(no subject)

[acts_of_gord]

This place is not the first patch of Polish earth that has seen this many deaths. But the others were done by humans, and were driven by human hatred. The Combine have no such drive spurring them onward; quite simply, they do not care who learns about this place, or about what they've done here, only that the job of making this world their own gets done with as little interference from the local population as possible.

So there is nothing deliberately intimidating or sinister about the complex of plastic and steel and energy fields surrounding the European geneworm's spire. It's just one more blotch of alien architecture designed for funneling fuel into the alien monster's mouth, for inhaling everything Earth has to give and expelling the winds of an alien dimension in its stead. It could be anywhere. It has been anywhere, as ruins in North Dakota and Chapada dos Guimarães and Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park and the forests of central Africa will attest.

But it still seems oddly appropriate, to Gordon, anyway, for the tiny scrambling band of humans to be flinging everything they have with all their might at a foe this far advanced here, of all countries. Maybe it's not mustering the cavalry for one screaming ride of explosive defiance straight into the teeth of the invading tanks, but... well, the battle here feels like something he thinks those men would approve of, even if it is only a distraction to allow their vermifuge-laden Combine scanner to slip through and poison the monster at the heart of it all.

He's pretty sure he'll be deaf for a good several hours by the time it's all over. But he'll accept that. Some prices, you pay.

Comments

[acts_of_gord]

"Just move, there's no time!"

He's going to be punting manhacks in every possible direction within five seconds and this yoyo is giving him a hard time about it?

[smelltheashes]

And move he does. He's not that dense.

[acts_of_gord]

Tchoom! Tchoom!

Arnold falls in behind the man in the yellow suit, but waits for Gordon's hail of gravgun fire to stop and holds out a hand to him to ease him down. "Thanks," Gordon says. "There's going to be more. Follow the pipe in that direction- I've done this before. The more complex the trenches and pipework gets, the closer we'll be."

[smelltheashes]

The man in the yellow suit nods. "Any other little details you didn't bother to mention before?"

[acts_of_gord]

"We'll be hitting actual Combine troops pretty soon," says Gordon. Much as he'd like to pursue his usual course of withholding information from people he intensely dislikes and does not respect, he's aware that this would be counterproductive in the extreme right now. "They may not know if we're the real thing or not. We've dressed one of our people in a mockup HEV suit a number of times before to use as a decoy- he's got a squad of his own that he's leading from another direction. I doubt they'll be able to tell who Anticitizen One is today, so they'll probably just try to kill us all equally hard."

They'd mentioned the Floyd gambit earlier, before deploying, but Gordon doesn't know how much this guy was paying attention at the time.

[smelltheashes]

Janusz looks thoughtful. "Perhaps the two of you should take different routes, to divide their--"

"No," the man in the yellow suit cuts him off. "Not a chance. I'm not letting this fucker out of my sight again."

[acts_of_gord]

Gordon sighs. "Fine," he says. "Come on. There's no time for-"

He stops, holding one hand up for silence. He's hearing engines, and they're not manhack engines. Manhacks don't fly that high.

[smelltheashes]

Sure enough, the silhouettes of gunships come into view over the rim of the trench.

"They wouldn't fire on their own equipment," Arnold murmurs. "Right?"

[acts_of_gord]

"They've got two Gordon Freemans in their sights," says Gordon. "What would you do? Run like hell."

The last is not so much a statement as an order, punctuated with a wave of the gravity gun. This is not the kind of thing you want to face when you're without an RPG launcher.

[smelltheashes]

In this instance, at least, the man in the yellow suit doesn't need to be told twice. The four of them take off toward the innards of the complex even as the gunships start to open fire.

The Combine Dispatch voice can be heard from somewhere further in, announcing... something in Polish. Great.

[acts_of_gord]

"Prohaska! What's it saying?" Gordon calls out, although he's aware that it's probably going to come down to 'we have visitors, kill them all'. That's pretty much all the Combine thinks about anyway.

Please, please, please, he's thinking, there HAS to be an Overwatch armory here, somewhere, or a tunnel or something we can take to get these monstrosities off our tail-

[smelltheashes]

"They're engaging Gordon Freeman," Prohaska pants out as he sprints. "More than one of him. And that they want us dead. Nothing helpful."

[acts_of_gord]

"Thank you."

Seriously, for being able to translate on the fly, the man deserves gratitude if nothing else. Especially since the foremost of the gunships just opened fire-

There. Up ahead. There's a pipe in serious need of repair. No idea what was in it but it's got to be better than being dead.

"That pipe! Cover, go for it!"

[smelltheashes]

The man in the yellow suit dives in first, followed by Prohaska and Arnold. Gordon is bringing up the rear, which is unfortunate because the gunship's fire is hot on his heels.

[acts_of_gord]

Literally. Fast as Gordon is, he's not quite fast enough, and by the time he pulls all the way into the dank and unlit drainage pipe, he's clenching his teeth hard enough to make a dentist wince.

"Arnold," he says hoarsely. "There's a problem."

[smelltheashes]

Arnold grimaces. Even in the semidarkness of their cover he can see the hole in Gordon's armor on the back of his right calf. "Hang on, I'll get you patched up--"

[acts_of_gord]

Gordon nods, and glances as far ahead as he can. "I've got grenades," he murmurs. "Once he's done, I should take point."

He pauses, and eyes the man in the yellow suit.

"Unless you'd rather use them yourself."

[smelltheashes]

"I will, thank you." The man in the yellow suit holds a hand out expectantly.

[acts_of_gord]

Silently, Gordon nods and starts detaching them from his harness to hand them over.

... he's really carrying a lot of them. As many as he could physically manage, in fact.

[smelltheashes]

In fact, he's still handing them over when Arnold straightens up. "It's a bad hit," he admits. "I patched it up as best I could, but..."

[acts_of_gord]

Gordon flexes his leg a little and lets out an involuntary hiss of breath. All he says, though, is, "I'll manage."

Arnold gives him a skeptical look.

"I've had worse. With less treatment." He suppresses another wince. "Come on. We'd better get moving."

[smelltheashes]

"Not until you give me the rest of--" The man in the yellow suit yelps and makes a grab for one of the grenades as it slips off the pile in his hands. "On second thought, I have enough. Let's go."

[acts_of_gord]

Gordon just allows himself the faintest of frowns- seriously, a man should know his carrying capacity- and moves forward as quickly as his condition will allow.

It's a damn good thing he's had experience ignoring pain, or this would be impossible. There are branches and twists in the pipes ahead that he really doesn't like the look of, too- much too small for a full-sized human, probably meant for liquid dumping or electrical cable maintenance, but just big enough for the smaller bots and synths to pass through.

[smelltheashes]

The man in the yellow suit slows to a stop after a dozen yards. "...which way do we go?"

"Offhand," says Prohaska, "I'd say we go away from whatever's making that noise..."

[acts_of_gord]

"Doesn't sound like the Worm itself," Gordon says after a moment's thought. "Take a left. We should be all right that way."

If they're lucky they'll come to somewhere they can surface and get their bearings.