acts_of_gord | Beyond the Sea

Beyond the Sea

There's going to be a lot of swimming very soon. Gordon's good with that. Maybe not all that enthusiastic about it, though. He's read about Irukandji syndrome. It's almost enough to make him wish for Xen leeches instead.

Almost.

It's a night swim, is the thing. The only way they could reach the Combine desalination plant undetected during the day would involve Pi portaling the Borealis directly alongside the rig and dropping them off faster than the Combine could shoot them all down. Alyx has the machine up and running again, but nobody wants to take a chance on Pi's current stability. And for all that people in the Resistance occasionally seem to think he's the Messiah, walking on water is not in his portfolio. So... they have to get to the rig under cover of darkness, through jellyfish-infested waters, and creep aboard undetected. And then pretty much put an end to the existence of anything on board with a pulse. Alyx won't be there, and the stalkers won't have any other way out.

He'll handle that part himself, if he can.

For now they've driven here from the Borealis They've got a dark equipment shed near the shoreline ready so that the handful of them who'll be going can get their eyes used to what lies ahead. They're all in their dive gear, as far as he knows. He's got his HEV suit and his helmet on. Hopefully it'll stand up to the jellyfish like it's done to the Combine. This is going to be a very short trip otherwise.

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This isn't Gordon's idea of a fun time. He's half convinced he can feel box jellies squirming into the HEV suit, even though he knows perfectly well that unless it's been recently damaged, the thing is water-tight. It comes of doing too much reading. Perhaps if he concentrates on not being seen by any sentries who might possibly be posted, with whatever passes for binoculars among the Combine? ... all right, the suit's stealth mode doesn't really work in water, but it helps a little.

(He's not going to think about dinosharks. They don't come into this water, not with the box jellies. No dinosharks, dammit.)

It's a way to pass the time on a long swim, but he's still immensely grateful to see that they're coming in close enough to the rig to make out the details.

Voodoo can sympathize somewhat. Night dives have never been a favorite of his - of anyone that he knows, really. The swimmers are essentially in a vacuum, and like they say, nothing fills a vacuum like imagination.

Or, you know, something really long and scaly and probably carnivorous brushing by your shins. That works, too.

Honestly, Voodoo's as grateful as the next man that the rig's close enough for him to make out the sentries still on watch - time spent thinking about how to take them out is time not spent thinking about what the hell just brushed past his shins. Again.

The HEV suit being what it is, Gordon can't feel nearly as much brushing past. Just that there's something there and that it's probably not a fish, considering these waters. More likely-

Gordon is a scientist at heart and has been a thinker all his life. The fact of the matter is, though, that at Black Mesa he saw that first scientist gunned down by the Marine supposedly there to rescue him, realized that he was going to die within seconds himself, and acted on that information before his brain had time to process it in anything like a conscious thought. This? Is like that. The syllables saltwater crocodile don't even have time to form in his brain. He just holds up one hand very briefly, assuming Voodoo can even see it- and then dives.

If he ever sees Hephaistos at the Bar again he's going to thank him personally for the work the Engineer of All Engineers did on the suit's helmet. He's down there a while, a fact well attested to by the thrashing, roiling waters in the immediate vicinity.

Some time later he breaks the surface again, crowbar in hand.

There's still stuff stuck to it. And the water is considerably darker now than it was a short time before.

For the first time in his life, Voodoo's speechless.

He looks at the crowbar. Then at the water. Then back at the crowbar. Then back at the water. Then at Freeman.

Holy shit.

To say Voodoo's eyes are the size of dinner plates would be somewhat of an exaggeration. Think half-dollars. He's been on a hot evac more times than he can count, but taking on a crocodile with a crowbar...

He doesn't know about the "Doctor" part, but one thing's for sure: Freeman's one crazy son of a bitch.

"I miss my crossbow," Gordon murmurs, whether Voodoo can hear him or not. "Let's go. They're going to notice eventually."

The crowbar's just got to be fastened to his side again, and then he's ready to move. The sooner they can get up onto the rig and do what they came here to do, the happier he'll be.

Unfortunately, with the HEV suit being airtight, Voodoo can't hear him, and it's too dark to read lips, so he settles for a shake of the head as he resumes swimming.

It's not that far to the rig - a few minutes more, and Voodoo's pulling himself onto the grating. He takes his mask and fins off, then pulls on his headset and shoulders his MP5. He flips the fire selector to semiautomatic and makes his way to the stairs, carefully stepping over a pair of dead Combine soldiers on the way.

Puncture wounds on the backs of their necks. Severed their spinal columns. Assholes never felt a thing. Chalk up two for Team Four.

Once he's made his own adjustments Gordon opens his helmet's faceplate, glances down at the corpses and pauses for just a moment. It seldom hurts to check for- no, they weren't carrying pulse rifles. Oh well.

He takes their ammo anyway, stashing it alongside his own. What he has, their living comrades can't find and use. And there are living ones about; he can hear footsteps on patrol nearby.

You wouldn't think something as bulky as the HEV suit could flatten against the wall that effectively, would you.

Voodoo certainly wouldn't, but he'll save the thinking for later. He flattens himself against a wall and peeks around the corner - sure enough, it's a two-man Combine patrol, headed straight for them. If they see him, they don't show it.

They're patrolling along the walls instead of staying in the middle. Stupid.

He unsheathes his tomahawk and gets Freeman's attention. Two-man patrol, he mouths. Coming our way.

Gordon nods once and readies the crowbar. He's not generally fond of using it on Combine proper- they're better armored than metrocops- but just now gunshots would be a bad idea. Best to put everything he's got into it and only switch out for a firearm at maximum need.

Ah. And here they come now....

To anyone watching, what happens next would probably look like an illusion or magic trick. One moment, the soldiers are strolling along the wall - the next, they're gone.

Anyone listening, however, might just barely pick up the dull thwack of a tomahawk severing a spinal cord.

Voodoo grabs the soldier by the shoulders just as he's about to fall, then gently lays him on the ground - no need to have him crumpling to the ground and making even more noise.

Wait...are those wires?

It takes a closer look, but as it turns out, no, those aren't wires. They're electrodes, along with what look like some kind of tubing.

"What the fuck?"

"Messed up" doesn't even scratch the surface.

Still, they've got a job to do. He can ponder this when they're not neck-deep in Combine troops.

A cursory patdown reveals nothing besides some ammunition and a grenade, both of which he pockets. The weapon (a nasty-looking submachine gun) gets kicked into a particularly dark corner.

"Word of advice," Gordon murmurs as he eases the other corpse off to the side. "If you manage to break the masks or helmets open, don't look inside."

His preferred weapon against Combine close-in is the shotgun. The first time he used it on one, it revealed more of the Combine modifications than he wanted to see.

But there will be time to be disturbed later. Right now they've got to get on the move and sweep everything with a pulse that isn't wearing a lambda out of this place.

Voodoo doesn't say anything. Instead, he shoulders his weapon and makes his way down the hall with Freeman. If they're on schedule, the last two teams should already be on their way to the first floor. Four and Five are probably already holding position on the second floor, which means they've got to hurry.

For such a vital installation, it's got remarkably crappy security procedures - their trip up to the first floor, aside from taking out the patrol, is uneventful. Once there, Gordon and Voodoo make a beeline for the comms array. It's behind another bland nondescript steel door, locked by what looks to be some kind of screwed up retinal scanner, but it's a futile effort on the part of the designers - the antennas copiously mounted to the side are what gives it away.

This is it. This is really it.

Voodoo takes out a door breaching charge and plants it on the door, taking care not to upset the blasting cap or detcord. He takes one side of the door and Gordon the other.

He keys his radio.

"All teams, report in."

"Met plezier. Team two, standing by." Ten Boom sounds entirely too enthusiastic, even when the big Dutchman is using his best indoor voice.

"Three in position," says the considerably more businesslike Aanjay.

"Four ready to roll," comes Brandon's voice.

"Five in place and ready," answers Logan. "Can we blow these clackers open now?"

Voodoo pauses before hitting the transmit button again.

"All teams - execute, execute, execute."

FA-THOOOM!

There goes the door. And a considerable chunk of the wall, too. Gordon is suddenly hit by a wave of nostalgia for the satchel charges he used at Black Mesa. And then there is a completely different sort of recognition of battles past, because you just don't forget that croaking, mechanized voice....

"Overwatch. Sector is not secure."

There are four of them, mask-eyes gleaming an unholy gold through the smoke- no, five. One Cyclopean red optic turns in Voodoo's direction, even as Gordon takes aim at the nearest of the other soldiers. "Elite!" Gordon snaps as he starts firing. "Take it down!"

Don't need to tell him twice, Gordon. Voodoo's already got his weapon up and ready and is snapping off shots as fast as he can pull the trigger. The first shots do little more than stun the Elite, but that buys Voodoo enough time to put four rounds right through his helmet.

The Elite crumples to the floor, his flatline ringing throughout the room. Voodoo turns and sets his sights on one of the others, a shotgun-toting guard leveling the barrel at Gordon's head. Two shots to the soldier's chest and two to his head fixes that quickly enough.

"Clear left!"

The whole place is ringing with the echoes of MP7 submachine gun fire and the crack of a shotgun. Has Voodoo ever heard Gordon practicing behind Milliways with his pulse rifle? It's a different kind of noise altogether, a weirdly flat pud pud pud sound. It leaves the air tinged with an odd ozone-like smell. And every time two or three rounds go off another Combine gun goes silent.

Which means Voodoo doesn't really have much time at all to hear it before Gordon calmly announces, "Clear right. I'm claiming the shotgun rounds."

"Knock yourself out," Voodoo says, hopping over one of the corpses to get to the comms relay. It's foreign, but easy enough to pick up - flip a switch here, turn a dial there, and soon enough the relay's offline.

And once Voodoo empties the rest of his magazine into it, it's offline for good.

"All teams, this is Voodoo. Comms relay is offline, moving upstairs for linkup. Jan, how're the barracks?"

When Jan finally speaks, the big Dutchman's voice is distinctly disturbed. "It is not so much the barracks, Voodoo," he says. "It is the slave quarters."

Gordon's breath hisses, and he activates his own radio. "Stalkers?" he says tersely.

"And nothing but. We are going to have to look for the guard quarters elsewhere."

"Put them down. All of them. It's a mercy kill," says Gordon. "I'll finish it myself if I have to."

"Yes sir."

Gordon looks as if he would like to rub at his face with both hands, but refrains from doing so. "At least that'll slow things down," he murmurs. "I doubt the soldiers can run this place by themselves."

Voodoo shrugs. "Whatever works." He keys his radio. "Do what you gotta do, Jan, but make it quick. We just kicked a fuckin' hornet's nest."

He reloads, tossing the empty magazine to the ground. "Upstairs. Let's move."

They'd better hurry - if the clomping of combat boots on steel is any indication, reinforcements should be arriving any second now.

"It won't take long. Stalkers can barely defend themselves," Gordon says as he readies his rifle. "Hard to think of a worse Combine crime against humanity."

And then it really doesn't matter any more, because the Combine troopers are rushing in after them and Gordon is in the unenviable position of having to run backwards and fire like a maniac at the same time. Good thing he's good at it.

Voodoo's no slouch, either - a few rapid-fire bursts take care of two particularly persistent troopers, and a well-placed flashbang manages to stun most of the rest. Voodoo pulls out his pistol and takes out another two before the rest are cut down in a hail of gunfire.

"Stairs right behind us," he says, his tone clear and clipped, his eyes never leaving the weapon's sights. "Got your six."

"Thanks," Gordon says tersely. "Jan? Where the hell are you?"

There's a burst of weapons fire that takes Gordon a moment to sort out- he's hearing it both over the radio and down the corridor. A moment later the muzzle of an SMG rounds the corner, followed by the majority of an Australian, and then by Jan and his own weapon. "Do we have to answer that?" asks Ten Boom.

Gordon just eyes him briefly. "Status, then."

"Weren't that many Stalkers in the quarters," says Jimbo. "Don't imagine they keep a day/night schedule anyway. We put 'em down. Looked like a quarter, maybe a third the number you'd need to run this place."

"And we think we found where the soldiers are kept after all," says Jan. "It isn't far."

Voodoo nods. "Show us."

Jimbo nods grimly and darts back the way he came. For someone who had been a snorkeling instructor before the Combine came, he's not bad at this. Ten Boom moves to cover the group's rear, but it's not really necessary; the thundering footfalls they're hearing are headed in other directions.

And shortly after, Jimbo stops, and indicates a sliding panel on one wall for Voodoo to look through.

The room on the other side must have been some kind of central facility for the original crew of this station to meet and do massive maintenance, judging by its size. Most of it is taken up with... equipment. Jointed, black metal rigs hang from the ceiling at regular intervals, looking like some kind of nightmarish control chair; there are tubes and wires and massive cables running from the ceiling down to each of the chairs, and the unoccupied ones give off a sickly pale glow....

Oh, yes. Yes, there is that. Many of them are currently occupied by what must have surely once been humans; what they are now is debatable at best. Every last one of them is pale as a week-dead corpse, where they have flesh at all. The abdominal region is almost entirely mechanized, by the look of things. Fat, pulsating cables are connected to ports on the immobile figures' necks and the sides of their torsos. Their faces, mercifully, are blocked entirely by the uppermost parts of the rigs.

Every so often one of them twitches.

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