Author's Note: Muchas gracias to the guest reviewer who left a review en español! Really appreciate it. And, of course, a big thanks to everyone else who has been kind enough to leave reviews!

9 - Big Choices and Visceral Combat

Darn it if the basement of the Arcjet facility wasn't the spookiest place Nora had ever seen. Spooky quiet. Spooky dark. Spooky standing around at the bottom of the stairs with a freakin' rocket engine hanging over your head, the floor all sprinkled with ashes. Spooky all around.

So, when they stumbled onto the creepy holotape-ravings of a madman, over in a side room that looked to be some kind of control center for the rocket, well, Nora was certainly spooked, but not surprised. The voice on the tape went on and on about how he was smarter than the college educated dweebs who did the actual rocket science at the facility, and how he was going to show them the true meaning of physics with his homemade 'weaponized refuse accelerator.'

Seemed he had actually built the weapon too: the rusted, gangly thing sat right next to the holotape, along with a dented hardhat and a couple of wrenches. The gun looked a bit like the mutant lovechild of a leaf blower, a trash compactor, and a drag racing engine.

Curious, Nora reached over and flipped the switch at the top of the leaf blower (or 'weaponized refuse accelerator' or whatever you want to call it), and the machine came to life, atomic-powered and still in working order after all these years. Spooky. She wondered if the crazy technician really would have gone on an office spree killing if the bombs hadn't dropped. Hopefully not.

So how does this thing work anyway? There was a sort of drop-box container near the 'muzzle,' with a handle at the top. Pulling it open, Nora slipped one of the wrenches inside, then shut the door. So, when you pull the trigger it accelerates the-?

Petra interrupted her thoughts. "Think we're looking for a bigger engine than that." She was walking through the doorway that led deeper in.

"Yeah." Nora turned the odd weapon's motor off, looking back through the Plexiglas window of the control room. There, in the big, open basement area, Danse stood watch, waiting for them to find a power switch so they could take the basement elevator to the top floor. That was where the radio-doohicky that they were searching for was supposedly stored. Dutiful and gruff as always, the big paladin guy stood right under the ominous rocket engine. Nora shuddered and shook her head.

They continued their search through the dust and debris, everything silent save the hum of Codsworth's hover-jet. The generator room was past a bend in a short tunnel, and the power seemed to be controlled by a computer terminal. A little hunting and pecking switched it on, and the whole facility sputtered to life, lights flaring as a computerized voice sounded over the intercom:

'Thermal engine fueled and primed. For your own safety, please shut the blast doors.'

"Hopefully that's got the elevator working," Petra remarked.

Nora turned to follow, but hesitated. Again, she did not like the idea of walking under a frickin' rocket engine, especially one that had just been 'primed.' She resolved to rush through the big basement as quickly as she could.

Sure enough, the little triangle above the basement elevator was flashing away, Petra already marching through the test-vault as Nora entered the control room. Pieces of rusty stairway littered the floor of the main chamber: the reason they hadn't been able to just climb to the top story themselves and needed the elevator. Once again, Nora gave the big rocket engine an apprehensive look, steeling herself.

The machines hummed low now, and the great, open shaft was lit by freshly powered halogen lights, illuminating whole galaxies of drifting dust moats. Nice to have some light, but the place was still spooky. And quiet.

And then, echoing off the concrete walls and ringing through the steel bars of the janky stairways, there came a brand new sound. Scraping. Lots and lots of scraping.

Nora, Petra, Danse and Codsworth's eyes shot up to the catwalk, where countless metal forms were swarming, chrome skulls and glass eyes shining down as the androids leaned over the ledges. There was a sort of understated pffting sound, and beams of white-hot light flashed down from the stairways, one of them piercing the concrete very close to Nora's boot toes and sending up a flare of sparks and a puff of smoke.

"Shhhhheeeee…" she found herself hissing as she tumbled backwards and landed with a painful jolt. "…eeeeesh!" More pfft-sounds echoed and streaks of white-blue rained down. One beam grazed Danse's armor and kicked up sparks, and several blasts burned holes in the floor where Petra had been standing a second ago, all while Nora crab-crawled back through the control room's doorway.

Sheesh indeed! Holy sheesh! The androids had laser guns now?!

And they weren't just shooting! Skeletal figures dropped down from the catwalk, two-at-a-time and landing on all fours froggy-style before leaping at the nearest target, armed with buzzing batons and claw-like hands.

Two of the things dropped right by Petra and the open elevator door. A pointblank blast from the woman's six-shooter turned the neck of one android into sparking wires, head flopping and body buckling, and Petra managed to catch the wrist of the other bot with her free hand, keeping the baton off. Then two more androids landed and pounced, the four of them all tumbling back through the elevator doors in a tangle of limbs and sparks.

They were swarming Danse as well, metal claws clinging to his armor plates and smoke rising, and then Nora's view of all that was blocked off by a pair of carbon-steel skeletons rushing at her, bumping shoulders as they twisted through the doorway. Their batons buzzed and sizzled.

'Thermal engine fueled and primed. For your own safety, please shut the blast doors,' the computer repeated.

Nora had managed to get to her feet, scrambling back, hips brushing the banks of a nearby panel and hands rising up to aim her pistol. Bang! The bullet dented steel and did little else. Two more shots put holes through an android's shoulder.

Before the things could leap at her Codsworth swung in to the rescue, his buzzsaw-hand taking a swipe at one of the androids and sending up a shower of sparks. The poor guy caught a bash and a jolt of electricity for his trouble.

Another step back, and Nora's…uh…well…her backside bumped against something on the panel that went click, followed by whirs and grinding sounds. Not good! (As if fretting over how big your bu- urm…that part of your body is wasn't bad enough, the big old body part had to go and accidently flip the switch of some doomsday device?! Ugh!)

A third android had leaned in through the doorway, glassy eyes fixing on Nora, but then a pair of heavy steel doors clanged shut and snapped the thing in two, head and torso dropping to the floor. 'Blast doors closed,' the voice of the computer droned.

Oh. Maybe that is good.

"Mum!" Codsworth barked. "You must esca-bzzt!" Another swipe from a shock-baton had him careening back, electricity arcing across his chassis. Were his circuits getting fried?!

Nora took aim at the 'droids that were beating on her friend and unloaded the rest of the clip, scoring a few more little pinholes and a shot to one of the robots' hips that made it lurch and jerk, all while she shouted: "Hey! Killbots! Aren't you here to terminate all organic life?! Well it's over here! Quit picking on the metal guy and come try me! I'm as organic as they come!"

The androids obliged, swinging around and giving her their full attention, and she swung around too, racing for the doorway to the next room. Gotta reload this last clip. Hit and run and-

The worktable with the weird leaf blower/engine/gun was right there beside her. A swipe of her free hand dragged it off the table, and- oof! It was real darn heavy! She almost pitched over, unthinkingly dropping her gun to grab the leaf blower-thingy with both hands, flipping the power on and lurched along into the tunnel that led to the generator room.

Well, this was a bigger gun than her peashooter, anyway. Maybe it blasted harder too. Or maybe it would make a good club.

Footsteps clunked just behind her. She breathed deep and spun around, smooth as she could, hoisting the massive, ungainly weapon and depressing the trigger on the pistol-grip at the back. The android chasing her hoisted its club two-handed, servos whirring and clawed toes tapping as it charged, though Nora could hardly hear that over the rising put-put-putter of the weaponized refuse accelerator (or her own screams).

A lot of vibrating from the big gun, but it didn't fire. Was it malfunctioning? Was it going to explode?! The skeleton/android loomed, aiming to club her skull in as she banshee-wailed nonsense in its face. Her grip loosened, thinking it might be a good idea to toss the sputtering junk-device and make a desperate dive, but the nanosecond her finger slackened on the trigger it popped free and the machine shuddered and thrumped. Recoil threw her arms back and just about jolted them out of their sockets as a blur of spinning steel launched from the weapon's muzzle.

There was the briefest whistling sound, then an ear-piercing metallic clang, followed by a little ping and a hollow ding as the android's head flew off its shoulders, chin striking the close ceiling of the tunnel. The severed head ricocheted to strike the floor with force, flew up again, put another dent in the ceiling, and then smacked into the second android that had come lurching into the tunnel, sending it crashing against the far wall. The headless portion of the robot belly flopped and skidded across the concrete, an elbow striking Nora's boot (yowch!) and then spinning away to careen from wall to wall like an air hockey puck.

Okay. That was way more effective than a bullet!

No time to celebrate, though. The android with the damaged hip was recovering and starting to hobble towards her again, it baton still buzzing. She needed more refuse to fire!

Down by her feet, Nora spotted a black cylinder. Seemed the electro-clubs collapsed for easy storage and stopped flaring when the handle wasn't being held. It was longish, but it looked like it would fit in the refuse loader, so she plucked it up and plopped it in, shutting the cover and aiming her weapon at the hobbled android.

Squeezing the trigger made the refuse accelerator buzz and shake again, the tone rising and rising as Nora hefted and aimed. She was maybe getting the idea now. Pressing the trigger powered up the kinetic energy or whatever, and releasing-

She let go and a black streak zipped out from the muzzle, fast and heavy as a ballista bolt. Recoil wasn't too bad, now that she knew it was coming and had braced herself, and the shaft of black steel punched clean through the metal tubes and knobs that made up the android's faux organs.

The android shook and took another step, faltering and shaking as the baton —now stuck deep in its torso— was ground between gears or servos or robo-parts or whatever. A foot rose, couldn't make it to the floor, and then the whole machine pitched over, face first, black fluids leaking on the concrete and every motion just making it shudder more and more until it clunked out and went still.

Whew. Nora started back for the control room, lugging her new weapon along and giving the (hopefully) dead 'droid as wide a berth as the tunnel would allow.

The lightshow on the other side of the Plexiglas viewing window was something else: streaks of blue light strobing through the basement to burst in clouds of sparks, punctuated by blasts of red-hot fire from Danse's rifle as the paladin fought back. The poor fellow's armor was dented and smoking, several 'droids clinging onto his arms and shoulders as he tried to shake them off and line up pointblank shots.

Smoking husks of robot lay strewn across the basement floor, but there were still far too many of the dern things standing upright, the bots with guns lined up by the opposite wall from Danse and firing nonstop. The beams kept striking the walls and floor near the paladin, for whatever reason. Seemed like they were hemming him in, and not risking hitting their buddies. Regardless, it didn't look like Danse would last long.

'Blast doors closed. Thermal engine fueled, primed, and standing by for your command.'

"Mum!" Codsworth exclaimed, floating close. "The engine! You see it, don't you?" His gripper-hand was pointing at a prominent red button in the middle of the control panel. Would have been easy enough to figure out its purpose, even without the 'Engine Start' label stenciled below.

Numbly, Nora nodded and stretched her hand out. Danse dropped to one knee, smoke wafting up from his soot-streaked armor. Right under the rocket engine, surrounded by all the robots…

"Mum?"

Nora withdrew her hand. "No. We can't."

"Mum, insuring your safety is my prime directive, thus I must-"

"No!" Her finger flicked across the switch that she had bumped into earlier, and sure enough the steel doors swished open.

'Warning!' the computerized voice whined. 'Warning! Blast doors ajar! Blast doors ajar!'

"Codsworth! Help me find some junk! That's an order!"

"[][]ORDER RECEIVED[][]" He switched back to his butler voice. "Yes mum."

No shortage of debris to be found in here. There were fractured shavings of concrete where the walls had crumbled, an old wastebasket (would that fit in the loader?) some wires, the hardhat and tools and… Oh! Lugging her weapon, Nora trundled up to the big red toolbox she had spotted under a table. Jackpot!

She managed to carry the junk gun with one hand, the other straining to lift the toolbox, wishing all the while that she'd taken Nick up on his offer to show her around the weight room at the Sanctuary Hills YMCA. ('Eh. Think I'll just take that Pilates class to get back in shape after the baby.') Arms burning, she wobbled over to the doorway, not quite in line with it, and dropped the toolbox, kicking it open, and as she did Codsworth came bobbing forward, a traffic cone held in his grabber-hand. "This is junk," he offered, helpfully.

"Drop it." She snatched up the first tool from the top of the box (a claw hammer), opened the refuse accelerator's loader, and plopped it in, depressing the weapon's trigger. The accelerator hummed, and she took a deep breath. "New orders! You're going to feed tools from this box into the loader here. We're going to be a team. We're going to save Danse. And we're going to be big, gosh-darn heroes!"

Properly psyched up, she side-stepped into the doorway, instantly drawing the attention of the android swarm. Gleaming skulls and blank, glossy eyes rotated towards her, several laser rifles pivoting. A blast of blue-white light followed, its heat grazing her cheek and her nostrils instantly filling with the stink of burnt hair, and in that moment Nora was fairly certain that her eyes had never been wider in her whole entire life than they were right then.

A lock of smoldering hair drifted down. The trigger released. The junk-launching gun shuddered and thundered and spat out a streak of glinting steel.

BAM! The hammer spun and struck with a force that would make Thor proud, caving in the robo-skull of one of the androids. The impact sent the 'droid's body tumbling one way and the hammer ricocheting the other. It smashed another skull, flew up into the air, and disappeared somewhere in the darkness of the shaft.

Pop fly!

By then Codsworth had grabbed another tool, and when Nora popped the loader open he dropped it in. Close. Depress. Release. An eight inch slotted screwdriver pierced clean through one of the robot's skulls, leaving a gaping hole and dropping the 'droid.

Another plop, shut, depress, and shoot, quick as she could, and off flew a heavy pipe wrench, severing the weapon-arm of one of the bots that was beating on Danse, then sailing on to cave in the chest of another.

There was a flare of light, somewhere low, and Nora's eyes went wide again, this time from burning pain. A smell rose up that reminded her of some neighbors who were always burning their garbage, plastic included, back when she was a kid. There as a scent like roasting meat, too, but mostly it smelled like burning plastic (PLEASE let it mostly be plastic! Vault-Tec, don't fail me now!)

The gun-toting robot was raising its weapon higher, for another shot, but before it could fire something shiny came spinning down from the darkness, sticking into the top of the 'droid's head and dropping it face first to the floor. The claw hammer wobbled a bit, embedded in the android's skull, though that wasn't enough to finish it off. Wobbling, the bot tried to rise and aim its rifle again, but Nora got a shot off first, gun thumping and launching a high-velocity tape measure case that clocked the robot's chin and snapped its neck.

Another 'droid took aim, light zipping past Nora's head and kicking up sparks somewhere behind her, then her weapon drove a one inch Philip's screwdriver clean into the bot's forehead. That just made it stumble back, but before it could recover Nora's weapon fired a socket wrench into its torso, folding it like an accordion.

Didn't seem to be anymore laser guns flaring now, but one of the baton-wielding 'droids was racing towards her. Codsworth fed her gun and Nora aimed, squeezed, and released quick as she could, launching a shiny gunmetal-gray loop from the muzzle of her weapon.

A clean shot to the forehead! The roll of duct tape knocked the android back for a second, then the machine shook its head to clear it, faced foreword, and kept charging. (So much for duct tape being good for everything!)

A red-hot glow flared through the android's chest plate and it stumbled, tripped, and dropped before it could reach Nora, smoke rising from its back. On the other side of the basement Danse clutched his rifle close, head swiveling and searching for more targets, but nothing moved. The floor was littered with severed limbs and smashed or burnt android bodies.

Codsworth dropped a little hacksaw into the junk receptacle and closed it himself, but Nora held off on squeezing the trigger. "Whew," she exclaimed, then cringed. Would need to examine that burn on her stomach soon as she could. She walked over towards Danse, and he gave her a weary nod.

Over on the other side of the basement, the elevator dinged, and they both whirled in that direction, laser and junk gun raised and aimed. The elevator doors swished open, and out stepped Petra Van Buran, her pistol spinning on one finger, an unlit cigarette hanging from her lips, and some sort of device with a long antenna clutched in her other hand.

"Got your deep range transmitter-thingy," Petra announced, surveying the basement. "Were a lot of synths up there too. Hm. Think you ran into more, though. Damn. Score one for Team Nora and Paladin Dickhead."

Nora nodded. "Uh. Yeah. Thank goodness for this weaponized refuse accelerator." She tapped her newfound gun. "Came in handy!"

"Weaponized refuse…" Petra's voice trailed off and she shook her head, the cigarette swishing. "Bit of a mouthful, isn't it? Why not just call it a Junk Jet?"

Author's Note: The chapter title is a Mass Effect 2 reference, if anyone was wondering.