Half-life2:Resistance

im at school right now so i cant read it but once i get home im printing :naughty:
i love posting at school because my teachers are so nieve.......... :LOL:
the computers suck though :angry:
 
great work! I really look forward to the next chapter, I just hope we don't have to wait another three weeks..
 
I'm really looking foward to the Xen-Combine wars. That looks like it will be awesome. But quick question, are you going to "Invent" a few of your own Xen fighters? :cheers:
 
Alright, this one was longer than I expected. Enjoy...the next chapter is the beginning of the revolution. I think I am very close to the end, perhaps 4-7 more chapters to go!

-Chapter 46, the Final Preparations-

Dr. Isaac Kleiner hummed a tune nervously as he made his last efforts to secure the lab from The Combine before he set out to leave City-17 for a better place. The past few hours had been an utter disaster… Dr. Vance’s lab was now completely destroyed, and Kleiner had no doubt that all of the remaining Resistance members were either dead or captured. So, like the pitiful coward that he was, Kleiner decided to flee to City-16 to avoid capture.

Kleiner shut and locked his now empty closet of chemicals, and bent over to pick up the cage containing Lamar, his friendly pet headcrab. Still humming, the balding and ridiculous looking scientist walked towards the rear entrance to take his pet out of the lab and to the train station. He would leave everything in his lab here, and would wait in City-16 with his pet headcrab to die under The Combine. He would call it a loss…The Combine finally had beaten them, and there was no hope of resistance anymore.

He adjusted his pocket protector, and then reached out to grab the silver door handle to open the rear exit door when suddenly, the door swung open away from him with such suddenness that his hand grasped thin air and he yelled out in surprise.

“Ah!” he yelped, dropping the rectangular grey cage from his left hand and causing the headcrab inside to squeak in anguish. Kleiner looked towards the now open door and recognized that the person who had opened it was none other than Ian Olbowski, whom Dr. Kleiner had assumed to be dead. “Why Ian, you’re alive!” exclaimed Kleiner, wiping off his glasses and grinning ecstatically. “You gave me quite a surprise; I think I nearly had a heart attack there!”

Ian too was entirely surprised by Dr. Kleiner as he opened the door to enter the lab. He looked into the darkness of the lab’s interior and saw the old scientist standing there in his dirtied lab coat with a astounded look upon his face, and the grated grey headcrab cage next to him.

“Hey, Dr. Kleiner; you weren’t getting ready to leave, were you?” Ian asked, entering the cool interior of the lab and allowing the others to come in behind him. “Why of course Ian, I was going to escape to City-16 after I heard that Black Mesa East had been raided by The Combine…I thought for sure that everyone had been killed! I hadn’t any other idea of what to do, and I apologize for not having faith…but do tell Mr. Olbowski, how did you ever make it out of the Combine raid alive?” Dr. Kleiner asked, picking up Lamar’s cage and moving over to place it back in its original position.

“We really have to thank Harper for that, Dr. Kleiner, we escaped through the sewers and made it to the Combine safe house. Only forty-five of us made it though… and Eli got captured. Gordon and Alyx are both going to go save him now…but I heard he was taken to Nova Prospekt, and apparently that isn’t a very nice place.” Ian explained, speaking to Kleiner in the center of the room while the others watched from the other side of the lab. “Good heavens, he was taken to Nova Prospekt? He’s dead for sure, unless of course, Freeman is able to get to him in time, which I doubt… You say that there are only forty-five of us left? That’s terrible! But I suppose it’s better than nothing… and who are your friends here?” Kleiner asked, pointing out the others who had followed Ian into the lab.

Instantly Avery, Nikoli Streski, and Yuri Steinberg stepped forward and introduced themselves to Kleiner, shaking his hand and stating their names and previous professions. Once this had been done, Kleiner continued, “So what are we going to do now? The resistance is severely crippled, and there is no doubt that the Terraforming will be starting soon. How will we ever be able to accomplish our goal in this setting?” He asked, finally setting the cage of his beloved headcrab down next to a dilapidated ammo crate.

Avery answered him in earnest, “Sir, at the safe house we have a lot of ammo and supplies, and Harper has already started planning for The Revolution. We will begin the first open fighting today at 5:00 PM when The Combine begins the public execution of the captured Resistance fighters. With plenty of sniper support and control of the barricades, we should be able to easily hold out in the main square for some time. This lab is going to have to become a Resistance outpost if we’re to advance operations outside of the main square…”

Kleiner moved his thick-rimmed glasses down the bridge of his nose and asked, “Are you seriously suggesting that we actually try a revolution with so few people? That’s pure suicide, sir!” Ian shook his head and with a forceful voice declared, “Look Kleiner, it doesn’t matter how many people we have. It’s the cause that’ll make us fight. Even if there were just two of us, we would still fight…because the alternative Kleiner, oh the alternative…is death to the species! It’s not just the forty-five of us either, don’t you think that the rest of the city will rise up with us and fight? Kleiner, just get over yourself and stop being a coward. Even if we can’t win, we still have to fight!”

Kleiner sighed, “I suppose you’re right Ian… but I’m just trying to be realistic here. I’m glad that you have faith in the citizens, but it’s possible that they’re already so brainwashed by The Combine that there’s nothing we can do to get them to revolt…” Nikoli Streski shook his head and cut Kleiner off, “No way doc, we already got at least twenty people on the street to agree with us… this city has been oppressed for so many years…we’re all just itching to fight, to rise up and take the world back from those Combine bastards!”

Kleiner nodded and replied with a tone of reluctance, “I suppose you’re right then… perhaps running away isn’t the best solution to our problems. After all, the number of citizens who join The Resistance will be larger than those who sympathize with the combine…but we need something big to happen, not just a little speech and protest in the main square…somewhere we need to hit the combine and mortally wound them, to make them know that we’re still powerful…”

Ian thought about this, and tried to put himself in the shoes of a non-resistance citizen. Kleiner was right in the fact that some would be reluctant to join The Combine, but some kind of military or political sign would probably make the ordinary citizen rise up…then, he thought of the sign they needed. “Of course, Dr. Kleiner,” he suggested, “Freeman will be our sign. The Combine can’t catch him, and he’s riding around the countryside right now laying waste to their outposts. If he reaches Nova Prospekt and rescues prisoners, it’ll be a major blow to The Combine!”

“You’re absolutely right, Mr. Olbowski!” Replied Dr. Kleiner, “The citizens here already see him as some kind of messiah around here…If everyone saw proof of his power…if everyone just came to understand that he was an ordinary man, rising up against The Combine and laying waste to them, we would get a lot more candidates for resistance members. Also, let’s not forget that the Xenians are beginning their attack at this very moment…perhaps we could portray them as saviors as well. That’s it, Olbowski, you have me convinced, let’s get this Revolution started!” Kleiner immediately began uncovering some of his idle equipment and firing it up in preparation, typing on keyboards and flipping switches.

Then Avery suggested, “I really think that portraying Dr. Freeman as a messiah would be a great Idea guys. Why don’t we start dropping hints and posting posters that describe him as ‘The One Free Man’ and play on that theme? I mean, I think I could handle that…I was in marketing, after all.”
 
The others seemed to agree with this, and Dr. Kleiner silently nodded and turned on a massive machine in the corner, which had tanks of strange bubbling orange goo. “I’m incredibly grateful that you came to visit me, friends. I thought for sure we were dead…but now, you’ve given me hope. Why don’t you go and start preparations on the Revolution, and I’ll stay here and work on the Resonance Device that we’ll use to destroy The Citadel…” Ian perked up when he heard about the Resonance Device…he hadn’t even heard of it since the two groups of scientists began arguing about its use and method. In fact, if it hadn’t been for that argument, Kleiner would have still been at Black Mesa East, and The Resistance would have no place to call its home… it was strange how things could turn out in the end.

“Alright Kleiner,” Ian replied, “Tonya and I will scout out the sniper spots and set up there, Avery will go out and spread his Freeman propaganda, and the other two will go back to the Safe House to deliver supplies and ammunition here so that we can make this place a base. Does that sound good guys?” The others all seemed to agree with this, so Ian and the other Resistance members left Dr. Kleiner to prepare his laboratory, and went their separate ways.

As Ian and Tonya went back to the main square, Ian looked up to the overcast sky and The Citadel’s black and terrifying figure in the sky. He clenched his fist when he looked up at the monolithic structure. Some day soon, they would be laying siege to it…and it would fall, he had no doubt of it…but over that time many would die, buildings would fall, and the world would be in chaos… but the ends justified the means.

“Ian, do you think all of this will work?” Tonya asked, her short and choppy brown hair blowing in the wind. “I mean,” She continued, “it seems like we’re relying on too many coincidences to win this revolution.” Ian nodded slowly and replied, “Coincidence has done well for us so far, hasn’t it?”

Indeed, it had seemed like everything that had happened was so lucky, so calculated. Perhaps this was the way it was meant to be, or maybe they were just riding on luck. Ian envied those who would read about these events in history books, as all their actions and all the coincidences would be laid out by historians, with all the reasons invented and analyzed…that is, if all of this actually worked.

Tonya shrugged, “I guess you’re right Ian…but I’m nervous. I’m only fourteen…and I’m afraid I’ll screw up when the time comes. What if I slip? What if I’m the one who kills us all?” Ian was appalled at this, and replied, “Don’t think that Tonya. Don’t worry about it, I’ll be right there helping you out, and I’m not going to let you down. I know it seems like everything is going pretty fast…and it is, can you believe that we’ve only been out of The Citadel for four days? It seems like years, so much has happened…but don’t worry about screwing up Tonya, there’s going to be hundreds behind you. We’ll win this thing.”

Tonya agreed and said nothing more, and the two continued along the somewhat empty streets back to the main square to scout out their sniper spots. Ian checked his watch, and noted that it was 2:34 PM. They still had quite a bit of time to go…but oh how much they had to do in that time! Before they had left the Safe House, Colonel Harper had told Ian that their sniper rifles and ammo would be transported to the sniper spots before they even got there, so the only thing they would have to do was go into the predetermined rooms and wait for the time to come.

The two cousins continued through the streets. On their journey a scanner, one of those miniscule and annoying surveillance devices, nearly snapped a picture of Ian’s face, but he was able to obviate its arrival, and took a Combine newspaper from an abandoned newsstand, and used it to shield his face. He knew that if he was spotted by a scanner or any other Combine device that might relay his information to the higher offices of The Combine, he would be instantly found out as one of the wanted rebels against The Combine. Once the machine buzzed by, he put the ratty newspaper back onto the newsstand and continued with his cousin along the sidewalk, looking back every so often to make sure the annoying surveillance device wasn’t following him.

He began to realize just how hard it was going to be to ultimately conceal his identity from The Combine. There were scanners everywhere, and just as many cops patrolling the streets with their swaggering gait, leading with their chests and holding their shock sticks tightly with their black leather gloves. But perhaps The Combine was too preoccupied with the coming Xenian invasion to care with a few worthless rebels. It was quite a blessing indeed, for the Xenian Resistance Army to attack at such an opportune moment. Perhaps the scheduling was the work of the eccentric Father Gregori, or even some other unseen party who perhaps watched them in the shadows… or maybe, as was probably the case, it was only coincidence.

After about twenty more minutes, Ian and Tonya bypassed the Combine barricade via a few alleyways, and had made it into the main square. He always found it strange that one could make it past important Combine barricades in this fashion, making them totally useless. He made a mental note to defend the alleyways well once The Revolution had started.

The main square looked the same as always, a large, cobble-stoned plaza adjacent to the magnificent Combine train station and The United Combine Munitions Factory, with a gigantic Breenscreen plastered on a thirty foot stone pillar at its center. Amidst the park benches and in front of the United Combine Munitions Factory was an under construction wooden platform, which was now undergoing its final arrangements with microphones, and the sleek machinegun platform which would be used for the execution.

The hole which The Combine had blown into the street next to the factory was now completely patched up, removing all evidence that the raid had even taken place, and Combine troops in dark bullet-proof vests and black gas masks patrolled the area like ants on an anthill. Because of this martial law enforcement, most of the citizens had avoided this area, so Ian and Tonya appeared strange and out of place in the area… as if returning to the scene of their own crimes.

Consequently, the two cousins decided to hurriedly reach their sniper destinations to avoid being seen by the soldiers patrolling the area. As they moved over the sidewalk past the storefronts and amidst the shadow of the buildings of the square, Ian heard the beginnings of a BreenCast coming up on the main Breenscreen in the center of the square. The evil and charismatic man began his speech with his usual greetings…

“Good evening my fellow citizens,” he chimed in his sedate yet almost sing-song manner, “We tried our diplomacy, but the Xenians were simply too barbaric to listen to our benefactors. I regret to inform you that the first fighting has started just outside the city walls. This is not a time to be alarmed, friends. Their force is smaller than we expected, and our benefactors will easily suppress them with simple artillery fire from the strong and powerful Citadel. I can guarantee you, my fellow citizens that I will be resolute in this fight, and we the humans and our benefactors shall overcome these barbaric Xenians together in a unified force of justice. This is merely a hiccup in our continual peace and happiness. After we have crushed the aliens, we will be able to continue on our journey to everlasting peace, immortality, and progress among the stars with our benefactors. In the meantime, martial law will need to remain, and I have requested that an extra two thousand be recruited into the standing army to fight them. Conscripts will be chosen at random. If you receive a conscription slip, report immediately to your nearest Overwatch officer. Thank you, my friends. Remember: be safe, be smart, and most importantly, be loyal.”

Then, the BreenCast shut off and switched to a Combine propaganda commercial. Ian had a feeling that Breen was exaggerating his confidence in Combine victory, and that the Xenian Resistance Army was far larger and more effective than anyone could have imagined. How could their force be so small as to be destroyed by simple artillery? But, even if they were as small and worthless as Breen claimed, their distraction would prove incredibly useful for The Revolution.

As Ian thought this, they suddenly began to hear distant booming coming from the direction of the Citadel, like the explosions of fireworks. “What was that?” Ian asked, looking around. Tonya pointed up towards the Citadel and exclaimed, “Look, artillery!” Ian instantly looked skyward towards the monolithic parallelogram of the citadel, and saw the beginnings of a fireworks show like none other…

With each successive boom, a trail of smoke would emerge from The Citadel, and a fireball followed by a smoke trail would speed out of it, arcing away from view into the clouds. These artillery shells poured out of the citadel in a huge and enormously loud volley, sending more smoke into the sky than any factory, and creating thousands of light flashes as brilliant as the brightest star… Ian had never seen anything like it.

He squinted to look beyond the volley of artillery, and saw that several parts of The Citadel had opened to form massive metal balconies, on which Ian could see enormous, crab-like machines which fired the brilliant red, blue and orange artillery volleys, as well as several concealed missile arrays which had just now emerged from the dark hull of The Citadel.

After about twenty seconds, the artillery volley stopped completely. Ian listened to the distant whir and the subsequent explosions far away where the battle with the Xenians was beginning. So was this it? Was this all it took to destroy the Xenian resistance army, a single volley?

But then, after a couple of minutes which seemed like an eternity a second, smaller volley of artillery erupted from The Citadel, and then a third. Ian nearly sighed with relief…the artillery would probably not be enough to destroy the entire Xenian force. His hopes were confirmed as he noticed a wing of Combine gunships speed off in the same direction as the artillery. The BreenCast, as usual, was nothing but a lie.

“Come on Tonya; let’s get out of here while everyone else is distracted. If I remember correctly from the Safe House, it should be this apartment right up here.” Ian pointed to a multi-storied, yellow plaster building which had a Combine watchtower right next to it, which was a simple black structure with a white sail-like covering suspended upon the top.

The two cousins then continued along for a short distance to their destination, and Ian was the first to go up the steps and open its large, heavy oak door. After opening the door, he allowed Tonya to enter ahead of him, and then he exited the open air around him and followed her into the dark interior of the apartment complex.

Ian closed the door behind him, and the two of them stood awkwardly in the decrepit, messy lobby area of the apartment complex. He looked around the area, and saw nothing but dirty tile flooring, sulfur-yellow lamps, and worn out furniture. But then, a lamp suddenly turned on, and an aged, bearded man could be seen sitting in one of the chairs, illuminated by the orange, flickering light of the lamp he had just turned on.

“Can I help you?” Croaked the man in what could be described as the voice of a smoker, “Nobody has ever come into this complex since the start of the invasion except me. I guess it’s just too close to that Combine watchtower to be attractive to most tenants. So what brings you here?” The man stood up, and coughed as he moved towards Ian and his cousin.

Ian looked towards the ground, and said shyly, “I… uh, we aren’t looking for an apartment sir. We’re scouting this area for… a, uh… secret organization.” The man coughed again, and with knowing eyes replied, “Yes, The Resistance told me you would be coming. You’re the snipers, aren’t you? They dropped off your supplies in room 652 and 128 and then left. Don’t worry about me; I’m as much with The Resistance as you are.”

With a sigh of relief, Ian replied, “Thank you sir you’re right, we’re the Resistance snipers.” The old bearded man smiled and said coarsely, “Good. I’ll get the keys to the rooms you’ve requested, and I’ll just be down here if you need me.” The man went over to a key rack on the wall, and removed two brass keys from their hooks, and handed them to Ian and Tonya both.

Ian took the key for room 652 in his hand and put it in his pocket. The other key he gave to Tonya. They would be in separate rooms, to maximize their sniping ability, but Ian would still be close enough to Tonya to mentor her and make sure she was safe.

“Alright Tonya, why don’t we get set up,” he suggested. The old man chimed in, “Yes, just take that stairwell to the right over here, and the room numbers are divided by floors.” Ian thanked the man, and the two of them proceeded to the stairwell.

Once they had gotten to the second floor, Ian let off Tonya at the 100’s hallway, and wished her good luck. Then, Ian proceeded up five floors to the level on which his sniper position was to be stationed. As he did this, he could hear more distant booms from The Citadel’s artillery fire, which shook the walls. But by now, this noise had merely become backdrop for Ian, and he ignored it.

Ian proceeded down the run down the 600 hallway, and came to a door that was labeled 652: his room number. The aspiring sniper took the key out of his pocket, and jammed it into the keyhole of the door, unlocking it. He then opened the door with an incredibly annoying squeaking noise, and entered the apartment which would be his hideaway during the start of The Revolution.
 
He shut the door behind him, and locked it from the inside. He couldn’t risk being broken in on by The Combine. Then, once this had been done, Ian examined the apartment. He noticed that the predominant color of the room was yellowish beige. The carpet, the decrepit and ratty plaster, and even the cheap furniture were of this color. The apartment was pretty much one roomed, with a simple sitting area, and a waist-high tile wall which divided it from a white tiled kitchen. Although, Ian noticed that there was another door to the side which probably led to a bedroom.

There was one window in the room, which was immediately opposite from Ian, and which had a small bench underneath it. On the bench, Ian could see the long, sleek form of a sniper rifle which he knew to be his. Next to his rifle were several boxes of ammo, and a first aid kit. The Resistance had kindly set all of this up for him. He was grateful to have such guardian angels helping him out.

His first order of business, he thought, should be to completely block of the door behind him, and to set up his sniper rifle. So, Ian looked around the room, and saw an empty oak wardrobe at one side of the room. This wardrobe he slid into position in front of the door, barricading it. Then, he dragged most of the furniture in the room to the door, further blocking it off.

Next, he went over to the window to examine the supplies that had been put there for him. The sniper rifle was sleek and futuristic, clearly it was Combine technology. Ian picked up the weapon, and felt it out, lifting it up to his face and checking the zoom of the sight. He also turned on its laser sight, which created a blue laser beam and a dot of light on the opposite walls.

After messing around with it for a bit, he put the weapon down and examined the boxes of ammo. There looked to be enough there to sustain a sniper through an entire war, so he concluded that it should be enough for him.

Then, Ian noticed a small, hand-sized green device with a long black antenna sticking out of it. It was clearly a handheld radio. Ian decided that it must have been placed there so that he could contact Harper for orders. So Ian picked the device up, and twisted a knob which turned it on with a hiss of static. He had no idea which frequency to use, so he simply pressed the talk button and attempted talking through it.

“Hello?” he said, “This is Ian…Harper, anyone, do you read?” He waited for a few seconds and then suddenly the familiar voice of Colonel Harper came on over the radio’s speakers. “I copy Olbowski. I see you’ve made it to the sniper location. That’s excellent. Just hold your position until the revolution begins and I’ll give you further orders then.” Ian pressed the button and replied, “Alright, I understand. I’ll stay here and wait for further orders.” He waited a few more seconds, and Harper’s distorted voice concluded, “Excellent. Keep this channel open and I wish you luck, Harper out.”

So, Ian was left alone in the apartment for a mind-numbing three hour wait…
___________________________________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, on the compact sands of the dry lake bed in the wasteland, Freeman was using the distraction of the Antlions to speed away in his buggy and attempt to make it across the dried lake. Sand kicked up all around him, grinding into the joints of his suit, and flying in a trail behind his vehicle. Luckily, as he made his escape, the Antlions had completely ignored him, in spite of his roaring engine and magnificent dust trail.

Freeman continued to press the accelerator all the way to the bare floor of the buggy, for he couldn’t be so sure that the Antlions would be distracted by The Combine for quite so long…after all, the meat of the Combine troops could only sustain them so long. He decided that his best action would be to continue until he was sure that the Antlions were far behind him, and then he would stop to contact Harper and report his situation.

So, along the sands his dune buggy sped. He could see very little other than the endless ocean of compacted mud and sand, the occasional Combine thumper, and Antlion hill. However, Freeman kept his sight on the ever advancing tree line which signified the ending of the dry crater which comprised the lake.

As he sped along, kicking up dust and causing the engine of his vehicle to whine loudly, he couldn’t help but wonder what must be going on in the city. He somewhat wished to be back there, to witness the Xenian invasion, and to take part in the Revolution for humanity. But, he knew that his goal was just as important as that of the Revolutionaries. He simply had to save Dr. Vance…all the secrets of The Resistance, and the final clues to the Black mesa incident were all stored inside of him…and Mossman as well, albeit to a lesser extent. Infiltrating Nova Prospekt, as he had heard, would be an extremely difficult task… a task that would probably require an army, and not simply one man.

Freeman also thought of Alyx Vance. He knew she was taking the train to Nova Prospekt, and he had been generally following the path of the train since he left the city, with a few breaks here and there, of course. Alyx had seemed like a mystery to freeman… part of a forgotten generation that he knew in the past but never really knew. Alyx was a mere child when he had known her before the Black Mesa incident…and now, because of those unfortunate events, she was nearly his age. This intrigued Freeman, the theoretical physicist. It reminded him of Einstein’s twins paradox, where one twin travels through space at near the speed of light, and comes back the same age, while his twin is several years older…this was nearly the exact situation that Freeman himself had been through.

As he was thinking this, Freeman began to feel a sudden rumbling which nearly shook his hands from the wheel of his vehicle, and which caused everything around him to shake with an intense, deep vibration. What was going on? Freeman tried to maintain control when suddenly, just under his front left wheel a huge rock shot out of the earth, flipping his vehicle up into the air.

Disoriented from the sudden blast, but still conscious, Gordon could see that he was rolling to the side, slamming his buggy against the sand with each successive roll. He managed to look through the dust and confusion to notice that the rock which had flown out of the sand and against his wheel was not a rock at all, but the head of some massive insect like creature who had made a burrow directly under him… he could see for those few seconds that Antlions were now pouring out of the hole which the multi-legged, hideous beast had made.

Freeman didn’t have time to contemplate this as his vehicle rolled multiple times. Finally, after several rolls, the buggy landed thankfully on all four wheels, sliding to a halt on the sand, its engine still idling. Freeman had only a few seconds to make sure he was alright. Still alive, and unscratched, thanks to his suit, Freeman now sat in his buggy precariously close to a ridge which dropped unnaturally into a large crater in the lake bed.

He unhooked himself from the seat, and prepared to turn and face his Antlion adversaries. Once he had turned around, however, Gordon saw the huge beast which had made him flip the buggy as it charged towards him with a deep roar…

Freeman simply had no time to react to the insect, and it slammed into the back of the buggy, sending him flying at high speeds out of the front bars, and causing the buggy to tip over the edge of the ravine, but not fall off. However, Gordon was in a far less fortunate than the buggy, flying out over the cliff face and flailing his arms wildly but grabbing nothing but thin air.

Freeman was in a free fall thirty feet to the bottom of the ravine, a fall which would certainly kill him. Using all the instinct he could muster, freeman came to his senses and reached as far out as he could towards the cliff face. Then, his gloves struck the rocks, and he scratched upon them while making his free fall, grabbing for a shrub, a rock, anything…

Finally, Gordon caught hold of a crag in the rock with his right hand, a move which nearly broke his arm, but yet still kept him from falling any further. Freeman winced at the pain in his arm, but it was instantly numbed by the suit’s medical systems. “Danger, user suffering arm trauma! Administering medical treatment!” The female electronic voice of the HEV suit warned, beeping and buzzing to caution Freeman, as if the pain wasn’t enough.

Now hanging by one hand on a crag on the rock face, Gordon flipped his other arm upward and grabbed the rock face with it, further stabilizing his position. When Freeman looked up the rock face towards the sky, he could see the two front wheels of his dune buggy sticking out over the edge, teeter-tottering. The buggy tipped a bit more forward than usual, and one of Freeman’s vital pieces of equipment, the gravity gun, fell out of the vehicle and plummeted to the sand below him.

The weight of his situation began to dawn on him. He was unarmed, and hanging from a cliff face whose top was crowded with gigantic bloodthirsty insects. Gordon knew what he had to do. Clearly, he couldn’t climb up the cliff only to be met by the Antlions, so he would have to make his way down to the bottom of the cliff and grab his gravity gun…from there he would try to trek his way back up to the buggy, finding some way to ward them off and use his vehicle again.

So, Gordon looked down beneath him. There were still twenty feet of cliff until the sandy bottom of the ravine could be reached, so Gordon would have to make some very crafty moves in order to not get injured. Like so many of his feats, Freeman had never rock climbed before in his life, so whatever he would do would be out of pure guesswork and luck, with a little help from his HEV suit.

Gordon examined the cliff face, and saw a rock jutting out about ten feet below him. He judged this rock to be big enough to land on, so in a precarious leap, Freeman jumped out towards the rock. After a second of stomach lurching freefall, Gordon landed hard on the out-hanging rock, and was able to stabilize himself on it, kicking up dust and small pebbles.

Seeing as he had made the death-defying leap, Freeman realized that he was now close enough to the ground to avoid injury, so he readied himself at the end of the rock, and leaped down to the floor of the basin.

Pebbles crunched underneath him, and he bent his knees upon impact. However, Freeman came out of the jump perfectly unharmed, save for the annoying pain in his arm. He searched the ground for the gravity gun, and discovered the bulky, orange metal device lying in the sand not far from him. Freeman went over to it, and picked it up…it would be his only weapon.

He lifted it to his waist and turned the device on, grabbing its support handles on the right and left. The device hummed, and sparks began to appear on its three small mechanical arms on the weapon’s anterior end. Now that he felt somewhat less helpless, Freeman looked around the crater for some means of escape…he had to get out of there as soon as possible.

However, he saw nothing but half-buried boats, oil barrels, and car tires scattered about the sands. As freeman stood there observing all of this, he heard a sudden dreadful buzzing noise coming from above. He instantly knew what this noise was, and turned towards the sky to see a swarm of Antlions flying from the top of the cliff and fluttering down into the basin.

Freeman reacted quickly as the first Antlions began to land in the sand before him, and he looked around for anything that he might be able to blast off at them with the gravity gun. As an Antlion lunged toward him, screeching, Freeman spotted an empty oil barrel lying near him, and squeezed the primary trigger of the zero-point gravity field manipulator gun.

The weapon hummed with energy, and orange sparks flew from it as it shook with force. The barrel instantly flew towards Gordon as if pulled by a gigantic magnet, and was within his grip within milliseconds. Then, Gordon swung the brown oil barrel towards the Antlion like a battering ram, slamming it into the creature and causing it to fly to the side like a limp rag doll.

Great… One down, several hundred to go… Freeman thought as he aimed his new makeshift weapon at another Antlion. This time he pressed the secondary trigger of the gun, and an orange beam flew out of it like a bolt of lightning, striking the barrel as it floated weightless in front of him, and causing it to shoot away from him with extreme force.

The barrel slammed into the next Antlion, and caused it to explode into a cloud of green goo and severed yellow exoskeleton. Freeman wasted no more time as the other Antlions lunged towards him, and he grabbed whatever he could with his gravity gun: tires, barrels, boxes…and fired them into the swarm, killing off as many Antlions as possible. Could this, he thought, be his last stand: firing junk at giant insects with a futuristic gravity weapon?

Gordon ran to the side, attempting to shake off the crowd of insects. In doing so, he noticed another set of barrels, which had the insignia “FLAMMABLE” spray painted onto their red metal exteriors. Anxious for a more effective method of defense, Freeman grabbed one of these barrels with the gravity gun, and made haste to fire it as an explosive projectile at the crowd of Antlions. The barrel struck the ground near them, and with a boom, a large flash and a fireball, the barrel exploded amidst the swarm of beasts.

Several Antlions were blown into the air, and were sent flying far away from the blast. Others simply exploded, and still others caught fire, and began flailing madly in the flames. Those who were not killed by the blast were wounded and killed by the shrapnel from the shell of the barrel, and even freeman was afraid of being hit by a flying piece of metal as the barrel exploded.

Even for this amazing fireworks display, Gordon’s explosive barrel barely even made a dent in the swarm, and they advanced on him more furiously than ever, screeching and hovering through the air. Freeman then began rapidly shooting off the barrels, blasting away as many of the Antlions as was possible…

There were simply too many of them… It seemed that every insect he destroyed, another two would take its place. Soon, Freeman was out of explosive barrels and was forced to move on. He had to get out of there, and quick. As Gordon scrambled around for an escape route, the creatures drew nearer and nearer to him, and he feared death.
 
But then, just as the creature’s claws began to descend upon him, the Antlions merely stopped in their tracks, and backed off, making high pitched noises that seemed to perhaps suggest fear in the creatures. Gordon stood dumbfounded as the Antlions scrambled off, and disappeared among the cliffs of the crater, hiding away from him. What could have made them leave?

Soon, however, Freeman realized that it was not him who the Antlions were afraid off… He looked out into the crater and saw the towering, hideous figure of some sort of giant insect. It was the creature that had flipped him. Now getting a clear look at the creature standing almost majestically in the open air, Freeman was able to remember the Xenian biology lessons he had gotten at Black Mesa, and realized that this huge insect was none other than an Antlion Guard, the elite warrior class of Antlion who guarded the entrances to the hives of these strange social Xenian insect. A hive must be nearby.

When it had spotted Freeman, the Antlion Guard reared up onto two of its legs, and bellowed out in a deep, terrifying growl. Then, the creature put its legs back down, and began a loping, rapid-paced charge at Freeman.

Acting purely on instinct, Gordon leapt to the side, and the creature slammed into the cliff face behind him, kicking up dust and causing small rocks to fall from the sandstone wall. Freeman backed away from the beast, frantically looking for something to throw at it with the gravity gun as the disoriented Antlion Guard regained its senses and turned towards him, preparing for another charge.

Freeman grabbed a nearby oil barrel with the gravity gun, and shot it off towards the Antlion Guard as it made its charge towards him. The Creature anticipated the flight of the barrel, and swung its huge, armored head at it, causing it to fly to the side harmlessly… Freeman’s attacks were apparently rendered worthless.

Like some kind of demented futuristic bull fighter, Freeman dodged to the side again, avoiding the huge loping charge of the mighty Antlion guard. He had to find something more effective to throw at it. Freeman attempted shooting tires, explosive barrels, and even an entire wooden rowboat at it, but all of these seemed completely ineffective, and the beast shook them off as if it was being struck by feathers.

Finally, as it began to charge him again, Gordon spotted a harpoon sticking in the sand next to one of the sunken fishing boats, its metal tip gleaming in the sunlight. Freeman lunged for this, and pulled it out of the sand with some difficulty. Placing it in front of his gravity gun, Freeman took careful aim with the harpoon, putting its sharp end towards the massive head of the Antlion guard. He hoped beyond hope that it would fly true…

As the creature loped towards him, bellowing, Freeman yelled as loudly as he could and pulled the trigger of the gravity gun. The harpoon flew in a straight line at bullet-like speeds towards the Antlion Guard, and with a sickening squishing noise, the Harpoon impaled the beast straight through its head and out the other side of it.

The creature wavered from side to side, and with a colossal roar, the creature fell to the ground, dead. Unable to comprehend his achievement, Freeman stood there speechless, staring at the fallen beast. He had just slain the most primal terrifying creature he had ever had to go against, and he had done it practically unarmed! He was beginning to like Kleiner’s gravity gun.

However, he had little time to celebrate, for the Antlions which had been watching his battle were now outraged, and began flying in a massive swarm down into the basin to overcome him…
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Vort-‘Misgha, a front line Vortigaunt slave of the first Xenian battalion, hid amongst the corpses of his brothers for protection against the rain of fire which descended upon them all from the sky. Missiles came down like hail, dropping all around him in earsplitting and explosive splendor and disintegrating his comrades as if they were made of dust.

The Controllers had promised them absolute glory…an easy march to the city and a simple break through the wall where they would fight with honor against the greatest warriors of The Combine…they had not foreseen this dishonorable and terrifying death by artillery fire! Even so, their force was large, and The Controllers used their vast psychic power to shoot down as many missiles as possible with their rapid pulses of hand-energy, which flew out of their hands as waves of orange fireballs, and which tracked and destroyed many of the Combine missiles and mortars.

A small missile fell near Vort-‘Misgha, and he ran in terror from the dead carcass of the Gargantuan he had been hiding behind, and loped towards what remained of his battalion to regroup. He could see that they were being utterly shredded by the Combine artillery, and they hadn’t even gotten to the ground fighting yet. It was no wonder that were conquered by The Combine in the first place.

The low ranked Vortigaunt regrouped with his comrades, and they resumed their march over the crater ridden terrain. He squinted his one red eye, and looked over the barren and war torn landscape towards the city. He could see the huge city wall, black and ominous on the horizon, like a beacon of The Combine’s ultimate power.

But that was not all that the Vortigaunt saw on the horizon. Like a marching army of soldiers, he could see gigantic, three legged, forty-foot machines loping in the distance towards them to meet them. They were striders. Vort-‘Misgha began to feel a pit in his stomach forming as he saw these massive machines. ell, he thought, if he was to die today, it would be best to die with honor, fighting for what he believed in against these massive machines and evil Combine foot soldiers.

The battle raged around him, and several began dying from the artillery blasts, but by some luck, Vort-‘Misgha and the rest of his battalion were spared. The entire army was now coming very near to the opposing forces of The Combine, who were waiting in defensive position near the huge wall to better hold out against the attacking army.

The Vortigaunt on the front lines watched as the first strider fired its main cannon, a huge, reality-distorting blue beam which blasted instantly from it with ground shaking force towards the lines of Xenian troops. The beam struck a line of Xenian ground troops, and the entire column which had once seemed so strong disintegrated instantly into thin air as the head from the plasma beam tore through them.

There was a sudden telepathic order from the controllers to charge, and instantly, the entire Xenian army swarmed forward in a mass, calling out with their own battle cries. Vort-‘Misgha was caught up in the moment, and shrieked out as he ran towards the lines of Combine troops, which he could now see clearly.

Overhead, the hundreds of manta fighters screamed towards the wall, and began their bombardment, as Combine gunships and attack helicopters began dropping bombs and machine gunning the lines of Xenian infantry.

For the first time in history, two extraterrestrial forces shook the Earth in battle.

-Chapter 47, The Revolution-
 
Excellent. Can't wait for the revouloution.
 
awsome. only have read the last page of posts and some of the start ones.
Could you make an updated zip so i could read it all, over a long period of time...
 
<Pokes theotherguy>


<Transforms into evil vortigaunt giving him a shock from his RL>



RWAR@!#!



Loved the part.....but I want the revolution so badly. :(
 
Its coming soon. This is my longest chapter ever, it may even reach a top of 12,000 words. This is 3 times as long as my other chapters. Currentley it is at 9,500 words. I guess since its summer I've had alot more writing time, and this chapter is just very exciting to write for some reason. I expect to be done by the end of tommorow at least.
 
Well I had a stroke of inspiration, so here you go, the chapter 47 NOW (11,800 words! :O )

-Chapter 47, The Revolution-

Silently, cleaning his sniper rifle over and over with a small white rag he had found in the supplies, Ian waited alone. It had been hours, but he hadn’t moved for any reason. He simply remained on one of the beige couches in the room, staring out the window at the progress that The Combine was making on preparing the square for the execution of the rebels.

Normally in such a situation Ian would have been bored, but here he was nervous, and the adrenaline kept him alert and focused on the task at hand. The Combine had finished with the execution platform, and had begun setting up additional Breenscreens, loudspeakers and makeshift guard towers around the square. Ian looked at the machine guns that were stationed on the guard towers and at the nasty-looking Combine troops who manned them.

This would be an additional problem when The Revolution was to start. Ian would have to keep the machine gunners in the tower in mind when he started shooting, or else the gunners would mow down the rebels in the crowd. Over and over Ian kept telling himself that all of this was well planned and all would go well, but he was having a little trouble convincing himself when the situation seemed to grow steadily worse.

He checked his watch: it was 4:30 PM, just a half an hour before The Revolution was scheduled to begin. He knew that citizens and rebels would begin to flood the square at the predetermined time, as they were all being forced to witness the public execution. Indeed, he already was beginning to see traces of the crowd of spectators begin to appear and stand about dejectedly in the square in their blue jumpsuits, barely even talking to each other. To accommodate the growing crown of spectators, more metro cops flooded into the square, and assisted each other in controlling the crowd by intimidation.

By now, Ian was sure, every barricade was controlled by the Resistance and that as he contemplated their arrival, disguised rebels were entering the square armed with sub machine guns and pistols with the officers of the barricades letting them right through. He just hoped that there would be enough of them to fend off the many cops in the area.

Just then, Ian heard a loud bang like that of a distant bomb, and the ground shook as if in a minor earthquake. He looked up in the sky and saw yet another round of artillery streaking away from The Citadel and off into the distance towards the massive Xenian force. They couldn’t be destroyed…they simply had to break through and begin terrorizing the city. Ian hoped most ardently that the artillery would not be too much for the alien fighting force.

Now, after this artillery round, it finally seemed as if the main square was filling with an enormous crowd. There now seemed to be many times more citizens down there in their blue jumpsuits than there were gas-masked officers in black uniforms; the situation seemed brighter than a few minutes ago, but the extra members of the crowd might even make it more distracting and harder for Ian to aim for and pick out the Combine officers from the crowd, and Ian feared that he might accidentally fire upon innocent people…but such was a hazard of war.

Ian checked his watch yet again: it was 4:57; show time. He picked up his sniper rifle, and placed it under a thick black blanket on the window sill, and made sure the lights inside the apartment were all off, to make him unnoticeable.

After he had done this, Ian held tightly to the grip of the sleek, futuristic sniper rifle and he placed the stock of the rifle up to his shoulder and looked through the fisheye lens of the scope so that he could get a better look of the crowd below. His hands sweated, and his legs twitched with nervousness. Ian kept telling himself to get a grip, but the anticipation and apprehensiveness that filled him nearly overcame his mind. He was about to murder, to kill without remorse. But these were to be the least of his worries when the war started five minutes from now.

Ian stared through the lens of the scope, and instantly his vision zoomed in, allowing him to see through the glassy orb into the crowd. Consequently, his vision through the scope was so sharp that he could make out the melancholy expressions on the faces of the downtrodden individuals below. Unfortunately, this was not a factor that would improve his ability to kill, but would only increase his intense feelings of guilt.

Ian took a deep breath to calm himself and then turned the scope of his weapon upon the execution platform and the machine gun which would be used to kill the prisoners. Then, his watch made a single, high-pitched beep, signifying the hour. It was time.

A few seconds later hundreds of downtrodden, rough-looking prisoners began to appear out of trap doors from under the execution platform. They were a depressing bunch, dirty, unshaven, starved and chained together in a long line of gloom. They were being led along by several particularly nasty-looking Combine soldiers wearing white flak jackets and sporting terrifying gas masks which featured a single, red bionic eye. Upon seeing these elite soldiers leading the prisoners along and kicking them, Ian was reminded of the female assassin who had stalked him a few days ago…he wondered what her fate might have been.

Using brute force, the elite Combine troops kicked and beat the entire procession of rebels onto the platform into four separately chained rows, so that they might be murdered in the most efficient way possible. It made Ian miserable to witness all of those faces with terrified looks standing there on that platform, about to be executed. Ian had never personally met these brave men and women now facing their fate, but they had fought alongside him against the absolute evil that was The Combine. These people were the only ones brave enough to stand up for what the believed in… Ian would ensure that they wouldn’t die. As long as he was a sniper, no machine gun would fire upon them.

As the rebels came upon the grandstand, the crowd fell silent, and an anxious hush filled the square like a ghost…Ian could even hear the distant booming of the war with the Xenians at this point. It was as if someone had said something incredibly offensive at a party, and all of the citizens and Combine troops stared at the ragtag rebels as if they had committed some sort of terrible taboo.

At that moment Ian was suddenly startled as the short wave radio receiver next to him flipped on with the distorted voice of Colonel Harper. He jumped, took his face away from the scope of the sniper rifle, and listened to the radio.

“Alright snipers, its show time,” came Harpers static-filled voice came over the speaker of the radio, “Olbowski, you have the most important role…the second that Calhoun speaks up, I want you to fire upon the executioner machine gunner, ok? After you’ve done that, target the elite troops guarding the platform. Tonya Barovits I want you to target the snipers in the towers one by one, same for you, George Michaels, as for the rest of the snipers, pick a cop and shoot ‘till they’re all dead. Is that clear?”

After listening to these orders, Ian didn’t hesitate to press the button on the radio transceiver, “I hear you loud and clear Harper, that’s affirmative, I’ll target your machine gunner.” Seconds later, Tonya replied into the radio, “I got it Harper, targeting the sniper towers now…” and then all the others responded in affirmative. Finally, Harper’s voice came back over the radio and made the announcement, “Okay, now that everyone has their assignment, I just wanted to wish you all good luck. The Revolution is counting on you…May your bullets fly true. Once your sniper positions are done with I want all of you to get into the square and regroup with the squads I assigned you to.”

Ian remembered his squad of rebels including Nikoli Streski, Yuri Steinberg, Bart Avery and his cousin, Tonya Barovits. So he would be fighting with them throughout the Revolution. Harper couldn’t have picked a better group of fighters. The nervousness leaving him for a moment, Ian placed his eye back up to the scope to get a look at his target…Harper had assigned him perhaps the most crucial target out of all of them: the machine gunner who was to execute the rebels on the grand stand.

He turned his sniper rifle on its post slowly and deliberately until his sights were set on the head of the elite combine soldier who now manned the machine gun, ready to mow down the rebels. He zoomed in with the scope’s focusing knobs to the appropriate location, and then took a deep breath and waited for the order.

While he was doing this, the Breenscreens all about the main square began to flicker on with the image of Dr. Wallace Breen staring out of them with a smile of false confidence and caring. The people in the crowd turned their attentions towards the multiple screens of the square, and listened attentively to what their deceptive leader had to offer. Ian, however, kept his sights transfixed on the Combine machine gunner, focusing on every twitch and movement that the soldier made, trying as hard as he could to hate him as so he wouldn’t feel remorse when he killed the fiend. As he waited in the darkness of the apartment, Dr. Breen began his speech which would cause him to unknowingly trigger The Revolution.

“Good Evening, my fellow citizens,” Breen slickly began, folding his hands in front of the screen so that his fingers formed steeples. “As you have no doubt witnessed, our artillery is beginning to fire at and destroy the Xenian invaders…and as I have said before, it is of utmost importance that we, humankind, remain resilient and united under our benefactors, The Interstellar Union. But in order to truly have the unity to defeat our enemies, we must first realize what it means to be united.” Breen said this last sentence with a breathy sort of pause, so that the sound of the artillery fire could be heard booming in the distance over the silence of the crowd. Then, he continued with his lies.
 
“To be united,” continued Breen, “Means that we are all equally contributing to our benefactors. To be united means that we all obey the laws laid down for us, and work as productive citizens. To be united, we must believe in the power and the pride of our own humanity, and realize that our destiny is not here on this pitiful planet, but among the stars with our benefactors as equals. To be united,” he droned with further emphasis, “We must be loyal…and then, but only then, will we be able to defeat our Xenian enemies, and the enemies of instinct within ourselves. Only then will be able to take our rightful place among the stars as the most truly powerful empire ever seen in history…we are on the brink of a new era, my fellow citizens. Any mistake, any…diversion from our goal, and we will be lost forever…”

He nearly whispered this last word, and let it hang in the air as an afterthought, his voice echoing and booming off of the stone walls of the square. Then, continued on to the main point of his speech. “Do you see these three hundred some odd men who stand like dogs before you?” Breen boomed, his attention turning towards the rebels who were about to be executed. “These men were once loyal citizens just like you and me. They held jobs, they contributed to society, and they helped ensure our rightful place to our benefactors. But somehow along the way, these men gave in to instinct and fear. These weak rebels gave in to the ideals of so called ‘freedom’ and ‘justice.’ These men joined The Resistance, which had been going on under our noses for the past few years. They hid like cowards, stole from the needy, and destroyed our beautiful city from the inside out! They are the very infidels who work against us at every turn, and who go against the very ideal of unity!”

Breen’s face contorted with anger as he exclaimed this, but then instantly softened to his usual expression. His voice returning back to reason, he continued, “We have tried, time and time again, to bring these people to justice and make them realize that their cause is not worth fighting for. If they would just understand that their false concepts of freedom and justice are centered in the wrong places, maybe they would have seen the light and discontinued their destructive behavior. It may not seem like it now, I must admit, but the justice and freedom which we will gain from our benefactors in the future is far greater than anything these foolish rebels could have conjured up. Some day, we will have dominion over the stars; some day, planets will be our playthings… but only if we remain united under our benefactors. Every day we are being tested by them, and every day draws us closer to the time when they deem us fit to live amongst them. How badly does it reflect on our track record with our benefactors when several hundred of us won’t even cooperate with the forces of the Overwatch? Hear this, my citizens, the future which I have laid out for you is not guaranteed. Simply because we have been blessed by the Interstellar Union doesn’t mean that we are automatically into their love and grace. To do that, we must continue to be united and loyal to them, and we must continue to cooperate. If this destructive behavior continues, the forces of the Overwatch will never end the occupation of Earth, and we will never be granted dominion of the universe!”

He paused again, and then continued, “Now, there are some who question this, and I don’t blame them. After all, these are troubling times. But you should not be swayed by these naysayers, like these foolish ones that sit here on the grandstand have been. Their leader, Eli Vance, has already been captured, and their personal Messiah, Gordon Freeman is being hunted down like a fox at this very moment. I would have simply imprisoned these rebels, but they are far too much a danger to society to be kept alive. It is therefore my order that they be executed to ensure that all of us will be united in infinite harmony under our benefactors, and may not have these poisoned ones among us to disrupt our purity…”

As Breen made this disgusting comment a louder more human voice came over the hundreds of speakers set up around the square, and Ian instantly recognized this voice to be that of Barney Calhoun. “Is that so, Breen? Are they really that different from us?” Barney’s honest, American-accented voice echoed throughout the square. Apparently, the BreenCast was being recorded live, and Breen was capable of hearing everything that was going on in the square, because the world leader stopped in mid sentence, and his face turned to an expression of horror.

The entire crowd turned their attention away from Breen and towards the voice of Barney, where they found him standing on one of the barricades with his gas mask off, revealing his soft facial features amidst the dark black officer’s uniform he was wearing. Ian’s heart began palpitating at the first signs of insurrection…he knew his duty would be coming soon. “And therefore,” continued Breen, seemingly ignoring Calhoun and moving on to his next point, “We must watch all of them as they are executed…”

At that instant, Ian’s radio flipped on, and the voice of Harper yelled through it to all of the snipers, “That’s it, he’s about to execute them! Fire! Take them out!” Ian didn’t hesitate as he heard the voice of Harper crackling through the radio. He took one look at the machine gunner…he had only milliseconds to fire upon him. But in those milliseconds a thousand thoughts trickled through his head. What if he was wrong? What if he missed? What would happen if he waited to fire? But all of those thoughts were suppressed by a single slip of Ian’s finger on the trigger.

The sound of the bullet was stifled by the insulating silencer screwed onto the end of the sniper rifle, and Ian heard nothing but a click as the trigger of his rifle pulled back, and the bullet exited the chamber. In less time than Ian could even comprehend, the Combine machine gunner slumped forward over the gun, killed instantly.

Before any of the other elite Combine soldiers could notice, Ian turned his scope on them, and took them out in a quiet, clean fashion. He didn’t even think about what he was doing…he simply turned his scope upon them one by one, and eventually had downed all of the elite soldiers on the grandstand as easily as he could have written his name on a sheet of paper.

Then, he sat there motionless and breathing hard. Had he really just killed all of them? As if to answer the question, the shell casings from his rifle clinked on the floor in a quiet echoing rain of metal against wood…his task was complete.

Amazingly, Ian had completed his task so quickly and quietly that nobody even turned their attention away from Calhoun has he began his speech. It seemed as if not even any of the cops had noticed his sniping work…or maybe it was the fact that all of them were dead by now. Ian quickly glanced at the sniper towers…Tonya had done her job well; he could see nothing but the figures of dead Combine soldiers slumped against the railing of the sniper towers.

It was in this confusion that Barney began his speech, which was so powerful that it overwhelmed the citizen’s senses so that they didn’t notice the simultaneous sniping of most of the Combine troops in the area. Only seconds after Ian had fired his first shot, Calhoun continued his speech.

“These rebels are in the same boat as all of us,” Calhoun boomed. “They joined the resistance for obvious reasons…for reasons that people like you and me face every day. They were overworked, underpaid and they just weren’t happy.” Calhoun’s simple language and honest voice were a sharp contrast to Breen’s smooth and deceptive speaking style…but the audience of simple citizens was far more drawn to the every day man who stood among them and spoke from the barricades into a microphone.

Trying to interrupt him, Breen boomed over all from his Breenscreens, “What are you waiting for?!” He practically choked, “Execute the prisoners and silence that man! Where are my snipers, my elites? Destroy them!” But Breen’s words simply fell onto the empty suits of his dead soldiers. He could do nothing when all of his assets had been destroyed.

In the meantime, Ian scanned the crowd, and noticed that several of the cops who had not been originally sniped were now pointing out the dead snipers, and were muttering something into their radios. Then, one of them motioned towards Calhoun, and in seconds, a dozen cops were rushing through the crowd, beating people down and running towards Barney. Ian knew that their cover had just been blown.

Even so, Calhoun continued speaking, “Are you really going to listen to this guy? In case you’ve forgotten, wasn’t he the one who gave up the whole planet to The Combine? Wasn’t he the guy in charge when the Black Mesa incident happened? I know… I was there. I was a security guard at Black Mesa. Heck, maybe you’ve even heard of me by now. My name’s Barney Calhoun. I was just doing my job, but I overheard some interesting things while I was there. Kind of interesting when you have security clearance…everyone thinks you’re not even listening when you’re in the room. Funny, the kinds of things you can hear. It seems to me that twelve years ago, I heard Dr. Breen here actually planning the invasion. Heck, he was behind the whole thing! But God help me, I kept my mouth shut, and look where we are now!”

Upon Calhoun’s saying this, the crowd began to murmur with excitement, and now with an intense rage and fury in his voice Breen exclaimed, “No! It can’t be that blundering idiot Barney Calhoun, can it? Don’t listen to him! He only wants to disrupt everything we’ve worked for…For God’s sake, won’t someone kill him?!” Ian watched as more and more cops began moving towards Calhoun’s barricade…but he dared not shoot at them…they were intermixing with the crowd, and he couldn’t get a good shot.

Ian then remembered that there would be many rebels in the square carrying small arms under their clothes…he just hoped that they would be able to act in time in order to stop the cops from getting to Calhoun. In the meantime, Barney continued his dialogue.

“Your leader has been lying to you,” Calhoun insisted, balling his gloved hand into a fist. “The Combine doesn’t want us as equals! Are you kidding me? They want to do the same thing to Earth as they did to Xen. Believe me guys, Xen ain’t too pretty. Heck, just months from now they were going to blow the whole thing up into tiny pieces, after they had stolen all our air and water, of course. So where does that leave us? Heck, I don’t know, but we sure as Hell ain’t going to be some ‘master race among the stars’, as Breen wants us to believe. Do you know what happens in The Citadel, folks? Do you know what they do to those prisoners? I’ve seen it; they’re stripping people down, removing all their organs and turning them into slaves! If we don’t do something now, we’ll all end up like that…and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to just sit around and wait to be turned into some walking skeleton slave!”

The crowd began to get very riled up. Ian could even hear some people who obviously members of the resistance shouting, “I’ve seen it too! I’ve been there!” It was working. No doubt many of the citizens had heard rumors of the terrible things that go on in The Citadel. They were tired of being lied to, tired of hearing Breen’s hollow dreams repeated over and over.

Still, the metro cops drew closer to Calhoun, and some people were beginning to notice the dead soldiers. Ian’s finger itched on the trigger as he followed the squad of cops as they shoved over citizens and charged up very near to the barricade.
 
Barney had to finish quickly, or everything would break down. “We don’t have to live like this!” Calhoun insisted, looking well aware of the metro cops who were beginning to come up the steps of the barricade. “We don’t have to be poor, or live in fear of each other or the outside! We don’t have to worry about laws put onto us by some cheap alien politicians! Look, I know a man who’s never even felt the oppression of The Combine. I know the man who stood up against then in the first place and won. The one free man among us all… I know Gordon Freeman! Don’t listen to what Breen has to say about Freeman. He’s a regular guy just like you and me…but he’s got integrity, he’s got courage. In spite of what Breen says, I can guarantee you that right now, old Gordon is at Nova Prospekt, rescuing Eli Vance and freeing all of its prisoners! Soon, we’ll hear from him again, and he’ll be back here fighting with us! Freeman will help us take down the entire Combine…it’s his destiny. The one free man will free us all.”

At this point the entire crowd was nearing a level of uproar, both simultaneously realizing that the elite troops had been killed and that Gordon Freeman was going to free the prisoners of Nova Prospekt, which was long regarded as an impregnable fortress. At the same time, the metro cops had made it up the steps of the barricade with their stun sticks drawn in glowing heat, advancing towards Calhoun.

Seeing this, the other guards on the barricade, (who were members of the Resistance themselves,) advanced towards the metro cops, and took off their gasmasks, revealing their human features and inciting a near riot from the crowds. As they did this, the opposing guards began shoving at each other like linebackers, and one Combine metro cop even fell off of the barricade onto the crowd below.

Somehow, within all this chaos, Barney retained the order to continue, “Don’t let Breen have his way! These Xenians out there aren’t here to destroy us; they’re here to liberate us! Breen is only afraid of losing his own power. He doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t care about your jobs, and he doesn’t care about your families. These rebels here were just trying to keep their families fed and try to maintain just a little bit of freedom in their lives. Should they really be executed for that? Are they really that dangerous? Folks…when we’ve gotten to public executions, the Combine’s gotten too far. Let’s make sure that this is as far as they get. Let’s not just sit around and take their abuse! Let’s rise up and start our own human nation again! Breen, you better count your days, because the revolution starts tonight!”

When he had said this, practically yelling to be heard over the crowd, Calhoun raised his gloved fist into the air; which apparently was the signal for the rebels to pull out their weapons and begin open killing of metro cops. The police that were attempting to storm Calhoun’s barricade were now pushed back by the rebels on it and were forced to retreat back into the crowd. At the same time, the rebels on the barricades pulled out their pistols and submachine guns and began firing at the retreating Combine officers, killing several of them. The Revolution had begun.

“Stop!” Dr. Breen screamed, holding his hands up in front of the Breenscreen. “Don’t you see what you’re doing? Maintain order! We must remain united! You can’t do this…our benefactors…just think about them!” But from somewhere in the crowd, someone fired their pistol at the main Breenscreen, and caused it to shatter; garbling the signals and making Breen’s face nothing but a repeating frame within static.

Within these few seconds, Ian’s radio came back on, and Harper ordered through the static, “Everything’s going as planned. I want all of the snipers to maintain cover fire for the rebels on the ground until all of the officers are cleared out. Fire at will, taking care not to hit any citizens…your number one goal will be to protect the rebels on the execution grandstand until they’re released. After things start to quiet down, evacuate your sniper positions and get back to ground level so we can begin the first attack. Good luck, my friends.” Ian didn’t have the time to respond to these orders; he was too busy observing the chaos below through his sniper rifle’s scope.

It seemed like utter anarchy below, with unarmed citizens running around and taking cover from the massive firefight between the metro cops, the Combine soldiers, and the rebels. Ian could see that many of the rebels were concentrated around either the barricades or the grandstand. He decided that the first action he should take would be to follow Harper’s orders and help the rebels protect the grandstand.

So, Ian swiveled his rifle towards the wooden stand on which rebels were frantically trying to unlock the chains of the rebels who were about to be executed, and who were defending it with small arms fire against a small group of Combine elite soldiers who had somehow managed to survive and who were peppering away at them from the protection of the low walls around the horse statue in the center of the main square.

The rebels were badly in need of help, as the Combine soldiers had far superior weaponry and training and in spite of being fired upon, they were advancing quickly towards the grandstand, their pulse rifles glowing light blue as they fired plasma shells at the rebels. Ian focused his scope on one of the lead elite troops, dressed in all white and blasting away at the rebels with the rapid automatic fire of his pulse rifle.

Ian aimed for the glowing red bionic “eye” on the elite troop’s gas mask and fired. However, his hand slipped on the gun and caused him to misfire, his bullet springing wildly off course and hitting the soldier in the left leg. As Ian regained control of his rifle, he noticed that the soldier was now on the ground clutching his left leg, which was now stained with the red of his blood.

Ian told himself that he needed to get a grip and remain calm…his shots needed to fly true. In this hesitation, the elite Combine troop managed to pull himself back up and limped back behind the cover of the low walls in the center of the square. From there he ordered his comrades to continue advancing towards the grandstand.

Ian shook his hesitation and nervousness off, and regained his aim. At least he had wounded one of them. He moved his sights over to the new leader of the Combine squad and fired upon him, instantly downing him. However, when he had done this, the rest of the troops knew something was sniping them from above, so they quickly spread out and took cover, rendering Ian’s sniper fire useless.

Unfortunately, it appeared that one of them had spotted the muzzle flash from Ian’s weapon, and to Ian’s horror, the soldier pointed up in his direction; signaling for the others to abandon their assault on the grandstand and take out the Ian, a target they considered more dangerous.

In the meantime, Breen continued to yell over the crowd from his remaining Breenscreens, “Have you all lost your minds? All that this will bring you is bloodshed! I have no more sympathy for you, and I will start launching artillery if you do not stand down immediately!” However, so much chaos and anarchy was now erupting in the square that nobody, not even the unarmed citizens were willing to simply stop and become passive at the risk of getting shot by someone on the other side. As a matter of fact, many of the unarmed citizens who had not yet gained a weapon from a rebel were now picking up whatever they could find and using them as somewhat ineffective bludgeoning devices against the Combine troops: an action they had no doubt wanted to take their entire lives.

Ian attempted to fire upon the Combine troop who had pointed him out to the others, but as he pulled the trigger, he heard nothing but a heart-stopping click. He was out of ammo. As Ian hurriedly fumbled around for a magazine of ammo to place back in his sniper rifle, the elite troops who had spotted him began to fire upon his position, causing plasma shells to fly past him into the wooden window frame. Splinters flew all around him, and Ian ducked down beneath the window to avoid getting hit, debris flying all around him.

Frantically as bullets whizzed past him, Ian crawled prone on the ground with the sniper rifle in his hand, reaching up towards the ammo crate in desperation. It was about that time that he realized that his sniper rifle wasn’t going to do him much good if the Combine was already firing on his position…he would have to find a better method of eliminating them.

Bullets flew in a blue trail through the window and struck the cheap couches and the beige plaster walls, sending dust flying as a cloud through the air. Ian pulled himself up to a sitting position, placing his back against the plaster wall next to the window from which a steady stream of plasma fire was coming. He breathed heavily, and could feel numbness throughout his body caused by the extreme amounts of adrenaline in his bloodstream.

Just to remain loaded, Ian grabbed a magazine from one of the ammo boxes, and jammed it into the sniper rifle, even though it would be useless to him. Then, he picked up the submachine gun that had been provided for him, and made sure it was loaded. He was going to have to open the window on the other side of his position and fire at the Combine troops from there. He just hoped he would be fast enough to eliminate them.

As Ian stood up to move to the other window, there was a sudden lull in the plasma fire through his window, an unusual and somewhat frightening event. As there was a sudden silence around the nearly destroyed window frame, Ian heard one of the Combine troops below mumble something unintelligible through his gasmask. Suddenly, just milliseconds after the troop mumbled, a small cylindrical object that glowed with a red light flew into the room from the street below, beeping with a strange electronic noise.

Ian knew instantly that it was a grenade. Acting on pure instinct, Ian leaped to the left to gain cover behind the low row of tile kitchen cabinets. Then, he slammed into the white tile floor just as the grenade exploded with a massive sound and an amazing cloud of smoke and fire, sending shrapnel through the air, and knocking pots and pans from the kitchen cabinets onto Ian, and exploding much of the ammunition that was stored in the room, sending it flying about in ricocheting chaos.

Somehow, in the midst of this explosion that Ian thought would surely kill him, he survived. Brushing himself off and removing an iron skillet which had fallen on his back, Ian regained his composure, and looked out towards his previous sniper position, which was now scorched and burning in some parts.

Disoriented and partially deaf, Ian stumbled into the rubble and had only one thing on his mind: he had to get out of that room before The Combine decided to lob another grenade into the room. Amidst the broken glass of the window, Ian could see the radio, somehow undamaged. In a few seconds, his hearing came back as if someone had simply turned up the volume in his brain, and he was consciously aware of the voice of Colonel Harper coming through the radio.


“Ian? Ian Olbowski? Can you hear me, Ian? We picked up an explosion at your location! Do you need assistance, Olbowski?” Barely able to maintain direction, Ian stumbled to the floor and picked up the radio and pressed it against his face. Practically screaming he replied, “Harper! Some elites stormed my position and they’re lobbing grenades! I need help now or they’ll kill me!” There was a heart stopping delay of three seconds, and then Harper replied, “Alright Ian, provide us with some cover fire from that window, and I’ll have a squad assist you. Also, I’ll have Tonya provide you with sniper cover. Just hang in there Ian, we’re coming for you!”

Moving farther away from the window, Ian yelled into the radio, “Where are you Harper? I don’t think I’ll be able to survive in here much longer if they decide to throw more grenades at me!” Ian heard more mumbling amidst the gunfight outside, and then Harper responded, “I’m on the East barricade Ian! Just hang on and show those bastards what you’re made of!”

Ian knew he was right. He couldn’t just sit there like a child waiting to die. He knew what he would be getting into when he joined The Resistance. This was his glory time; this was his reward for the years of oppression. If for nothing he should be pressed on only for that cause. Then, he dropped the radio onto the scorched ground, and took his submachine gun in hand. It was time to face his destiny.

Ian pressed his back against the scorched wall next to the blown out window, and then spun around, bringing his gun to bear on the outside. Once he had done this, Ian had a much larger view of the chaos than before now that he was seeing it through a much larger viewing area with his naked eyes.
 
The fighting was extreme in the square, with individual hand-to hand combat raging near the center and firefights going on at every barricade. In the distance, Ian could also see the lanky figures of striders bounding through the streets towards the square to stultify the rebellion.

Most importantly, Ian now had a good view of the dozen or so elite troops who had dug themselves in around the very building that he was standing in, making sure that he was dead. Not giving them a chance to contemplate his appearance, Ian yelled a battle cry and fired his weapon wildly at the nearest Combine soldier on the ground, hitting him twice and severely wounding him.

The other troops screamed tactical commands and began strafing to avoid Ian’s wild fire. He, however, didn’t even pay attention to their tactical movements, and continued spraying bullets at them, his hands vibrating with the recoil of his small submachine gun. It was as if he had lost his humanity, and all that was left was aggression and insanity.

Just before the Combine troops could continue to fire at him, Ian strafed to the other side of the window and pressed his back against the wall for cover. Suppressive Combine plasma fire then streamed into the window and chipped the ceiling and what remained of the window into pieces. Silently, Ian prayed that Harper would arrive soon.

Once the fire had lulled, Ian quickly leaned out of the window to fire at the Combine troops again. He was able to neutralize another one of them who was distracted by the fire of a single rebel across the square, but then noticed with horror that another troop had readied a grenade and was holding it above his head.

Ian attempted to fire on this troop as well, but it was too late…he was too far away. However, just in the nick of time, Ian heard the un-muffled shot of a rifle just a few floors below him, and the soldier who was holding the grenade fell dead to the ground. He had been sniped by Tonya, Ian was sure.

Almost as soon as the soldier with the grenade had fallen, the other soldiers realized the implications of his death, and immediately began to run away from his body. However, the soldier had fallen bit too late, and the grenade exploded where he had dropped it, making a flash of light, a pop of an explosion, and a cloud of smoke and shrapnel.

The six or so Combine soldiers who were standing near this explosion flew into the air, and were ripped to shreds by the flying metal shrapnel from the explosion, killing or severely wounding all of them. Before the surviving troops could open fire on him, Ian turned back into the room and placed his back against the shredded plaster wall next to the window.

He couldn’t believe how lucky he had been… if that elite soldier had thrown the grenade…he didn’t know where he would be. Luckily, Tonya had somehow saved him just in time, and in the process took out the majority of the Combine troops who proved to be a threat. He was incredibly grateful to have his cousin to watch his back in this time of war.

Refreshed and feeling more confident, Ian turned back out towards the open window and began firing upon the surviving Combine elites with a rain of bullets from his small submachine gun. Even now, Ian could sense fear in the Combine troops, who were now being fired upon by both Ian on the top floor and Tonya, who barraged them with sniper fire from a couple of floors below.

The troops decided that Ian wasn’t such a great target after all, and began their retreat, hiding behind the decimated hulks of cars which sat like ancient relics on the cobblestone street. As Ian fired at the retreating elite troops dressed in white he silently declared victory in his head. Then, just when the squad was about to get away, a large group of rebels dressed in the blue jumpsuits of citizens but also sporting the bullet proof vests of metro cops descended upon them from the center of the square, firing at them with submachine guns and captured pulse rifles.

As the last of the elites fell, Ian could see that this squad which came to his rescue was headed by none other than Colonel Harper, who was moving like a professional through the battlefield, taking what cover he could and firing at any Combine troops that he could see. Ian looked upon Harper with somewhat of an air of awe…he seemed to have such power and fierceness which Ian could never hope to have.

Once the last elites had been dispatched by Harper’s unit, Ian was able to freely observe the battle around him. It seemed that the initial fighting was winding down, and most of the Combine soldiers and cops had already been killed, with some miniscule pockets holding out in isolated towers and in front of a few buildings. Otherwise, the square seemed mostly as a wasteland by now, with most of the buildings chewed up by bullet fire, and with dead bodies littering the cobblestone sidewalks and inciting a tragic air of death about the place.

The prisoners on the grandstand had thankfully survived, partially thanks to Ian’s sniper fire and distraction of the squad of elites. They were now all unchained, and were receiving weapons from the Resistance so that they could join the fray and help out the rebel cause. Overall, it appeared that the first battle of The Revolution had been a victory. However, there were probably going to be serious repercussions in the near future…Ian knew that they had a hard battle ahead of them. The war was far from over.

After a few seconds, Harper’s squad had battled their way across the square and stationed themselves under the shadow of Ian’s building, taking cover behind abandoned cars and market stands. Harper, who was wearing a green jacket under his metro cop vest, and who sported a knitted green beanie on his head, carried a Combine pulse rifle. He moved cautiously up to the building and then called out to Ian several stories up.

“Ian, it looks like we got here just in time! I hope you’re alright!” Ian yelled back, “Well, I have to thank Tonya for covering me. I think I made it out of that without a scratch! It looks like we’re winning, doesn’t it, Harper?” The colonel looked out over the chaos and replied, “Yeah, I think we might actually win this one! I’d say we converted almost all of the citizens…it’s a shame that so many of them had to die here…” He faded off and then continued yelling, “We’re about to start the first attack push in the direction of The Citadel! I’m going to need as many men as I can get, so I’m going to need you to come down from there and join your squad for the assault! Here, we really don’t have time to wait for you to come down through the building, so one of my guys here has a ladder!”

Harper made a hand motion, and two men came out from behind one of the cars carrying a long metal ladder and running as fast as they could towards harper. As they did this, Ian looked out over the square. Harper was right. This attack would have to come quickly, before The Combine decided to shell the square and before any heavy vehicles such as striders started to appear in the battle scene… and he could swear that he could hear the footfalls of the massive striders in the distance.

So, Ian grabbed as much equipment as he could find, and strapped it onto his back in a backpack that was provided for him, and he strapped the sniper rifle to this backpack as well. Then, he moved back to the window to climb down the ladder that Harper’s squad was providing for him.

However, just when Ian got back to the window, one of the members of Harper’s squad began screaming and pointing towards the sky, “Look sir! The Citadel…they’re shelling us!” Feeling a rush of fear, Ian shot his look skyward towards the ominous citadel in the distance, and saw with horror that a streak of red comet-like bodies was arcing from the Citadel towards the square, whistling in the air with the classic sound of a bomb dropping from an airplane.

“Take cover!” Harper screamed, abandoning Ian’s ladder and forcing him to stabilize it against the window himself. With absolute terror, Ian looked skyward again, well aware of the death which was streaking towards them at extreme speeds.

They were too late…the real war had finally begun.
 
Meanwhile, in the dry lakebed, Gordon Freeman was getting ready to face a horde of Antlions that were preparing to pounce on him from all sides. Freeman looked up towards the sky, his face contorted into an expression of horror as he saw the sky turn black from the hundreds of Antlions who leaped simultaneously from the tops of the cliffs into the gorge.

Readying himself, the scientist turned warrior grabbed an oil barrel in the clutches of his gravity gun. Within seconds the Antlions descended on him, converging on his location with their buzzing wings in the sky. Seeing this, Freeman pointed his gravity gun into the air, preparing to blast many of them with the barrel as they swarmed on him.

But then, just as an Antlion came close enough for him to fire upon it, the terrifying creature was blown to the side by a massive green bolt of electricity, sending sparks and yellow-green blood flying into the air, and nearly causing the Antlion to explode from the electrical force.

Utterly surprised and confused, Freeman turned his gaze towards the source of the incredible electrical blast, and saw what he originally had assumed to be a part of the cliff face was actually a hidden door, and it was now open. Out of this door came dozens of strange green hunch-backed creatures with three arms and singular red eyes. Gordon instantly recognized these creatures as Vortigaunts, whom he had known to be the cheap, weak slave-soldiers of the Xenian army whom had invaded Black Mesa, and who had killed many of his comrades in 1998.

The squad of Vortigaunts let out a rain of electrical energy, blasting and killing several of the Antlions in midair as they pounced towards Freeman. Within no time at all, the Antlions recognized the Vortigaunts as being a much greater threat than Gordon, and they abandoned him and began an assault on the dozen or so little aliens who constantly suppressed them with extremely powerful electrical blasts from their each of the creatures’ two main arms.

Gordon knew that the Vortigaunts had abandoned their aggressive ways and had joined the human cause against The Combine, but he had never actually seen them actively helping him. It was an emotional sight to say the least, to see these creatures who though once great enemies were saving his life in a beautiful light show of electricity.

Within a few minutes, the Vortigaunts had easily overcome the weak and desperate Antlions, and had caused them to retreat back to their layer. In the meantime, Freeman merely stood there awestruck with the barrel still in the grasp of his gravity gun. As he saw that the Antlions were retreating and their only traces that remained in the gorge were their smoking carcasses, he dropped the barrel with his gravity gun and walked towards the Vortigaunts, grateful and ready to meet them.

One of the Vortigaunts who was nearest to Freeman looked around for any remaining Antlions with his single red eye, and then loped in its characteristic, hump-backed manner towards Gordon. Once they had reached each other, the Vortigaunt addressed Dr. Freeman, “You are the Freeman! I am eternally enthusiastic that we were able to save you from the evil Antlions. We heard of your arrival from allies of The Eli Vance that live with us here in our oasis among the sands. I am Noth’Greshal, and I am most humbled by your presence, the legendary Freeman: vanquisher of the Nihilith, and our true eternal leader!”

Dr. Freeman was astounded and abashed that he would receive such a heartfelt and groveling welcome from these creatures…and they called him “The Freeman” too, like some kind of superhero. Did they really see him as their leader, when he had nearly destroyed their homeland and killed many of them during the invasion? Could they truly forgive him for something like that? In any case he was grateful that they saved him and he replied, “Thank you so much for saving me! They nearly had me there; I thought for sure I was going to die.”

The Vortigaunt made a strange hissing noise which Gordon soon learned was Vortigaunt laughter, and then replied, “The Freeman, we can guarantee that you were in no danger during that encounter. We do apologize for not coming out to help you sooner, but we had to watch to make sure that the legends were true, and that you were the all powerful being who would finally liberate us. You proved that to us here. You killed their leader, this Antlion Guard. He controls them like a slave master, and once you had killed him the Antlions were nothing but ravenous beasts of instinct. We knew then that you were The Freeman, the one that we speak of in our dreams and who we feel within the void. No great warrior has ever defeated an Antlion Guard single handedly before…and you have killed it with a single blow! The Freeman has shown us the way, and has provided us now with a valuable resource. Come here and I shall show you the secret of the Antlion Guard.”

The Vortigaunt scuttled over to the carcass of the dead Antlion that Gordon had killed with the harpoon earlier. Intrigued by the Vortigaunt’s actions, Gordon moved nearer to him to observe whatever it was he was doing to the gigantic insect. Once the Vortigaunt reached the corpse, he tilted his head back and spread his arms out wide in some kind of strange ritual, groaning and gurgling with strange alien noises.

Freeman lifted an eyebrow at this utterly weird sight, and just before he could ask the creature what it was doing, the Vortigaunt yelled out and thrust its arms out towards the dead Antlion, sending a huge blue electric spark towards it, melting its belly with sheer heat.

Gordon nearly vomited from the smell of the open organs of the beast, yet he still kept his gaze on the scene, trying to determine what the Vortigaunt was trying to accomplish. From the open spot in the carapace of the dead Antlion, millions of disgusting black softball sized spheres poured onto the ground in a heap of slime and filth.

Apparently, these spheres were the objects that the Vortigaunt was after, because the hunchbacked alien squealed with glee, and scooped several of the disgusting objects up in his three arms and went back to Freeman with enthusiasm.

“These,” the Vortigaunt exclaimed, holding out the disgusting slimy objects, “are pheromone spores…they are what give the Antlion Guard his power! Our human allies affectionately call it ‘bug bait.’ Antlions cannot see, for their eyes are terrible and are only capable of sensing areas of light and dark and slight movement. Therefore, the beasts must smell their way around the world, like the ants of this planet. These spores store the pheromones of the Ant Lion guard. If you spread the pheromones over your body, the Antlions will be fooled into thinking you are their leader. They will not attack you, and will even obey orders that you give to them! To give Antlions an order, you must throw one of these pods towards your enemies, and they will swarm and kill your target.”

As Gordon heard this explanation, he became more and more attracted to the disgusting spores. To command Antlions rather than fight them…this would be a more powerful weapon that he could ever imagine. He wondered why he hadn’t heard of this before.

“So are you saying that if I have enough of these, I could use the Antlions as my own personal little army?” The Vortigaunt nodded and replied, “The Freeman is correct in assuming as such. We sense that The Freeman will be able to attack Nova Prospekt far more easily with the use of Antlions. We have heard of The Freeman’s plan to rescue The Eli Vance, and we find it most admirable. If you would follow me into the village, we will teach The Freeman the use of the pheromones.”

The Vortigaunt beckoned Gordon with his third hand, and he had no choice but to follow the strange alien creature towards his village. The other Vortigaunts dispelled, and followed Freeman and the lead Vortigaunt towards the door on the cliff face that opened into their base.

Once they had passed through the large, rusted iron doors, the lead Vortigaunt spoke again, “The Freeman, we have secured your dune buggy and the equipment contained within and have brought it into our village. However, we believe that we have a more efficient method of travel set up for you which will decrease your travel time to the most miniscule amounts…”

Gordon wondered what he was trying to say by this and asked, “What do you mean by ‘a more efficient method of travel’?” The Vortigaunt hissed again and continued, “Of course, we Vortigaunts have long possessed a biological method of teleportation superior to the technological teleportation of our human counterparts. We may easily teleport The Freeman to the outskirts of Nova Prospekt, but not inside, for the evil ones have set up a dampening field around their base to prevent hostile teleportation. But first, we must train The Freeman in the use of the pheromone spores; with his permission of course.”

Freeman stroked his goatee with his gloved hand. So The Vortigaunts had indeed developed a biological means of teleportation. He was well aware of this ability, as Vortigaunts had constantly teleported into Black Mesa at the most inconvenient times, usually in a pattern that would block him in a corner, or cause him to become entrapped in a corridor. He had always thought that this ability was technological and not biological however…so it interested him in how the Vortigaunts could have possibly developed such ability.

“Alright then,” Gordon concluded, “Why don’t we get started?” The Vortigaunt beckoned him once again, and the two of them moved along a dark stone passageway directly behind the village doorway. Gordon wondered how long it had taken the Vortigaunts to construct this village of theirs, and how long they had been living there. It was a wonder that an entire society of aliens could be living in the harsh conditions outside of the Combine protection cities.

After they had passed through this passageway, they came to another door, and this one had an electronic pad next to it. The Vortigaunt placed his hand next to the pad, and a blue spark erupted from his fingers, registering on the electronic pad and unlocking the door. Then, the Vortigaunt opened the door with his third arm and allowed both he and Freeman to enter into the village.

Gordon immediately saw a huge contrast between the narrow, dark entrance passageway and the gigantic, nicely lit rocky interior of the Vortigaunt village. Upon entering, Gordon turned his head upward and observed the intricate quality of the Vortigaunt settlement.

Within the rock were carved three stories of living space, with hexagonal doors and strange hexagonal alien patterns carved directly into the rock face. There were two huge openings in the ceiling from which light streamed into the secluded caves, and there were several torches alight all around the facility. Gordon could also see several hundred Vortigaunts crowding around on the cliff face, and speaking in their strange Xenian language on the ground floor. Also, on the ground floor flowed a small stream which received its water from a nearby spring, and from which several Xenian plants survived in all their alien strangeness. In addition to the many Vortigaunts in the area, there were also some human visitors, who stood and talked with Vortigaunt dignitaries: buying, selling and trading items that were of value of both species. These humans appeared to be freemen, not associated with any Combine city and living freely in the alien wilderness outside of the Combine protection cities.

Gordon was instantly awestruck by the scene and simply stood there observing it all. He could not have known of any stranger circumstance than this…an entire Vortigaunt society living on the fringes of the wilderness and trading with human beings who lived free in spite of overbearing Combine influence. It was amazingly beautiful.
 
As Freeman entered the village, it seemed as if all activity stopped completely. The Vortigaunts ceased their work, and stared at the strange human dressed in an orange plastic HEV suit, standing out like a sore thumb among the drab rocks of the village. The Vortigaunt who had led him into the village called out into the echoing cavern, “The prophecy was true! The Freeman has returned to liberate us! He is here, standing next to me. We must give him food and rest, for this day he will go to Nova Prospekt to free our brothers from imprisonment, and to rescue the Eli Vance. Outside he has defeated an Ant Lion Guard, and I have harvested the pheromone pods for his use on his assault on Nova Prospekt. We now must train him in the use of these pheromones.”

The Vortigaunts seemed to be excited by this development, and many of them shouted something in a strange alien language, and one of them yelled in English, “Long live The Freeman!” Gordon was again abashed at receiving such praise from the alien villagers, and he simply waved like a celebrity to a group of rabid fans. Then, the lead Vortigaunt beckoned for Freeman to follow him, and Gordon was forced to follow him into the interior of the Village, with the others watching and pointing at him like some kind of God returning to Earth.

As they passed through, Gordon came near a group of the freeman humans, who called out to him, “Hey, Dr. Gordon Freeman! We’ve been hearing a lot about you recently. Is it true that you’ve come to free us from The Combine?” Freeman hesitantly responded, “Uh, I’m not exactly sure why I’m here…but I guess since everyone expects me to save them that I’ll do the best I can to do what you expect of me…I’m just a regular guy really…” Gordon, in his attempt to be humble, merely caused the others to praise him more, “Freeman, you give us such inspiration,” he said, “even though we aren’t a part of any cities…it still is a hell of a time avoiding Combine patrols out here…they’ve just taken the world and raped it. Good Luck Dr. Freeman, we’ll be rooting for you. Hell, when we get out of here, we’re all going to join the Resistance effort in City 17. I would even live in a city with those bastards if I could just take a shot at them. And I guess now is a better time than any, huh?”

Gordon nodded and concluded, “Yeah, thanks for your support. I wish you luck in whatever you can do to stop The Combine. If we all do what we can, we’ll bring them down in no time.” One of the humans continued, “So I hear you’re training with bug bait? Man, I wish I had gotten some of that out there…you have no idea how tough it is to live out there when Antlions are eating everything and everyone they can find. It kind of even makes you wish you lived with the protection of one of the Combine cities… But I have kids, and a future… If you live in a city you’ve got no future. That’s why I choose to live out here.”

It was a wonder that so many could be surviving in the wilderness of the Xenian-infested Earth. Gordon imagined what it would be like…no doubt people would have to revert to their savage roots to stay alive amidst the horrifying Xenian creatures and the ruthless Combine patrols.

So, after he had spoken to the group of freemen, Gordon bid them farewell and continued along with the lead Vortigaunt through the bustling Vortigaunt village, with the hundreds of Vortigaunts and their children looking upon Dr. Freeman with the utmost admiration, some even reaching out to touch his bulky HEV suit as if wishing to receive some sort of blessing.

When Gordon had killed the Nihilanth, it had been purely out of necessity. He was fighting for his life, and trying to stop the Xenian invasion. He had no idea of the implications that its slaying would have on his future or the future of the Vortigaunts. But now, it was as if he was being treated as a god by these aliens and as some kind of savior and hero by all of humankind. It was an enormous, awkward pressure to be put on Gordon; he was almost obligated to liberate them all and be their own personal messiah. But maybe…maybe that was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe that was what the man in the suit had seen in him back in 1998, that he was destined to be a hero.

The lead Vortigaunt turned back to Freeman with his one eye and said, “We apologize to The Freeman for the awkwardness this must place upon him…normally we are not like this…but we are desperate. The Xenian Army has not accepted us, because we did not want to live under the Controllers- the descendants of the Nihilanth himself. Instead we chose to live a secluded life in the wilderness, worshiping the legend of The Freeman and assisting the humans in any way that we can. Naturally we have become…insane with the lust for your legend. I hope that we are not frightening The Freeman too much…”

Gordon was feeling awkward, but not at all frightened. Humbly he replied, “Not at all. I’m grateful for your hospitality, and I’m willing to try my best to serve your legend.” They passed through a grove of Xenian plant life, and finally came to their destination.

They were now in a secluded cave, well away from the main courtyard, and Freeman was able to see a metal cage at one end of the cave. In the cage were stored two very anxious and agitated Antlions, who were screeching and chewing at the bars as two Vortigaunts stood guard. Next to the cage was a wooden pole which stuck out of the ground and had the empty uniform of a Combine soldier staked to it with an iron nail.

“This,” explained the Vortigaunt “is the training ground which we have hastily prepared for use with the pheromone spores. These Antlions we have captured specifically for this purpose. They will not harm you if you use the pheromones correctly. Here, I shall give The Freeman my stock.”

The Vortigaunt took a sack off of a rack on the stone wall and in it he placed the bug bait which he had collected in the gorge. He handed the sack to Freeman and continued, “Pull one of the spores out of the sack and I shall teach you how to use them.”

Hesitantly, Gordon reached into the leather sack and pulled out one of the slimy, pulsating spores with his gloved hand. The spore had the consistency, size and shape of a peeled orange, containing many silvery sections surrounded by a slimy black coating. It pulsated slightly in his hand, proving that it was indeed a living being.

“All that you have to do to surround yourself in pheromones is lightly squeeze the spore,” The Vortigaunt explained, pointing towards the spore with his bony green fingers. “Before we begin, I would advise The Freeman to do this now.”

Heeding his advice, Gordon squeezed the spore, and it made a strange squeaking noise, releasing a black cloud of foul smelling gas into the air around him. The Antlions in the cage immediately stopped screeching and chewing at the bars and suddenly stood at attention, watching Gordon like willing soldiers.

The Vortigaunt hissed with laughter and continued, “Does the Freeman see now? You and all of us in the room are now protected by the smell of the pheromones.” The Vortigaunt clapped his hands together, and then addressed the others, “You two, release the Antlions now!” Suddenly after he had said this, the Vortigaunts pressed a button on the wall, and the cage opened, allowing the Antlions to rush out of it.

Gordon was initially terrified, and thought of running away as the Antlions ran towards him at amazing speeds…but then, they merely stopped right next to him and made a calming purring noise. “You see?” The Vortigaunt hissed, “They are your slaves now! They will follow you wherever you go. Try it now, just run around this room and they will follow you.”

Freeman simply shrugged and began to run randomly about the room as the Antlions followed along at his same speed and made purring noises. It was a very strange feeling, to have such hideous and dangerous creatures following you about like common house pets.

All the while the Vortigaunt hissed and clapped, and then continued on, “Now the Freeman, there is a very important feature which I must introduce to you. When you throw your pheromones, rather than squeezing them, you can get the Antlions to go into a mad rage, attacking anything near the pheromone that you threw. Try it now; throw it at that Combine soldier uniform over there.” The Vortigaunt pointed his bony claw towards the decoy Combine scarecrow on the wooden post.

So, seeing nothing else to do, Gordon tossed his bug bait towards the Combine uniform like a baseball, causing it to explode into a cloud of noxious gas on the ground around the post. Instantly, the two Antlions screeched and pounced on the uniform with an immense force, ripping it from the post and tearing it to shreds on the ground.

The Vortigaunt hissed again with laughter and then continued, “Excellent! The Freeman learns well! You can use these pheromones to help you in your assault on Nova Prospekt. Don’t worry about having a supply of Antlions or Pheromones. The existing spores in the sack will reproduce at an amazing rate, and you may have to get rid of them faster than you can throw them. As for the Antlions themselves, they have formed a colony near the realm of the evil ones, and they try to keep the Antlions away with their terrible thumper machines. You should be able to disable the thumpers and send the Antlions against them like an army of your own.”

It made sense that the Combine would build a prison near a huge population of Antlions…it provided extra protection against escapees…it would be the perfect thing to detract from escape, since you would go from the protection of the prison walls into the jaws of giant social insects.

“Thank you again for your hospitality,” Gordon replied, “I don’t know where I would be without your help. I could be lying dead in the gorge now…” The Vortigaunt hissed and replied, “Oh, do not thank us, The Freeman…we are eternally grateful for the work that you have done and are yet to do for us. We will eternally sense you in the void…you are part of us and one with our goals. The greatest Vortigaunt poets will describe your heroism for a thousand years!”

The Vortigaunt then led Gordon back into the main courtyard, where almost every Vortigaunt in the village had gathered to send Freeman off to Nova Prospekt. They were gathered in a circle around a large stone, and the lead Vortigaunt directed freeman to stand in front of this stone, so that the teleportation ritual could take place.

Then, another Vortigaunt from the crowd came up to the rock and handed Freeman a green messenger bag that was made of olive drab denim. “These are the objects of value that we found in your vehicle, The Freeman. We hope that they will be of use to you.” The Vortigaunt explained, moving back into the crowd. Gordon thanked him, and then waited for the ritual to continue.

He didn’t quite know what to expect from the Vortigaunt’s teleportation ritual, and in fact he was a little worried about the safety of such a procedure. However, the Vortigaunts seemed eager and confident in this ancient art, and the lead Vortigaunt held his hand in the air to begin the ritual.

Immediately, the entire congregation of Vortigaunts closed their eyes and began humming in strange alien tones, chanting in words that no human being could ever hope to pronounce. At First Gordon merely felt awkward and out of place, and felt absolutely nothing at all, but then, his body began to tingle… electricity began to visibly flow from the hands of the Vortigaunts into his suit…but surprisingly it didn’t hurt at all, but simply gave him a strange tingling feeling.

Then, there was a flash of light, and Gordon disappeared into the void.

-Chapter 48, The Assault-
 
All hail to the chief! you sir are like a king :smoking:
 
I want an audio version of this...I'm much to lazy to read all of this...
 
Great story, didn't reply earlier because I was headed to bed when I saw it a while ago..



Best chapter in a while! I'm more interested in the rebellion other than Gordon, however.
 
Modbrit said:
I want an audio version of this...I'm much to lazy to read all of this...
Click to expand...

Trust me, its worth the read.
 
Well, sorry about the long long delay, and it looks like it could be a little while longer, BF2 and significant female others are taking up all of my time and motivation to write! I will do some writing this weekend though, I may have a chapter ready by sunday.
 
"theother guy" you shouldnt post your work like this...people will steal it or put it on other sites. Start your own site with copyright to be secure!

Send it to Valve to, they will like it!

! and uhm...oh yea: !
 
Ravioli said:
"theother guy" you shouldnt post your work like this...people will steal it or put it on other sites. Start your own site with copyright to be secure!

Send it to Valve to, they will like it!

! and uhm...oh yea: !
Click to expand...


He allready sent it to Valve. And what is to prevent these people who are going to steal his work from stealing it from this site he creates? He allready has a copyright protected (within limits) on the FanFiction site.

Besides with the most extensive and long HL2 fan fiction out there, it's hard to steal it and claim it as yours, everybody knows it's his.
 
otherguy, you said sunday. Sunday damnit! *Raises pitchfork*
 
ehmm... hey, theotherguy, your story is exelent (i can smell a pulizer), but i just have a small... snag. Would you be so nice, to make a conpendium of ALL your chapters? Ihave been away for a while, and its realy tiring to do all this copy-pasting...
Thank you.
Keep it up!
 
Wow, this is great stuff. It's been like forever since I've logged in, but the story has gotten A LOT better since last time I saw it. My personal opinion though is that you should do more of Ian and the revolution and less of Gordon. For some reason whenever the story switches from Ian to Gordon I always find myself losing interest, but when it's about Ian/ The Revolution, I find that I can't take my eyes off the screen. And one other thing: sometimes I have trouble figuring out who's saying what sometimes because there are places where you have about 3 or so people talking in the same paragraph. Officially, you're supposed to change to a new paragraph everytime sometime a different person speaks, but it's up to you; just a tip:p .
Well anyways, great work and keep it up:thumbs:.

Peace out:cool: .
 
Yes, I am aware of that paragraph rule...and it drives my English teachers insane,but I'm just used to having...no paragraph rules at all :rolling: In the final editing phase I will probably re-arrange all of the paragraphs so that they make more sense (which will most likely be done by a professional)

Anyway, after serious delays due to BF2, bandcamp and other things I have finally taken the time to write my chapter...so here it is chapter 48. P.S As for Gordon, he's bound to dissapear for the duration of the book in about 2 chapters...(since he goes through the "slow teleport") and will not appear again until the last chapter of the book.

-Chapter 48, The Assault-

Ian’s pupils expanded as his face contorted in terror. The shell from the Combine artillery fell faster and faster towards the earth, leaving Ian only milliseconds to react. Instinctively, he dropped to the ground, covering his head with his hands to protect himself as best as he possibly could.

Then, as he hit the charred floor of the apartment, the Combine artillery shell slammed into the cobblestone of the main square. Surprisingly, it didn’t make a very large explosion, but simply broke the earth and drove deep into the ground, sending rocks and debris flying all about the square, and kicking up a huge amount of dust where it had hit. Then it simply sat there, its rocket-side end sticking out of the ground. Ian winced, expecting it to explode, but the rocket did no such thing. Could it be a dud?

But then, as all seemed safe, the rocket made a hissing noise, and metal panels in its rear opened up like the petals of the flower, and a metal rod extended out of it. Then, as Ian watched all of this unfold, he could se the silhouette of a terrifying spine legged, spider-like creature scramble up the metal pole and out of the rocket. This was not artillery at all, but ballistic pods that carried headcrabs. The Combine was attempting to kill them with biological warfare.

Next to the headcrab pod laid a man, disoriented from the dust and confusion from the falling pod. The man was slowly getting up, and observing the pod in confusion. Suddenly, the slimy, puke-yellow headcrab jumped off of the pod and landed directly on the man’s forehead, causing him to scream and place his hands up over his head in anguish. There was a slight crunching sound, and the man instantly went limp and fell back onto the cobblestone. Then, with terror Ian realized that dozens of headcrabs were now leaping out of the pod and latching onto the heads of the hapless and disoriented citizens of the square.

As this unfolded, Harper screamed, “Headcrabs! Take them out before they infect us all!” and he began firing towards the pod, suppressing the small four-legged crab creatures from leaping onto the heads of more citizens.

The square instantly fell into utter chaos once more, with citizens panicking and running away from the headcrabs and resistance fighters attempting to kill the beasts as they flew through the air, shrieking with unholy alien noises and attempting to land on the heads of the hapless citizens.

Ian decided it would be best for him to get out of the apartment and aid The Resistance in the battle. So, he got up from the floor and stabilized the silver metal ladder against the side of the decimated window of his apartment, and began to climb down it to the ground below. After climbing for a short time, Ian was soon near enough to the ground to jump off. So, he let go of the ladder, and fell a few feet to the cobblestone below, which was slightly painful, but nothing too bad.

As he did this, Ian heard a loud booming noise from the sky above him. Fearing the worst, Ian looked up towards the Citadel, and saw with terror that it was firing many more headcrab pods directly towards the square. They had to get out of there…they were like sitting ducks in that small area under direct fire from the Citadel at all times.

Attempting to warn the others, Ian screamed, “More shells! Spread out and take cover!” But by now, almost all of the Resistance fighters around him were engaged in attempting to exterminate the restless and small headcrabs, which dodged their shots and terrorized the crowd, as well as the new headcrab zombies which were being formed by the victims of the headcrab attack.

Taking the initiative, Ian decided that he would get his cousin Tonya out of the apartment himself. So, he moved the ladder back carefully, causing it to go lower on the building until it was at Tonya’s floor, scraping against the brick of the building. Then, he moved it over to the appropriate window. Calling out to her he yelled, “Tonya! Get out here quick! Take as much stuff as you can, we’ve got to get out of this square!” Seconds later, Tonya appeared out of the darkness of the apartment at the window, holding her sniper rifle in one hand and carrying a box of ammo in the other.

She replied, “Okay Ian! Here, I’m going to throw down my supplies!” Then, she tossed the box out of the window, and it landed near Ian’s feet. As she did this, Ian glanced up at the artillery shells flying through the air and quickly arcing towards them. They needed to hurry.

As Tonya turned around and began her descent down the ladder, the headcrab artillery pods smashed one by one into the square, killing several as they dug into the ground and kicked up stones and dust into the air. A few blasted into buildings around the square, breaking jagged holes into the bricks and then falling with a massive crash onto the sidewalks below.

“Come on!” Ian insisted, screaming over the booming of the headcrab shells as they dug themselves into the ground all about the square. Tonya climbed downward as quickly as possible, and then finally made it to ground level next to Ian.

As the headcrabs began to fly out of their pods through the air and land on the citizens, Ian yelled, “Alright Tonya, we need to get out of here! Look for anyone that was in our squad before. We need to meet up with them to begin our assault. Our number one priority should be to get out of this square immediately!” Tonya agreed, and she picked up her ammo box and followed him as he pressed into the utter hell of the main square.

Headcrabs now infested the area like a pandemic disease, flying through the air and covering the temples of entire groups of resistance fighters, creating headcrab zombies by the minute. The zombies were far more deadly, and Ian was utterly surprised to see how quickly the citizens were overcome by the infection, turning them into wandering zombies with claw-like hands and chest cavities that were burst open into unnatural and disgusting mouths.

Ian pressed through the chaos, looking in all places for anyone that he recognized. Suddenly, he heard a shriek from inside the crowd, and a yellowish headcrab leaped towards him, its forward limbs outstretched and its mouth gaping. Ian yelled and strafed to the right, firing upon the headcrab with his submachine gun. However, because of the suddenness of the headcrab’s arrival, none of his shots hit it at all, and it sailed just inches away from him and landed on the cobblestone on his left side.

As he was distracted by the headcrab, Tonya noticed something he hadn’t and shouted out in warning, “Ian, look out behind you!” In confusion, Ian turned around in place, ignoring the headcrab to see a crazed citizen with a headcrab firmly latched onto his head lunging towards him and making horrific sounds.

Suddenly, the zombie was blasted from the side by a stream of bullets, and it fell to the ground, writing in pain. Ian looked over to see that the zombie had been downed by Tonya, who stood there with smoke trailing from her submachine gun.

“Thanks,” Ian managed to say. Tonya moved past him and replied, “Don’t mention it; let’s just get moving!” So they continued through the battle, firing upon any headcrabs or zombies that they caught sight of, all of the while looking for any surviving members of their squad.
 
“Thanks,” Ian managed to say. Tonya moved past him and replied, “Don’t mention it; let’s just get moving!” So they continued through the battle, firing upon any headcrabs or zombies that they caught sight of, all of the while looking for any surviving members of their squad.

Ian could see that The Resistance was already being pushed to their limits by the headcrabs, those simple, pint-sized creatures. There was no telling how badly they would begin to lose when larger and more powerful opposition such as striders began showing up in the square. They were bottled up, too concentrated and too unorganized. Ian had to find Harper so that they could arrange an organized assault. Only then would they have a real chance in the initial parts of the battle.

Most of the existing headcrabs in their original state were now either killed or had already found a host, so the battle quickly turned from chaotic blasting at leaping headcrabs into a furious hand-to-hand battle with the zombies. These zombies were now horrifically ripping apart the citizens who were unfortunate enough to be unarmed, and were receiving blasts from nearby Resistance fighters…there were simply too many of them.

Suddenly, Ian could hear the harsh voice of Colonel Harper screaming out orders to his comrades in the fray. In his haste to go off and assist the citizens, Harper had left Ian and Tonya in the dust, and was now near the center of the square with his squad, who were nursing the wounded and holding out against the zombies and headcrabs as best as they could. Ian was also relieved when he saw another recognizable face next to Harper’s: Nikoli Streski, the blonde mechanic, had somehow found a Combine personal infantry machine gun, and had mounted it on one of the low walls at the center of the square, and was mowing down a proliferation of zombies near them.

Ian pressed through the fray, downing a couple of zombies and jumping over the small wall in the center of the square and pressing his back against the pillar that Harper was near. The Colonel noticed him and said loudly, “Ian, you made it! It’s hell out here, isn’t it? I don’t think we’ll be able to hold out much longer just sitting here in the square, it’s just a slaughter! Ian, I want you to take Streski and your cousin and move to the North barricade, there’s a combine force out there and a couple of APCs trying to break in. Yuri and Avery are out there too. You’d be a lot more useful to us out there, anyway. I’ll take my squad out there too as soon as the fighting in here clears up a bit.”

Harper then fired at and killed a nearby zombie, and Ian responded, “Alright Harper; will do. Is there anything else I should know? What do you want me to do after the North barricade is secure?” The Colonel fired a bit more and then responded, “Hold position at the barricade until I arrive, then we’ll push out towards the safe house. If any striders appear, I don’t want you to attempt to fight them, okay? Just run and hide and hit them with RPG’s until we can get some heavier weaponry.”

Ian nodded, “Got it, hold the position, and leave the striders alone. Thanks Harper, good luck to you.” Ian got up and began to get up and head towards the barricade with Tonya, and Harper grunted in reply, “Good luck to you too. Get going.”

So, staying as low as he could under the cover of the stone wall, Ian moved towards Nikoli Streski, who was crouched next to the wall with the bipod of his machine gun mounted on it, firing wildly and letting out a stream of plasma fire. Ian tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped up in alarm, turning around and giving Ian a look as if he was going to kill him on the spot.

“Oh, its just you.” He said in relief, “I was about to kill you, Ian. Don’t do that to me! Where have you been? The others are already at the north barricade, and I was held down here giving supporting fire to Harper’s squad,” he yelled over the sound of the battle around them. Knowing that they were pressed for time, Ian quickly responded, “I was preoccupied by The Combine. Come on Streski, Harper just ordered us to move out to the North barricade to support the rest of our squad. We’re going to have to move out in that direction!” He pointed towards the general direction of the North, where there was a hand-to hand battle between zombies and citizens taking place. There was both alien and human bloodshed, it was utter chaos.

His eyes widening, Nikoli responded skeptically, “You’re expecting us to get through that? Are you nuts? That’s suicide!” At that moment Ian noticed the claws of a headcrab zombie closing in over Streski’s head over his abandoned machinegun post. Reacting quickly, Ian let out a quick burst of fire into the zombie’s head, and it fell limp over Harper, who jumped in surprise and dragged the body off of himself with disgust.

After this short escapade, Ian grabbed Harper by his jacket collar and said insistently into his face, “Look, staying here is suicide! I’m getting out of here, and you’re going to follow me.” Ian said this in order to rile up what courage Streski had left in him, but it didn’t seem to convince even himself…he didn’t know how they were going to survive this battle.

Nikoli threw Ian’s hand off of him and picked up his machine gun retorting, “Alright, then what are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here!” He then stood up and moved towards the north, scaling the small knee-high stone wall in the center of the square. Ian and Tonya followed him, attempting to stay close and not get separated.

The barricade was relatively close by, and Ian could even see the rebels that were standing on top of it and firing rockets and small arms off of it and towards the Combine troops on the other side below. However, so much fighting and chaos was going on between them and the barricade that it made their destination seem as if it was miles away. All the while, more and more headcrab canisters were being fired from the Citadel, and were landing all about the square and releasing their deadly cargo. The situation seemed more and more terrible for The Resistance.

Ian shook off his doubt and continued into the fray. There was no point in standing around and feeling overwhelmed. He had known what they were getting into when they first decided to raise their fists against The Combine…they had all known the true power of the ruthless Combine Empire.

He tried to keep sight of Nikoli Streski, who took cover often and laid down supporting fire against the rampant headcrabs with his powerful plasma fed machinegun. As Nikoli took cover behind an abandoned car, Ian and Tonya managed to crouch down next to him, and Ian immediately began scanning the area for nearby headcrabs… a task that he had no trouble completing, since the proliferation of the tiny brain-sucking creatures was extreme. Even behind the car, roaming packs of the hungry little creatures could be seen leaping at frightened citizens.

Ian immediately began firing on a group of five or so headcrabs that roamed near the vehicle and which were feeding on the carcass of a dead resistance fighter. He braced his right elbow on the wheel well of the pink, dilapidated Yugo that they were crouching behind, and pulled the trigger of his sub machinegun. His burst of fire rained down on the headcrabs, sending up dust from the cobblestone below and spattering blood from the corpse and headcrabs all over the ground. The surviving headcrabs attempted to escape this carnage, but were quickly gunned down by Ian’s weapon. He had no mercy for these terrible creatures. In the meantime, Harper and Tonya both laid down supporting fire from over the hood of the car, taking shots at zombies that terrorized a group of citizens.

So this was the modern warfare strategy of The Combine, Ian thought cynically. They didn’t even have the courage or the class to manually go in there and clean out the rebels, they had to use their pets to do their dirty work… It didn’t matter; the resistance would have to use unorthodox methods to counter The Combine’s untraditional and downright unfair war strategy.

“Nikoli, how far are we from the barricade?” Ian yelled, reloading his weapon and preparing to defend himself against further hordes of headcrabs. Nikoli paused in his firing and replied, “Not far. Let me just clear the way of these creatures and we’ll be on our way…” As he said this, Ian was aware of another group of creatures closing in on their position from the battle. “Well hurry, okay?” Ian managed to say, firing at the wave of zombies which would inevitably close in on their position.

Then, Streski got up from his position as fire from another group of resistance members began flying past them towards the group of zombies advancing on Ian’s position behind the car. Bullets whizzed past Ian’s head from the guns of the other squad of resistance members, leaving him disoriented in the crossfire. Trying to avoid a death by friendly fire, Ian, Streski and Tonya dropped to the ground as fire from the other squad killed the zombies that were slowly advancing on their position.

Once the firing had stopped, the group got back up again, and Ian shot an angry glance at the other squad of resistance members. Then, he quickly realized that this other squad had just saved their lives, and they should be grateful rather than worry about their ill-planned aim. Nikoli shook the dirt off of his clothes and continued towards the barricade saying, “God, I think we almost got killed by friendly fire. Let’s keep moving…we don’t have much time to waste!”
 
Ian followed the now battle-hardened mechanic through the few yards that remained between their group and the barricade. Bullets whizzed past them, and Ian could tell through the fray that the zombies and headcrabs were now less common, and the rebels were finally regrouping into squads and cleaning up of what remained off the terrible Xenian creatures. It appeared as if perhaps one eighth of the rebels had been killed or critically wounded in this first battle…an alarming figure considering that the open fighting hadn’t actually begun. Ian hoped that their casualties would be less severe when the rebels were more spread out through the city…or they would never have a chance of defeating the highly disciplined Combine.

Finally, the three of them reached the dark metallic base of the barricade. On the other side of this barricade Ian could hear the bangs and pops of the firefight that was taking place with the Combine task force on the other side. Suddenly, just as they reached the barricade Ian caught a glimpse of the rebels on top running to both sides and taking cover behind the walls on top of the barricade. Seconds later, there was a flash and a bang as a Combine missile from below shot into the barricade and exploded in a light show of an explosion.

Caught in the fiery explosion, an unfortunate rebel on top of the barricade flew several feet into the air, and plummeted to the cobblestone below, instantly dying and becoming nothing but a burning and unrecognizable corpse on the pavement below.

Ian’s stomach sank and his brow began to sweat. He suddenly felt uneasy about defending that barricade. The next smoldering corpse on the ground could very well be him. He looked up towards the barricade again, and noticed that all was silent for only a few seconds as the smoke from the Combine missile cleared, and then the rebels filled the position of their comrade, firing on whatever had shot at them with the missile.

The three, Nikoli, Ian and Tonya backed up against the dark metal of the barricade, preparing to climb the stairs up to the firefight at the top level on the wall. The group looked collectively nervous, and none seemed too encouraged to participate in the fight that lay ahead of them.

Trying to instill confidence in them, Nikoli placed his hands on both of their shoulders and recited a short catholic prayer in Latin; an experience which gave Ian a strange feeling, and only served to make it seem like an exorcism was being performed on him. But then in his heavy native accent, Nikoli continued, “If it is our turn to die today, then it’s our turn. We must do our duty for all of mankind. We’re worthless down here, and our only use in this fight will be up there on top of this barricade, helping our brothers. Go now, stay low, stay close to God and we shall survive. Just don’t do anything stupid…we just have to hold it until Harper arrives. Good luck my friends.”

This gave Ian a slight boost of confidence. Nikoli was right…their cause was far more important than any one of their individual lives. They had come this far already, would a simple case of fear before a battle be enough to cripple them? No, death would be the only thing to stop them.

With that, Nikoli advanced up the metal stairway behind the barricade, his boots hitting hard against the metal and clanking amidst the constant uproar of the battle around them. Ian and Tonya followed the mechanic up the stairs, and soon found themselves on the far right side of the barricade, with the black palisade in front of them, and the brick wall of a building on their right side.

Nikoli instructed them to stay low with his hand, so the three of them crouched low behind the thin metal wall that protected the combatants on the top of the barricade from gunfire below. Plasma cartages and bullets whizzed from the ground below overhead, suppressing the top of the wall so that the rebels wouldn’t have an opportunity to peek out and fire over it. The three rebels stayed low, and advanced towards the center of the wall, where they could see several rebels peeking out over the wall and firing at the Combine troops below. Some of the rebels wore the standard blue jumpsuits in addition to wool caps and stolen officer’s bullet-proof vests from the barricade’s supply room. Others, the ones that had masqueraded as Combine officers themselves, wore full combine uniforms but had taken off their masks as not to confuse the other rebels.

There in the center of the barricade, Ian spotted the familiar figures of Yuri and Avery, who were crouched behind a high section of the wall. Yuri held within his wiry hands a large green metal tube that Ian assumed was probably a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Avery on the other hand was holding a plasma rifle, and was laying out a constant barrage on the Combine troops below on the other side of the barricade.

Seeing them, Ian decided that it would be best for them to rendezvous with the rest of their squad in the center of the barricade. So, as Nikoli looked over the barricade and fired his machine gun at whatever was below, Ian passed by him, and moved as quickly as he could while crouched towards the center of the barricade.

Bullets flew all over just inches from the top of his head, and their light illuminated the walkway in the shadow of the barricade. All the while, the noise was extreme, and Ian could barely even hear his own heavy breathing inside his own head amidst the constant roar of small arms fire and the explosions of rocket-propelled grenades. Shells pinged against the tough bullet-proof metal of the barricade, providing the only defense Ian had against the onslaught of fire coming from below.

Within a few seconds, both he and Tonya had made it to the center of the barricade, and Ian crouched next to a green metal ammo case which was the only thing between him and Yuri, who was loading his RPG launcher with a rocket, and was preparing to fire it.

“Avery, Yuri, It’s me, Ian!” He exclaimed, yelling over the sounds of the battle around him. Yuri glanced at him, unfeigned in his duty to fire his RPG. Avery, on the other hand, crouched low and moved closer to Ian. “You made it! I thought for sure that everyone in your area had gotten killed by the headcrabs. Who all is left alive?”

Just as he said this, another missile from the ground level slammed into the far side of the barricade, twisting and melting the metal, and sending a couple of rebels flying into the air from the force of the explosion.

Ian tried to be quick with his explanation. After the explosion had cleared he yelled, “Harper ordered us to defend the barricade until he arrived. He has a pretty big squad, and if it weren’t for him I don’t think we would have survived the shelling. I’m pretty sure that Calhoun is still alive…most of the casualties down there are unarmed citizens…they just didn’t stand a chance. Anyway, we should hold out here and hope to God that Harper gets here before The Combine takes it. We’ve just got to hold these barricades as long as possible!”

Avery slapped Ian on the back with his gloved hand and concluded, “Well I’m glad you made it. Just shoot at whatever moves down there and we’ll hold out here as long as we can.” With that, he moved back to his original position, and continued firing over the wall. In the meantime, Yuri had finished loading his rocket launcher, and turned towards Ian requesting in his timid tone, “Would you mind spotting for me? There’s an APC down there and all I need you to do is look over the wall and fire your gun at it until it gets distracted. Then, I’ll be able to fire the RPG at it.”

Ian was surprised at the request from the shy Yuri Steinberg, but he was not about to refuse it. “Alright,” he replied, “Just make sure you hit it, okay?” Then, for the first time since he had gotten onto the barricade, Ian gained the courage to look out over the wall.

Standing up from his crouching position, Ian took cover behind the high section in the wall at the center of the barricade. Safe behind this man-high section of the wall, he slowly slid with his back against it until he was near the black metallic edge of the wall. Then, taking a deep breath to empower himself with courage, he quickly turned around and put his gun out over the wall.

Suddenly now looking out over the streets below, Ian now had a good view of what resistance the rebels were facing from the other side of the barricade. Through the smoke of the battle, tracers from the guns of the Combine troops below glowed orange and blue, and flew in spurts towards the barricade, sending sparks up as they ricocheted off of the dark black metal. There were perhaps twenty mixed officers and soldiers on the ground, taking cover behind totaled cars on the cobblestone street below. There were several burning hulks of Combine APCs that had previously been destroyed on the scene by the rebels, and only one of those armored personnel carriers remained on the street. Black, boxy and ominous, the Combine APC dominated the street with its massive wheels and huge mounted machine gun.

The APC fired a steady and amazingly rapid stream of small plasma shells from its machine gun onto the rebels of the barricade, sending out sparks from every point it struck the barricade, and creating a fantastic lightshow with its deadly plasma fire. Ian’s goal was clear: he would fire his pathetic submachine gun at the vehicle, distracting it and giving Yuri time to destroy it with his rocket launcher.

Still unnoticed by the troops on the ground, Ian aimed his small gun at the Combine APC and fired. As the weapon recoiled violently in his hands, his bullets pinged helplessly against the black armored vehicle, ricocheting from its shiny surface and striking the buildings around with small bursts of dust. The APC instantly noticed Ian’s surely annoying fire, and like a horse whipping an annoying fly away, turned its turret to bear on Ian.

In those few moments that Ian stared down the dark barrel of the APC, his heart stopped. He had only a fraction of a second before the armored vehicle fired its main weapon, which would surely kill him. But then, just as the APC began to fire its weapon, he heard a sudden whoosh from the RPG launcher that Yuri was aiming, and the rocket shot off in a straight path towards the vehicle, a trail of smoke streaming behind it.

There was a blast, and the rocket exploded against the hull of the armored vehicle. Shrapnel flew in all directions, killing a few of the Combine troops on the ground. Seconds later, the entire APC caught fire, and in an amazing explosion blew up in a huge red fireball, sending it’s massive tires flying into the air, burning.

As the fireworks ensued, the rebels on the barricade yelled out in a cry of victory, and then watched as the APC proceeded to smolder in a plume of orange fire and incredibly dark smoke over the scorched and burning section of the cobblestone street that had been affected by the explosion. Suddenly realizing what had happened, Ian relaxed his muscles, and smiled. He had just been saved from certain death by Yuri.

The Combine soldiers that had not been killed by the explosion had now begun to retreat, running back behind cover farther away from the barricade, and sending a few potshots towards the wall as they retreated. Enthralled by their sudden psychological victory, the rebels on the barricade cheered yet again, and fired at the retreating troops.

Ian was shocked as he saw the backs of their enemies as they ran away from the battle. Had they, a group of ragtag rebels really defeated the highly trained and well equipped Combine army? Something was wrong, there were far too many troops still alive to consider a real retreat…highly trained troops just didn’t run away like that.

However, the others didn’t seem to share Ian’s concern, and Avery slapped Yuri in the back and exclaimed, “You did it! I’ve never seen a better aimed rocket, Yuri! Now all we have to do is hold out until Harper gets here. One shot, Yuri. One shot!”

As the others continued in euphoria, Ian looked out towards the Combine soldiers as they retreated around the corner, and he lost sight of them behind the plaster walls of a building on the corner of the cobblestone street. It was now silent except for the distant fire coming from the other barricades and what remained of the resistance in the center of the square. The APC still burned wildly, and the flaming gasoline had spread out across the sidewalk, catching the grass next to one of the buildings on fire. Then, as the rebels stood at their posts, prepared for the next wave of Combine troops, the ground began to shake.

At first, all they could feel were slight thumps, and then they began to hear deep booms in the distance. Finally, with each boom they felt a considerable vibration in the barricade. As the sounds grew closer, pigeons that had been resting on the rooftops flew away suddenly, frightened by the noise. Ian’s heart sank as he heard the familiar rumbles.

From the corner where the Combine troops had retreated, Ian saw a huge yellow pole-like leg extend into the intersection, knocking aside a car and causing dust to rise where it stomped on the cobblestone. With a loud screeching noise, the leg pulled against the street, and suddenly the head of the spider-like machine appeared within their vision, forty feet above the ground.

As the rebels saw this, someone from the left side of the barricade screamed, “Strider!” Backing up and nearly falling off the barricade, Ian was utterly stunned by the sight of the forty foot tripod as it lumbered into the intersection, screeching and thumping as it brought its weapons to bear on the barricade.

Then, with a force that distorted the air around the strider’s head into a liquid-like mass, the massive machine fired its main cannon.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

The wind played in Freeman’s hair, blowing in from the shore and kicking up sand. He could hear the slow and soothing sound of the waves crashing against the sandy beach, accented by the droning rumbles of the Combine thumpers. Where was he? What was going on?

Gordon slowly opened his eyes, and discovered that he was now lying in a bed of sand, which gritted into the joints of his HEV suit and clouded his glasses. Regaining his senses, Freeman wiped his glasses and got up from the ground where he was lying. Looking around, he saw that he was on a beach, just a few yards from the foamy waters of the ocean, which spread out across the horizon in all of its huge, black-green glory. He had been teleported to Nova Prospekt.

It was much later than when he had been teleported to the area by the Vortigaunts, and he suspected that he must have been lying on the beach unconscious for hours. The sun had just gone down, and the only trace left of it was the slight orange glow it emitted over the horizon. The beach was shrouded in twilight, and Gordon could make out the ghostly figures of abandoned fishing ships half-buried in the sand; a sign that the sea level had once been much higher, before The Combine began sucking it up…
 
Gordon could see that this area must have been perfect for the construction of the Combine’s notorious prison, Nova Prospekt. The beach was totally lined with extremely high cliffs to Gordon’s left side, making escape in that direction impossible, and forcing any escapees into a bottleneck between the cliffs and the ocean. Much further down the beach, Gordon could see the blinking lights of the facility. There were thumpers close by, strung along the beach and protecting it from Antlion raids, striking the ground with intense force and creating a constant rumbling along the beach. Beyond the thumpers, Gordon could make out the beams of searchlights, which scanned the beach from bunkers dug high into the cliffs. That would be where he would need to make his assault.

Gordon decided to continue on in the twilight, moving slowly along the sandy beach to avoid detection by the guards of the prison. He recalled what he had heard in the Vortigaunt village about an Antlion colony being very near the prison. It was evident then, that that was why The Combine had placed so many thumpers in the area. Ian made a mental note to look for signs of the colony as he approached the prison. It was absolutely necessary that he find the Antlions, or else he would have no way of The Combine during his assault.

After about a minute, Gordon came to a set of huge porous rocks that stretched from the cliff to the waters. In the space between two of the rocks, barbed wire was strung in a curling line, preventing anyone from crossing through. There was a large wooden sign on a couple of posts behind the barbed wire that read: “Nova Prospekt prison; entrance to authorized personnel only.”

Well, he thought, at least he had come to the right place. Gordon moved up to one of the rocks, and tried to figure out a way of crossing the barbed wire. Since he was wearing a protective suit, the barbed wire didn’t seem to be much of a problem, so Gordon simply walked through the rusty twisted metal, scraping the orange paint on his suit slightly, but overall he was unaffected.

Now Freeman was in between the massive rocks, and their size caused the coast wind to be blocked. As a result, it was entirely silent between the rocks, except for the slight crunching of Gordon’s rubber boots in the sand. Just fifty yards ahead of him lay the first of the Combine thumpers, glowing blue in the twilight and slamming into the sand with a great force every two seconds.

Gordon began thinking about the ways that he could sneak into the facility. It wasn’t often that someone would be trying to sneak into a prison, rather than out of it. Even so, the danger was clear, and the area was designed so that anyone running across those sands could easily be seen by the guards in the bunker. Ideally, it would be fantastic if he could gain the allegiance of the local Antlions; that was, if he could find them.

Freeman then decided to open the compartment on his suit that contained the bag of pheromone spores. If he couldn’t find the Antlions himself, he would have them come to him with the bug bait. Gordon pulled the bag out of the compartment, and opened it. Inside, he could see the slimy mass of pheromone spores.

Taking care not to damage any of them, Gordon lifted one of the black spores out of the bag and squeezed it in his hand. There was a hissing noise, and a puff of black smoke trailed out of the spore. It smelled so terrible that it made Gordon want to vomit, but he continued squeezing it anyway, until all of the pheromones had left the spore, leaving it as nothing more than a wrinkled and deflated mass.

At first, it seemed as if nothing happened, and the distraught Freeman thought of abandoning the spores altogether; but then, after a few seconds, he began to hear a distinct scratching noise, which grew and grew until it became an ambient rumble around him. Then, with a burst of sound and dust, dozens of Antlions appeared out of tunnels which had been dug in the rocks, leaping down all around Gordon.

The insect-like creatures hovered down all about him, kicking up sand as they landed with a thud, dozens upon dozens lining up in a swarm in all directions. Normally, Gordon would have been incredibly frightened by the appearance of this swarm, but now that he had gotten used to the bug bait, Gordon gained a new sense of confidence with this new, ever-growing army of insects appearing all around him.

They stood in a disorganized mass, snapping at each other with their saliva-ridden mandibles and purring with euphoria at the smell of the pheromones which now covered Gordon. There were perhaps fifty of them squeezed into the small space between the two huge costal rocks, and all of them stood at attention for Freeman.

It was an odd feeling, to be the object of affection to scores and scores of these social alien insects. It was as if he was their god, commanding not with his voice but out of pure feeling. They were like one body, breathing and feeling all the same. Perhaps this is what it was like to be the queen of a beehive.

Gordon knew that the pheromones would soon wear off, so he decided to make the best use of his time as possible. His first objective was clear: he would have to disable the thumpers. Otherwise, his army of Antlions would be worthless to him.

So, Gordon waded through the waist-high carapaces of the Antlion swarm, which parted readily for him to advance. With the Antlions still following him in tight formation, Freeman moved along the beach and stayed low, keeping himself out of the sight of the bunkers by hiding below the sand dunes of the beach, keeping near the water.

The Antlions followed his lead, and advanced single file behind him, staying low and scurrying with their four scampering limbs across the sand. Freeman soon came to the first thumper totally undetected. As he got closer to the huge machine, the Antlions shrieked in anguish and backed away from it, keeping a distance between it and themselves.

As the Antlions maintained their distance in a circular ring around the thumper, Gordon stayed low and moved up the beach until he was right next to the machine. It stood there, twenty feet high and made up gray metal. It glowed with blue light in the shadow of twilight. With every strike of the ground Gordon nearly fell over from the seismic force, since he was so close to the epicenter of the thumps.

He had no idea how he would disable the machine, but he knew he would have to figure something out to continue on. So, freeman walked around the machine and examined it, looking for a way to disable it. Moving around to its back side, he discovered a large red button with alien writing etched in white next to it. Seeing no other option, Freeman decided to press this red button.

“Well, here goes nothing…” He sighed, pressing the button into its socket. Instantly, the thumper shut down, getting slower and slower until the jackhammer motion stopped completely. Well, that seemed to be the right button to push. But then, just as the Antlions began to yet again swarm around him, freeman heard the incredibly loud screeching of a Combine alarm from up in the cliffs, wailing every half a second. Then, over the speakers on the cliffs a female voice with a British accent that Gordon recognized as the voice of The Overwatch exclaimed, “Section 1A perimeter defenses breached! Activate behavioral code: Search, Reconnaissance; Destroy.”

Gordon’s heart sank as he heard the smooth, inhuman command for the guards to find and kill him. He had been spotted…there would be no more sneaking around for him. Luckily, he had the swarm of Antlions to cover him, but what good would they be against machine gun emplacements?

As he stood there listening to the alarm, a spotlight suddenly came upon his position from the cliffs, illuminating the area in blue-white light. Knowing what would surely come next, Gordon leaped out of the circle of light created by the spotlight, hitting the sand behind a dune which he hoped would block the vision of the guards on the cliffs. Seconds after he hit the sand, a stream of plasma shells fired from a machine gun emplacement from the cliffs, kicking up sand and melting the metal of the Combine Thumper. The blue beams lit up the area, and burned the air around them.

Gordon’s Antlion allies saw this as it occurred, and quickly moved out of the way of the spotlight, but quite a few of them were still hit by flying plasma, and fell to the ground, dead. Freeman crawled prone along the sand as the spotlight turned its attention onto him and began firing at the sandbar…but it was not able to hit him.

Freeman moved as quickly as he possibly could, crawling along the sand and attempting to get into an area where he could not be hit by the machine guns. The Antlions followed his lead, and stayed safely behind the sandbar. All the while, the alarms continued to sound, and the machine gun continued to fire at him.

After a few seconds, Gordon had gotten to the end of the sand dune, and there was a huge flat area of sand between him and the next dune. He was trapped. If he went left over the dune, he would be killed by the machine gun, and if he went forward, he would be in an open space, ready to be fired at.

Suddenly, he had an idea. What did he have these Antlions for, anyway, if he wasn’t going to use them? Gordon got out the bag of spores, and took one out. He would use them as cannon fodder, distraction so that he could escape from the machine guns. Normally, this would seem a bit immoral, but who was he to care about these mindless and bloodthirsty alien creatures?

So, Freeman threw the spore in an arc over the dune, past the bullets of the machine gun so that it splattered on the other side, causing a black cloud of pheromones to rise into the air. Smelling this irresistible command, the Antlions rushed over the dune and charged up towards the machine gunner.

As the Antlions scrambled over the hill, the gunner’s attention turned towards the swarm, firing like mad at the insects as they flew into the air and pounced towards the bunker on the cliff. Gordon took the initiative, and sprinted across the flat space to the other sandbar, and crouched low behind it, completely undetected.

Trying to conserve his resources, Gordon took out another spore and squeezed it in his gloved hand, calling the Antlions back to his position. Seconds later, still under heavy fire, the Antlions retreated from the machine gunner and scrambled back to Freeman. Sadly, he could see that their assault had taken a deadly toll on their numbers, and there were only twelve of them left. However, as soon as the others had fallen, Gordon could see a new group of Antlions digging their way out of the cliffs and rejoining the rest of the swarm, increasing their numbers vastly yet again.

Freeman continued on in this same manner, keeping low behind the sand dune and making sure that all of the swarm of Antlions continued to follow him along in single file. After about a minute of moving along in this manner Gordon came to yet another large rock, and once he had passed it, he was safely out of the line of sight of the machine gunners.

Now, over much barbed wire and bunkers on a wide inlet of the beach, Gordon could see the Nova Prospekt facility itself; a huge, daunting metal structure that rested on the cliffs far ahead. Even though he was now out of the range of the previous machine gunners, Gordon could see that there were many more bunkers and searchlights all about the facility. He had no choice but to assault the prison directly.

Freeman threw yet another spore far into the center of the inlet, ordering his Antlion comrades to advance. Next, the alien insects hovered in a huge mass through the air, pouncing down into the sand in the center of the inlet where Gordon had thrown the spore.

Seeing this swarm of giant insects, the gunners all around the inlet fired from their positions on the cliff, attempting to mow down the Antlions as they advanced up the beach. It was utter chaos, with machine gun plasma flying in every direction, and Antlions falling left and right. Eventually, the Antlions got the right idea, and flew with their wings up the cliff face, making the machine gunners stretch to shoot them at such an angle. Soon, the Antlions had scaled the cliff, and entered the bunkers of the machine gunners. Gordon could hear and see the battle that was taking place on top of the cliffs, with Combine soldiers evacuating the bunkers and attempting to regroup and kill the Antlion invasion.

While the Combine was distracted by the Antlion swarm, Gordon ran as quickly as he could among the cratered and barbed-wired landscape of the beach towards the Nova Prospekt facility. After running across perhaps half of the beach, Gordon jumped down into a crater, taking cover and staying low.

He had made it across a great distance without being shot, thanks mostly to the help of his Antlion comrades. Freeman didn’t know where he would be if it weren’t for the alien insects; or how he could have even made it to Nova Prospekt without the help of the Vortigaunts…it almost blurred his view of who was good and bad in this fight.

As Gordon caught his breath in the crater, he suddenly heard a voice, distorted by a radio, coming from the direction of the prison. The voice was relatively close, and was accompanied by the unmistakable sounds of shuffling feet and the clanking of ammo belts.

“Forget about the bugs,” the radio-distorted voice said deeply, “Freeman’s the one we want. The gunner said he saw him over there at thumper 1A. If we get him here, Governor Breen will be pleased.” Another Combine soldier agreed, “Yes, highly pleased sir. What do you want us to do then?” The other officer paused for a second and then replied, “Flush out the craters and bunkers…I have a feeling he’s hiding around here somewhere.”

As he heard them plan out his fate, Gordon began to panic. He had nowhere to go without being seen, and he couldn’t possibly fight the squad of Combine troops all by himself. So, desiring reinforcement, Gordon obtained another pheromone spore from his bag, and squeezed it as hard as he could.

Instantly, from all around in the cliffs, Gordon heard the screeches of Antlions, who dropped what they were doing, and flew into the air, filling the sky and pouncing down all around his crater. Gordon wasted no time. He placed the spores back in their compartment, and took the submachine gun that he had taken with him off of its strap. Aiming for surprise, Gordon charged out of the sandy crater towards the voices of the Combine troops.

He could see them now, six of them, the blue lights of their eyes shining through their black gasmasks. Utterly surprised as the Antlions and Freeman cam upon them simultaneously, the soldiers began firing their plasma rifles in all directions. “I’m requesting machine gun support! We’ve got Freeman and bugs!” The lead officer screamed, firing his rifle at the nearest Antlion as it pounced towards him. His request fell on deaf ears, as the Antlions had killed all of the gunners.

Gordon fired his submachine gun at one of the armored troops, doing the best that he could to assist the Antlion swarm. The insects charged into the squad of Combine, sending them flying across the sand. After the Combine troops had been disarmed by the initial rush, the Antlions pounced on them, and ripped them to shreds with their claws and mandibles. Watching this gruesome scene unfold, Gordon couldn’t help but be disgusted by the Antlion’s savagery…but what more could he expect from a group of bloodthirsty insects?
 
After they had neutralized the squad of Combine troops as well as the machine gunners, Gordon continued along with his swarm of Antlions freely across the beach, sprinting with the huge group of insects following close behind him.

Eventually, Gordon had traversed the entire barbed-wired inlet of the beach, and had come close to the base of the Nova Prospekt structure itself. Gordon looked up and observed the huge metal structure, trying to figure out the best way to infiltrate it. It was absolutely enormous, the huge Combine portion of the facility rested high in the air on top of the cliffs, massive and imposing. The old prison itself was still visible behind the Combine portion, and Gordon could make out the outlines of the original stone walls of the prison before The Combine had taken it over. Additionally, huge drainage pipes led down from the main facility to the bottom of the cliffs, emptying out into a small toxic stream of chemicals. Along the pipes there were several catwalks on which guards were stationed…the last resistance Gordon would have to face before entering the facility.

As the guards saw Gordon coming near the facility with his army of Antlions, the catwalks lit up with their gunfire, and Gordon immediately took evasive action to avoid the hail of plasma that now rained down on him from above. Retaliating, Gordon pulled yet another spore out of his bag and threw it at high as he could up to the catwalk, causing it to splat against the metal pipe and emitting a black cloud of pheromones around the guards.

The Antlions went wild, and leaped into the air. The entire swarm hovered in a mass up to the catwalk, and quickly killed the guards that were stationed on it. Then, without taking further orders, the Antlions scaled the cliff and killed any other Combine that they could find on the catwalks around the pipes.

While this was going on, Gordon attempted to find the best way into the facility. Obviously, he was incapable of scaling the cliffs on his own, and there were likely to be a lot of resistance up there… So, Gordon looked for an alternative method of entry.

Examining the drainage pipe, Dr. Freeman noticed that the grated opening of the pipe near the mouth of the stream had been damaged, and there was a large section of the grate that was ripped open…probably by one of the Antlions as they made their assault.

Well, Gordon thought, those drainage pipes had to start somewhere. So, Gordon moved near the drainage pipe, eventually wading in the disgusting green stream of water that poured out of it. Grabbing onto the grating, Gordon pulled himself up to the level of the huge metal pipe.

Then, leaving the Antlions to their devices to kill off as many Combine troops as possible, Gordon squeezed through the open part of the grating, and into the Nova Prospekt facility.

-Chapter 49, Chaos-
 
woot, good chapter.


The only problem I had with the reading was the fact that when it was Nikolai(SP) talking, you said something like Ian grabbed his collar on his jacket to get him some more courage..but you said Harper. And harper was at the Center of the Square. Then, when they were fighting at the car, you said the same exact thing, like Tonya and Harper(when it should've been Nikoli) giving support fire.


Just some things I've noticed. Great chapter.. i wanna know what happens with the Strider! :bounce:
 
this is an excellent story so far i must say..........
im just becoming concernered when and how you are going to wrap this up?
ive printed out all your chapters and they are already longer than a dictionary!!!!!
im not complaining its long..........its just im really excited to get to the end.....
 
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