11 — Reckoning

Proceed to the CDC

Looks like the gang's all here. Land on the carrier and greet Psycho and Helena Rosenthal, who has some interesting ideas on the aliens. She thinks that they feed off available energy sources, a theory almost immediately proven when a captured machine suddenly sucks power out of the carrier conning tower and briefly comes back to life.

You're then summoned to the CDC for a meeting with Admiral Morrison. He tells you that the joint chiefs and president have authorized the use of a nuke on the island. Helena argues against this, but Morrison is having none of it. The two also discuss what the creatures could be. Helena notes that the island itself might be some kind of living creature, while the admiral says that it has been sending some sort of transmission to galaxy M33.

Admiral Morrison may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer. Firing a nuke probably isn't the best way to deal with aliens who suck back energy like Happy Meals.

Proceed to the Armory

Join Helena, Psycho, Prophet, and a lovelorn geek in the armory after the admiral finishes his tirade. Prophet soon storms off to "finish" the job on the island, despite Psycho's objections. Helena does some work on your suit and mentions that she's intercepted a signal transmitted when the aliens draw energy. She thinks that maybe it could be altered so that the aliens suck back too much juice and self-destruct. Pretty amazing science coming from a woman who's supposed to be an archaeologist.

Be sure to pay attention to the blatant plot point handed out when the scientist mentions a new TAC cannon that can fire mini-nukes. He says you can't try it out, but of course you soon can.

Proceed to the Bridge

You're now ordered to the bridge to watch the nuke launch. Head up there just in time to see Prophet go AWOL and roar towards the island in a stolen VTOL. Unsurprisingly, the nuclear option doesn't work. Watch an ode to Independence Day as the nuke has no effect on the alien ice cone aside from pissing off ET and making it grow a lot bigger. Aliens then swarm the Constitution. Once the cutscene ends, the still spectacularly arrogant admiral orders you to protect the ship and start shooting extraterrestrials.

Defend the Flight Deck

Start by firing up maximum strength to punch open the jammed hatch door leading off the bridge. A pistol and gauss rifle can be found straight ahead. Go down the stairs. Grab the minigun at the bottom. Use max strength again to open a hatch door. Venture past the fires and corpses to the flight deck.

Now that's how to defend a flight deck.

Things have changed a little bit since you were last here. Waves of robot octopi can be seen overhead in the moonlight, streaming off the island. Lots are also making life miserable for the poor sailors on the Constitution. Ammo for the minigun, gauss, and SCAR can be found just to the left in front of the trashed vehicles. Load up and go to town on the aliens.

This battle is awfully random and annoying. Your allies regularly shoot alien machines from the sky, so expect to be killed by junk falling out of the sky and exploding every so often even if you're taking care of business. All you can do is keep watching the skies and try to keep the ship wall directly behind you so you don't get caught in an ET crossfire. Don't take cover beside planes and vehicles. Aliens often blast them, causing a rollover that kills you instantly or an explosion that does the same trick.

Locate the Chief Engineer

After the shooting stops for a few moments, Admiral Morrison radios down with word of trouble in the reactor room. Run forward on the deck until the flight elevator takes you and some other soldiers down. Exit into a hangar bay. Go ahead into flooded compartments. Watch for an explosion in the corridor ahead. Use max speed to escape the deadly steam that pumps out in its aftermath.

When you find the engineer, you discover that the nuclear reactor is about to blow. You've got to take it offline. As usual with these sorts of things, you can't just hit a button.

Disable the Circuit Breakers

Run forward until you pass through a room with a red rotating light. Flip on your night vision. Move into another flooded compartment. Go up the stairs and use the panel to switch off the circuit breakers.

Shut Down the Reactor

Keep running through the flooded chambers. Use max speed to avoid taking damage from the sparking panel by the one corridor entrance. Jump up with max strength through the hole blasted in the ceiling. Climb the ladder here and crawl through the duct. Drop down at the end into the reactor control room.

Take a break between pushing rods, as even your nanosuit can't stand up to heavy radiation for very long.

Go to the main computer panel below the window overlooking the radiation room and hit the (what else?) big red button. Unsurprisingly, the radioactive control rods jam while retracting. Aliens then swarm into the room sucking energy from the reactor, but Helena shuts them down using that overload command she talked about earlier.

Lower the Control Rods

Enter the radiation-drenched control-rod room after the aliens get through with their temper tantrum. Hit max strength on your suit to give you the muscles to force down the rods. Do one rod at a time, taking breathers between them out in the control room to give your suit a chance to recharge. Trying to do even two at once gets you killed.

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