage on a palm tree peninsula, like Dubai. And now there was a massive pile of paratroopers, so paratroopers were landing all over the city.
- Why is the air defence not working? - I asked, which was a system diagnostic.
- The enemy is using a jamming device. It's set up on the palm peninsula. As long as it's working, we can't use the air defences and aircraft.
- Shit! All right, move all forces to HQ and defend it at all costs! - I gave the order. We should have protected it, and in the meantime, a small squad and I should make our way to Susie's cottage, rescue her and take her to HQ, then take up defensive positions and wait for Xad to load the algorithm. Hopefully, it will all work out.
We had to make our way in a convoy of four military Humvees. And so, we're already on one of the main tracks that leads to the peninsula. Underneath, the American army of heretics is running. First Israel, now America... Who's next, NATO? But that wasn't what I cared about right now. What mattered was getting to Susie. Right now, she's protected by the squad of 30 fighters she has, thanks to her power. But she's up against about five airborne battalions. The only saving grace was that the heretics had no artillery or armoured vehicles; now, I was being attacked by a heretic vanguard. It was also to our advantage that Susie's cottage was very easy to defend. It was a brick fortress surrounded by an empty space for gardens and flowers. And it gave us hope that we would make it in time.
Turning smoothly to the left, we descended the track onto the peninsula, and we could already see the enemies. All of mine take their six-barreled grenade launchers, load them with smoke bombs and fire in all directions, surrounding us with a white smoke screen. I don't have them armed for nothing. The heretics try to shoot something into the cloud while I fire off the enemy grenade launchers with an SVD with a thermal imager. We drove between all sorts of high-end houses spread out on either side of the road. The enemy already occupied every place, and I had no idea how to get out. But that wasn't the main thing now. The main thing for me now was to get to Susie.
I look through the scope and see another victim with an RPG-7. The heretics seem to be learning faster than Nazara. A shot is fired, and the soldier falls down but manages to squeeze the trigger, and the missile flies upwards without hitting anyone, even though there are thousands of heretic planes and helicopters in the sky. They shoot at us with machine guns and automatic rifles, throw grenades, and some even come very close, hoping we cannot see them. They are naive - I have thermal imaging cameras. Three soldiers run out of the house. I shoot the last one, and he's knocked back a meter by a shot to the chest. The second one gets his throat punched out, and the third one gets shot by my soldier. I see two more. I hit and killed the first one, but the bullet got stuck in the second one; as the first one was sitting, his throat was punctured, and the second hit his kidney. I finish him off with another to the head and reload the magazine. I hear all my soldiers firing their grenade launchers again to increase the veil. I see three grenade launchers on our path at once. I shoot at them but only manage to finish off two of them, the third one fires but luckily misses. He gets killed, and then we all crush their corpses. I see seven or so soldiers in another house. I throw three grenades through the windows. They manage to throw one out, but it kills one soldier hiding behind a car with a flat tyre; the other two grenades kill five of them. In the next house, I see three more with RPGs. I take my RPG, load a thermobaric rocket and fire.
The missile flies through the window, hits the wall and blows the floor of the house to pieces while burning everyone there. I didn't feel sorry for them at all. Yes, every soldier here was a Geth program, who was to become an individual today, but I didn't feel sorry for them now. They had encroached on something sacred to me for a fortnight now. Susie has become my daughter; I didn't know that was possible in my position. But it is rightly said that the father did not give birth but raised her. And now I won't let anyone hurt Susie.
And so we, about fifty metres without hiding under a smokescreen, drove into the cottage, rammed the fence, crushed three heretics, then braked sharply and turned around, moving sideways, and immediately came under a barrage of enemy fire. We opened the windows and started firing our machine guns. I saw two of them. One shot, two shots, then two more shots at the third, who ran up behind us. All dead. Like everyone else who shot at us, Susie's soldiers also helped from the roof and windows. We get out of the cars and run into the house, but just then, the first of my soldiers gets blown up by a Claymore mine. The explosion made us all stop and crouch in surprise, and I was freaking out. Couldn't they have told us there was a mine at the entrance? And it was so that my soldier didn't notice it. Luckily, I didn't go in first.
I ran into the house and realised that Susie had great taste and design skills, but then I remembered I was here for something else.
- SUSIE! - I shouted to the whole house. - Suzie, where are you!?
- Daddy?" came Susie's slightly frightened voice, which had no synthetic overtones. - Is that you?
- Yes, Susie, it's me. Time to get out! - I shouted, as I couldn't figure out where she was. And a few seconds later, a girl, about 18-19 years old, with black hair, green eyes and in general, she was really pretty, came out from the side of the kitchen, as I understood the oven in that direction. She took good care of her appearance in Virtual. It was just like me. Combat armour, a tight hood, a mask with a skull pattern, gloves and boots. Everything you needed to hide your face. Well, I didn't have time to paint my face here. On the other hand, Susie had the time, two weeks, and that's what we've got. Susie's a natural beauty in Virtua. Oh, look, Joker, if you break her heart, I will break you, and I mean that literally.
- PAPA! - Susie shouted when she spotted me and immediately threw herself in my direction, and the next thing I knew, I was in her arms. - You came, Daddy. I was so scared. They were going to kill me. - Susie started spilling her guts, and I hugged her back.
- Now, now, Susie, it's okay. I'll get you out.
- Comrade Legatus, the enemy, has been sighted. Several dozen soldiers and three helicopters.
- Understood. Take up defensive positions. Three snipers on the roof. Machine gunners on the balconies. All entrances are booby-trapped. I told Susie, "Go to the basement and don't leave. You two, go with her and don't leave her side! - At this point, I went to the roof, and Susie ran off to the cellar with my two soldiers without saying anything. Now I had to find a way to destroy the heretic jammer and get the air force here to bomb the hell out of the peninsula.
As I reached the roof, I could already hear the noise of two propellers and the voices of the Americans. They had already taken over the top and had flown in a landing helicopter. I throw three smoke grenades on the roof. A white cloud envelops the whole roof, and we put special thermal imaging grenades on our faces. Now I couldn't see everything in grey and the targets in white. Now I could see all the heat I was looking at. All the enemy soldiers were practically glowing white and yellow. I entered the roof and put down two who were strolling towards the exit of the top. The machine gun is still with a silencer. Then I bypassed the AC and shot a soldier hiding behind cover at point-blank range in the back. I see two of them jumping out of the body and trying to find someone. I shoot at them, and both go down. That's it; it's all cleared out; the others have already been killed by a mine. After a few minutes, the veil cleared, and I immediately spotted a heretic jammer. It was a small antenna 10 metres high at the very edge of the peninsula.
- Comrade Legatus. - One of the soldiers called out to me, and I saw that he was holding a small computer. - This is the control panel for the UAV...
- Give it to me! - Without even listening to him, I snatched the computer out of his hands and opened it. There wasn't even a password. Immediately I steered the UAV a bit and spotted the crowd that surrounded the jammer, 75 people in total, and the crowd that was running at us, 120 people. I fire a missile and point it at the jammer. Five seconds later, the missile collides right into the base of the antenna, and I see a massive pillar of smoke, fire, and sand rise into the sky; the jammer breaks into pieces and falls to the ground, and I start causing an air strike. Napalm strikes the entire peninsula except for our cottage, and I return to the UAV. Firing a missile into the crowd running towards us. I see 120 targets fly to where 40 are piled up, which the missile will surely kill. Five more seconds and the missile hits the target; 55 people are killed, and another 30 are concussed. Suddenly I see an Apache. It's coming towards us and wants to shoot us down. I hide behind the air conditioning, fire a missile from the UAV and fly straight at the helicopter. And the bastard moved at the last moment, so I only slightly grazed its tail, causing it to spin like a centrifuge and eventually crash into Susie's cottage, blowing half of the first floor and a bit of the first and third floors apart. I can already see a few dozen heretics running towards us. I activate the UAV, but a missile from the Stinger comes flying at me at the exact second. Communication with the drone is lost, and a few seconds later, as we had already reached the edge of the roof and prepared to shoot the heretics, a rumble sounded from behind us. I turned around and saw a hole about a metre and a half in diameter. Looking in, I realised that this drone had fallen straight onto the roof, punching through all the floors and stopping only in the basement, where Susie was sitting. Luckily nothing had happened to her. Having made sure of that, I went back to the SVD.
The first shot killed a machine-gunner who was covering his own by shooting at ours, after which more than ten men fell from the firing of three of ours with PKMs. Immediately I shot the second machine gunner as he was already turning around to kill ours. Another shot, hitting a heretic in the leg, then finishing him off. I see the grenade launcher, aim and fire. Three more shots, killing those three with machine guns. I shoot at another sniper, but he spots me and ducks down, so the bullet hits him in the shoulder. Another bullet pierces his throat. I reload the magazine, and suddenly, another Apache pops up. The heretics don't know how to use it at all if they deliberately fly up to their own people and only start firing the machine gun. Someone from the third floor opens fire at him with PKM, and we on the roof hide behind air-conditioners.
Sticking out, I see the helicopter smoking, but it fires a missile at the machine gunner. Someone on the roof fires an RPG grenade at the helicopter. It hits the right engine, and the aircraft loses control, then falls on the heretics, shredding them with its propellers, literally tearing them to pieces. Suddenly I see a few burst into the house. Running downstairs like mad. I hear both of them explode on a mine near the entrance. Another one explodes inside the house. Looks like everybody on the first one's been killed. I send two men to cover the windows on the other sides of the house, and I run towards the terrace, two stairs leading up to it. On the terrace lies the corpse of a soldier with a PKM. I take the machine gun and aim at the entrance. And not for nothing, three-run to him at once. I mow them down with a burst, but after them another five, they manage to get away, losing three of them and then throw a stun grenade. I tend to close my eyes, but I still get stunned. I open my eyes and kill the remaining two, followed by two more who run up to the entrance. Suddenly I hear a Claymore explode in the kitchen. I tried to go through the kitchen, and a soldier had already been killed there.
- Attention! The Tu-95 regiment is coming in for an air strike. Hold your positions. - ...a warning sounded over the radio. Well, heretics, hold on to a few thousand litres of napalm. After another minute, during which I did nothing as there were no attempts to break through, I heard loud explosions and noticed fiery flashes from my position. A minute later, after the continuous thunder, I heard only isolated shots from an SVD. It was ours from the roof, killing the survivors. Another minute and all was quiet. Now all I could hear were the waves and fire crackling somewhere nearby. Then I left the house, walked around our Humvees and looked at the results of 40 Tu-95s, filled with napalm to the brim. The peninsula's " petals " were ablaze with bright flames, and the "barrel" had been bombed with ordinary bombs, so you could drive through there.
- ALL IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - I called out to everyone. We started to get in our cars, and after another three minutes, we set off in convoy.
My whole city was already ablaze with a blaze of fires. Hundreds of heretic planes and helicopters had crashed into the city, and the survivors were trying to fight back, but my army was rolling them into a pancake and burying them in the ground. Thousands of Shilka anti-aircraft guns bombarded the planes, aided by nests of Stingers and Eagles, shooting down helicopters. Artillery from Grads, Typhoons, Tornadoes and Smerches swept away all those heading for HQ, but our convoy was already on the mainland. Except now we had to drive through precisely the same street of houses we passed under cover of a smokescreen. All the artillery was being reloaded, and a whole armada of heretics was coming in from the other side, from the sea. We had to hurry.
The entire plan was as follows. Everyone who could go on the ground stormed the wooden huts while the convoy covered them with miniguns and grenade launchers. And so, we enter the lodges' territory. The first teams break into the first two lodges and clear them in a minute. Then they come out, and here's the first order of business.
- Seventeen degrees thirty minutes. - That's when the coordinates for the firing range sounded. The target was a white two-story house. I turn the minigun there and fire. The armour-piercing bullets easily pierce the wooden walls of the house, so it's a bloodbath. I finish shooting, and an assault team goes in.
- Three hundred and forty-five degrees. - I turn the minigun on the yellow house. I open fire and turn the garage into a sieve first, where the car explodes, scattering a few soldiers and then the whole house, causing half the wall to fall off altogether. The assault team enters there, and the convoy moves on. There are thirteen more houses left on either side. I shoot the houses on both sides of the road and, judging by the thermal imaging camera, kill every last one, so we move on. Suddenly I see a sniper, and then, a flash, a bullet flies right by my ear. I shoot at him and fire the rest of my clip at home. Reloading, I get new coordinates. I shoot the five heretics hiding behind a brick fence, and then I shoot the house, which explodes, scattering its wreckage and a few soldiers. It's the gas cylinders that have exploded. And then, it's the fourth pair of houses, and suddenly a sniper kills my driver with a few shots from the Intervention, and then I turn him into mincemeat. I have the lead car, so the convoy comes to a halt. Suddenly the second car was destroyed by the Javelin, then two more by the RPG, and then about a battalion of heretics just went into a banzai attack and wiped out all my soldiers. And so, it was just me and Suzie left. But they weren't in a hurry to destroy us for some reason. They realised who was in front of them, so they were all just coming at us, looking through the sights of their automatic weapons and machine guns. They even had two RPGs pointed at us, one on the roof of each house in front of us on either side of the road.
- Get out of the car! - They told me in plain English.
- Dad? - Susie implored me.
- Don't be afraid. - I was already sitting in the driver's seat, throwing him out of the car while they blew up the convoy. I was already thinking about what we should do, but those soldiers were only slowly, step by step, approaching us, shouting for us to get out of the car. I had already figured out what to do. I got two Desert Eagles out of the glove compartment, got ready, counted to three, extended my arms, shot both grenade launchers, then immediately ducked down and pressed the gas. They started shooting at us immediately, but the windows and the car hull were armoured, so they didn't do anything to us. We drove as fast as possible; they had already started shooting at us with rocket-propelled grenades. I was zigzagging left and right, trying to dodge the shells, and then I could see that they had blocked the road with concrete barriers. The Hummer won't get through that. I turned left and hit a wooden house at full speed. There's the garage, then the living room, then the kitchen and I fly out the other side, ram the wooden fence, knock down the swings, smash through the wall of the second house, crash into the bar and smash through the wall where the liquor supply was, fly into the kitchen, smash through the granite table with the sink, flying out into the street, punching through another fence, flying into a third house, this time turning right, driving out the front door, and here I am on the road, having bypassed the concrete barriers, and behind me are the dozens of dead heretics I'd crushed. I drive down the road, firing everything the heretics have, but luckily they don't have grenade launchers. So, only two houses are left to drive out into the Brazilian slums. I don't know why I put them there, but they were there, so I had to stop there. And so, we're almost there when suddenly an RPG hits the wheel. I lost control, the car skidded, we were already going sideways, and seconds later, the car crashed into the slum. Suddenly, the car crashes into a concrete house and stops. Thankfully, it landed on its wheels, but they ran after us. And worst of all, the slum is still occupied by heretics. We ran out of the car and immediately ran into the narrow alleys. Up ahead, I see a heretic, followed by another. Holding Susie's hand, I turn left and run up the stairs. Going upright again, a heretic jumps out of the corner with a Stryker. I kill him in the head with the Deagle and get to a small platform. A window in one of the houses opens, and a sniper with an SVD appears. I see shadows on one of the streets to the right of the sniper's house, there are already three in the street across from me, and heretics are coming up behind me as well. I shoot the sniper and run into his house. I break in; there's another enemy. I kill him in the head, almost at point-blank range, run into the hallway of the house, and run to the first floor; there are three more. I kill them all and reload my gun with the last clip. I break through another door, run out to the balcony, and jump a meter alley; Sue does the same. We run across the rooftops and jump the alleyways. We see them take aim at us and then open fire. We run up to another courtyard, already wanting to turn, when suddenly something explodes behind us. Probably an RPG. We both fall into the yard. I see five men running up from the alley in front of me. I turn my head - they've already got a machine gun on Susie and are holding her with their foot to keep her still. I see a Deagle in front of me and try to reach for it, but the heretic throws it away with his foot, and the other one points a Stryker shotgun at me. I look at the heretic's face and think. Is this the end? Have I let everyone down? Xada, Girla, Tori... Susie... She will die because I tried to bite off more than I could swallow. If she gets shot in the head now, she will die. It was beginning to make me feel like the last animal. I didn't feel sorry for myself, but I would give anything right now to let her go. And now the heretic was slowly pulling the trigger. And there's nothing I can do. I can't relocate, no weapons, no reinforcements. It's the end.
Suddenly, from the direction of the sea, where the heretics had come from and where the whole armada of heretics with armour, fleet and aviation was now floating, some barely visible wave swept through. It passed quickly and inexorably, but it was enough to silence all of Virtual. The eyes of the heretic looking at me widened as if he'd seen something incredible, and then he lowered his weapon and dropped it to the ground altogether. The same thing happened to all the heretics. They just dropped their guns, stepped away from us and looked back and forth between their hands, and the one who had been pointing a weapon at me only half a minute ago looked at me and said in a relieved tone.
- Are we... free?