One of the trickier objectives in Marathon arrives in the fourth part of the Equitable Distribution contract. The objective reads “Trace Commander location at terminal South of South Relay.”
To unlock the Equitable Distribution quest chain, you’ll need to unlock the Traxus faction and progress through the faction to get the first Equitable Contribution contract. Tracing the Commander location is the starting objective for the fourth part of this quest chain
The objective itself can be difficult to parse, but you’re essentially looking for a specific terminal on the Perimeter map that is located to the South of the South Relay zone. The second part of the contract is also tricky as you need to take down the UESC Commander. As is typical in Marathon, both objectives need to be completed in a single run.
Finding the Terminal
The terminal you’re looking for is inside a small building on the far south side of the map that’s blocked off with red barriers. Depending on where you drop, it may be a bit of a hike over to South Relay, and you’ve got a tough fight ahead so it may be smarter to steer clear of enemy Runners en-route.
Once you’re at South Relay, you’ll want to start running on the road leading south-southeast away from the Relay until you come across the building. Thankfully, by the time you’ve gotten this far in the game, you should be very familiar with the Perimeter map.
Going up to the roof will get you to a hatch you can take down into the building. The terminal is inside the main room of the building, so it’s pretty easy to spot. Once you interact with the terminal, a four-minute timer starts counting down. At the end of that five minutes, the commander will spawn and it’s time to take him down in order to snag his credentials.
Taking on the Commander
The UESC Commander boss spawned as part of this contract is one of the tankier enemies you’ll face with a ton of health and a thick energy shield to boot. And he does spawn with friends, so if you’re taking this contract on solo, you’ll need to be careful and slow to avoid taking unnecessary damage and risking a failed run.
Once the four-minute timer kicks in, the Commander’s location is marked on your in-game HUD as a waypoint. To get out of the terminal building, you’ll need to take the hatch in the far right-corner room and crawl out through a drain pipe.
The drain pipe is filled with lasers that will hit you with a debuff that impairs your ability cooldowns, but it will resolve before you make it over to the Commander’s drop site.
The Commander spawns at North Relay, so you’ve got a bit of a hike to make it there before the 4-minute timer. If you do manage to get across the map with time to spare, you may want to pick a good spot to start engaging the boss. High ground can give you an advantage over the Commander, especially if you’ve got a heavy rifle equipped for extra headshot damage.
Once the Commander and his raiding party are down, be sure to loot the UESC Commander for his credentials so you can complete the second contract objective.
End of the contract
Taking out the UESC Commander and looting his credentials is the final part of the contract, and is the end of the Equal Distribution quest chain. So you can head on back to HQ and reap the rewards.
Marathon includes a ton of contracts you can take on from the various factions including NuCaloric, MIDA, Sekiguchi, and Arachne.
