The disappearing forms of the five strongest of the divers into the darkness set everyone’s nerves on edge. They knew that this plan was pretty questionable. No one said anything about that, though, since there wasn’t any reasonable option. Being down here was terrifying.

That was the thing, though, as Jensen had pointed out, this place was a death trap. One of the men, who was desperately trying to keep his mind off of the fact that Jensen was completely right, distracted himself by thinking of a song. It kept him his eyes away from the red splotch and skewered corpse to his right, smashed against the wall remorselessly. He didn’t have good reflexes, didn’t expect the charge.

Well, nobody said Jensen was wrong. But he didn’t think that the man would be proven right quite so quickly, and personally.

‘Back to the songs. What song, what song?’ He pondered to himself, briefly looking around at his companions. There were less than two dozen of them left here, some who knew what they were doing. They were a minority, really, maybe seven or so, and he certainly wasn’t one of them. Somehow they managed to take the assignment in stride, and without realizing it, he was trying his damndest to not be the guy who freaked out.

Why?

Because they had no idea what they were walking in too. It almost felt like a game, before. The obelisks rewarded you for killing a biotic, harvesting Matter Energy from it. You could get anything you wanted for the right price, albeit some prices were frankly ridiculous. They suddenly had food again, real food, not canned stuff. It was fresh, like fresh off the farm fresh.

Delicious cheeseburgers. He’d had a milkshake for the first time in three years almost a week ago now. Had he known the world was ending, he’d have gorged on them. So good.

‘Distracted a little too much. Song.’ chiding himself, he refocused. Perhaps something blue-sey? Some rock? Screamo would probably help with some stress relief right now, but might just come out a little too… genuine right now.

He was going to request a jukebox if he lived through this back at base. That’d be a good addition. It was getting downright homely now, and the scoreboard for the teams. That was useful, though now he dreaded what it would take to score that many kills. It was different on the ground, being out here. It wasn’t just a score, this was life and death. He knew that, but it just felt so much more… present, now. Back when the wolves got through the walls, he’d killed six of them! Now, with chagrin, he realized that six was a drop in the well compared to what was actually out there.

Could he even do this job? Maybe it was just wishful thinki-

‘She’s dead because of them.’ A cold voice in the back of his mind whispered, stopping all thought. ‘She won’t ever be coming back, they tore her apart and she’ll never smile again.’

The fear drained, a tepid phantom of what it was in mere moments. What else would he do? Go about living? Have fun, find someone else to spend his life with?

He could find someone to spend his life with. Right out here, shoulder to shoulder. An electric buzz hummed through his body, distantly he noted everyone beginning to move together, our wounded cared for between us, the shields we bore now plenty to cover most of our weak points. One by one, we started to move, trembling, a cold sweat rolling down a face here and there, wide eyed, terrified glances casting into the darkness.

He grinned, Eye of The Tiger was a good place to start as any song, right?

The others turned to look at the man as he began to sing, jolting several of them at the sheer volume at first. Not a single one of them thought the man sane at first, certain that he’d cracked.

Yet, when they looked in his eyes, they saw a determination there, one that still born from fear and knowing that they would move forward anyways.

One man laughed heartily, almost manically, feeling better somehow. “Well, shit, may as well go out grinning.”

That man started to sing.

Or, rather, what might have passed for singing in some circle of hell.

Another few joined in the singing, making up the lyrics if they didn’t know them, if only to drown out the man who sang like a reverse siren, making ears bleed rather than drawing them in.

If there was anything that the man remembered, it was that she would never stand for a half measure. Do, or do not. There was nothing else for her. And so, he’d make damn sure the entire mine could hear his voice.

-Matthew P.O.V.-

I had to admit, the sounds that permeated the cavern were a lot louder than I’d anticipated. Was I wrong in assuming that they’d be too scared to do much more than a token effort? Really, anything would have been fine, the cavern echoed sounds so well that they’d probably be heard just shuffling about.

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In contrast, we were almost completely masked in that sound. We weren’t a stealthy group by my standards, but neither were we anywhere near as loud as we’d been as a larger group. That alone should increase our chances.

A buzz in my ear interrupted my thoughts. It was Terry.

“We have incoming, advance scouts just told us that the horde’s oncoming, hard and fast.”

“How many?” I asked, swearing under my breath that they were already here.

Silence greeted me. “Terry? How many?”

“It’s… just get the job done fast, alright?” He tersely cut the line then, leaving me alone to my thoughts.

The others turned their gazes to me, expectant and nervous at once.

“We have company topside, let's move faster.” I answered the unspoken question.

In the darkness, we slinked forward, keeping closer to the salt wall on our left. Ahead and to the right, we could hear the shuffling and angry chittering of biotics. The lights we bore dimmed, and while I could see in the dark, the others were not so fortunate. They surprised me a moment later, though, small scopes brought up to their eyes that glowed dim green through the lens.

We could see the six hive guard in a small clearing, pitted ground all around them were salt was roughly formed into bowls and basins large enough for a human to curl up in with room to spare. Around them, a dozen smaller beetles extruded a vaguely salty looking substance, molding it over damaged parts of the armor in the hive guards. They fluttered their wings rapidly, making a great deal of noise in the process, but the air flow quickly hardened the exterior of the fluids. Unlike the previous adornments of intricate and almost elegant armor, these bits lacked any finesse. They were slapped on, and seemed like they would undoubtedly be weaker.

Even so, it tightened my gut to watch, knowing that they would be able to rearm any time we failed to kill one.

The smaller beetles looked almost harmless beside them, the limbs they bore blunted in salt, a nearly translucent looking shell. They lacked the organ for projecting salt spikes, and I wondered at once if these were the young of the hive, or another variant.

Besides me, the group leveled their weapons, ready to fire.

I grit my teeth, should we fire on them? They were right there, all grouped up. But we didn’t have the firepower to chew through them fast enough. They’d just turn on us, and it’d be putting us at a numbers disadvantage against a biotic that could clearly fight outnumbered.

Guilt curled my gut as I gently put a hand on Richard’s shoulder with a slow shake of my head.

I could see his grimace, teeth bared, as he remembered the plan. He lowered the gun, followed slowly by the others. We knew this was part of the reason why we split up in the first place.

Even so, I couldn’t just do nothing…

I muted my helmet external speakers and spoke directly to the other team, “You’ve got incoming from ahead, stick to the walls, there coming your way soon. Don’t bother aiming at center of mass, they’ve been recoated in salt, take out the legs. Aim for joints. Stay high.”

At that, I swapped the speakers again, moving forward once more. The others followed, a little bit of tightness leaving them. Hopefully they figured I’d just contacted the other group. Regrettably, we wouldn’t be able to help here without blowing our cover.

We kept moving, keeping a reasonable pace. Myself, Ziek, and Tabitha looked for well worn trails to find the path most traveled while Yomar and Richard kept their eyes peeled for their surroundings.

Just when we feared we wouldn’t find the path, though, Tabitha whispered, “Here.” And gestured to an innocuous offshoot from the main tunnel.

It would be easy to miss, hidden by a pillar of salt just in front of it, though the entrance was large enough to allow a hive guard through with room to spare.

“You sure?” Yomar frowned, whispering. Tabitha nodded sharply, gesturing to the floor. I could see what she was referring too, the salt on the floor was very well and truly worn, fleck and powdered form forming almost a sand of salt on the floor.

Yomar nodded slowly, realizing the implication, and then proceeded to the front of the group, pulling out a pair of axes.

Suddenly the sounds of gunfire and shouting filled the air behind us, drifting down the cavern.

“Go,” I pushed, our group moving faster, abandoning the prospect of stealth for a short burst of speed down the tunnel. In spite of it all, I could hear the sound of someone screaming shrilly, the wailing of someone who may well be dying.

[Go.] Smith whispered in my ear, voice solemn but firm. It was all we could do now, and so we dove down deep, seeking to rip the heart out of the hive before any more damage could be done.

And yet, as we dove, I could almost feel something wrong about this place. I’d been in one Hive, and there was almost an energy in the place. This was something else, an oppressive feeling awash in arrogance. With varying looks on their face ranging from surprise to disgust, my team noted the change in the air as well. The tunnel dove deep, fully twenty meters before it finally stopped and opened into a chamber.

Unlike the previous room, this was devoid of any cover, a wide open space with a high ceiling, easily 15 meters high. In the middle of the room, lifted up upon an intricately carved pedestal, rested a shining orb of silver. Beneath a glossy surface roiled shining mercury, the vaguest tints of what looked to be motes of salt casting a low glow through the room.

It was honestly gorgeous, and was nearly a meter in diameter. It was the largest core I’d seen yet.

And it was also the most foreboding.

Almost instinctively, I looked to the others before we walked through the entrance. “Hold on.” I called, “This is all wrong.”

They paused, looking back to the room. “Just the core… Yeah, I smell bullshit too.” Yomar hefted his axes, trying to get a good look into the room. Try as we might, there wasn’t any obvious trick that we could see here.

“If you see a big monster, leave distracting it to me and Yomar. Hit it from afar, try to slow it down and cripple it. I doubt it’ll be easy to take down.” I went over a brief plan.

“I expect a big one if the pattern we’ve seen so far holds true,” Richard groaned, glancing at this gun. It was good at penetrating some armor, but it wasn’t ever meant to contend with a veritable tank.

“So, we’re talking Boss Monster status from like a video game, and we’re probably taking it with a lower than minimum party size?” Ziek snickered, “Sounds like fun.”

“The real question is whether we’re talking kiddie game difficulty, or Souls difficulty.” Tabitha made a face like she’d tasted something especially sour.

“Wait, you play Souls?” Ziek quirked an eyebrow.

My radio crackled to life, “Matthew, you gotta move fast! One of the towers is down and they’re digging new tunnels!” I heard Daniel shouting above a background din of fully automatic fire.

We were out of time, then. “Alright, lets go.”

Yomar stepped forward into the cavern, and in a flurry of movement, disappeared from sight.