Well that didn't last long. Aegon thought back to his days with Blackwatch, fighting with hardened special forces operators and felt damn near nostalgic. If this was a Turian line, we'd have held until we were down to claws and talons, and then some. Tight quarters, mindless infantry, plentiful munitions; their line should not have broken so quickly but it had and now they were in close quarters combat with husks; which was incidentally the worst way to fight them. The length of time they could've held out was now drastically reduced as team members had to scrap hand to hand with an endless horde of enemies instead of holding them at long range. They weren't fighting as a team, covering each other with overlapping fields of fire, instead everyone was fighting in the kind of chaotic brawl that made Turian officers blanch in embarrassment. With some exceptions. The Geth continued to surprise him, with Phalanx thinning out some Husks that were in his proximity. That one was proving interesting indeed, the research boys in Synthetic Insights would have a field day with this AI behavior. After witnessing the near defeat of the Citadel at the hands of a Geth fleet, he never thought a Geth would be a trusted comrade, but there it was.
As he fired his Mattock down the tunnel, barely bothering to aim at the massed targets, Aegon saw several of the Cerberus scientists make a break for it and cursed. He drew his pistol while continually firing his rifle, trying to get a bead on one of the scientists while a Maruader and a pack of husks descended on him. He brought his weapon to bear on them and emptied his rifle clip one-handed, the Marauder diving out of the way while the bullets shredded half of the husks. He quickly turned, aimed, and fired off a single shot from his pistol, catching a scientist right in the knee and downing him while the others escaped. Aegon swiftly pulled his pistol back and shot a few more husks through the head, with the last three jumping at him simultaneously. Aegon knocked one out of the air with his rifle as he ducked and lashed out with a foot at another. The one hit by the rifle crumpled to the ground while the one he kicked flew back and the last sailed over his head. Still crouched low, he swept out with his other leg and sent it tumbling down to the dirt. Aegon would have stomped it's cybernetic brains in when the Marauder charged at him with it's claws out. The Spectre blocked the claws on his rifle and smacked the Marauder in the head with his pistol thrice in quick succession, the last swing sending the former Turian to the ground.
Aegon snapped in new Thermal clips and calmly shot all of the downed husks in the head, before burying his foot in the Marauder's synthetic skull. Noting the two remaining scientists and how close they were to being overrun Aegon commed Rol, "Rol exfil the scientists. If we lose all the intel, this was for nothing. Follow the main path and link up with reinforcements. Go." The scientists might be Cerberus, but their lives had value. If the whole team went down, as long as some intel got into Council hands, then they had not failed.
Everyone was being mobbed but Rykarn was taking it open himself to detonate the mines by shooting at them, without his express order, Aegon noticed. Before he could say anything, about half the mines were blown and huge waves of force, sound, and dust were thrown down the tunnel. Debris fell from the ceiling, which was quickly crumbling, but still not quite totally collapsed. The falling panels and supports struck Husks in the head while the explosions ripped them apart, creating a small and temporary barrier and giving the team breathing room from the oncoming horde, though many Husks still remained on their side of the tunnel. Luckily Aegon had his helmet on and was spared the dust. He turned on his thermal vision, spent his next round of rifle and pistol clips trying to thin the herd when the Husks on the other side of the tunnel started breaking through the debris; mindlessly clawing their way to the team. They needed a complete collapse to stop the horde cold. Aegon reloaded, saw Rykarn struggling his way through and cursed.
He turned on his speakers and ran to Rykarn, shooting at the Husks starting to break through the barrier of debris, "Rykarn, we're over here!" He couldn't risk hitting Rykarn in the middle of the press and ran at the Krogan, abandoning holding off the husks who were slowly but surely starting to pop out of the tunnel. They started to shoved the corpses and concrete blocks out of the way, moaning all the while as they clawed towards the team, the sheer weight of thousands of husks forcing its way through a middling pile of stone and composite metal. Aegon got out his omni-blades and started slashing and stabbing the Husks until the only ones left were him and Rykarn. Aegon was covered in synthetic gore and viscera and examined Rykarn. The krogan seemed ok, though a bit bloodied and Aegon turned up his speakers, "Everyone fall back! Find cover! Now!" Staying close to Rykarn, Aegon started back down the tunnel, slashing Husks on the way with his omni-blades as they ran to relative safety and the Husks on the other side had almost broken through.
He ran until he found a crate to cover behind. The first few husks had started to drag themselves into the tunnel and the pile of debris was quickly collapsing, Aegon shouted, "Giles! Now!" Aegon hunkered down and waited for the darkness and fury to envelop them all.
Punished GN
Chev