Keep in mind while reading this that I do not have a strong knowledge of the Borderlands universe and so details may be missing in places or I may contradict something in game. For the time being each "chapter" is a self-contained mini-story, I'll eventually link them all together through an actual story.
The SituationThe city of Sanctuary flew high above the highlands. One of the few constants of the sky in recent years on Pandora, though it had slowly become more and more like a flying fortress. Auto-turrets reminiscent of the Hyperion Auto-Cannons were mounted on the outer walls but they had a more rustic look to them. A swarm of Rakk hung upside down from the underbelly protected from other airborne threats by the fortress.
The only other constant in the sky was the Hyperion Moon Base. A giant H that was in orbit. It's once shinning appearance was now charred and otherwise decrypted. The base was still home to a few Hyperion employees but was no longer the weapon of mass destruction it had been prior to the downfall of Handsome Jack.
It had been just over ten years since Jack had been killed by the Vault Hunters saving Pandora from his tyranny but with Hyperion's lack of control grew more opportunity for the other intergalactic gun manufacturers to move in on Hyperion's Eridum supremacy.
Torgue had already set-up a highly illegal and highly explosive death tournament on Pandora in a vast desert but Mr Torgue had no interest in the girly purple rocks, at least not at first. Dahl had previously abandoned their efforts on Pandora but since then they had become a vastly superior militarised company. Dahl had set up bases of operation on the western coast of Pandora's main continent and had slowly begun advancing across the landscape, no group so far had been able to stand in their way.
With Dahl gaining control over more and more stockpiles of refined Eridum they began researching how to actually utilise the stuff without a Siren. They soon discovered the ability to enhance their nuclear weapons and in fact their star drives by refining the Eridum further into what they referred to as E2.
Thanks to their enhanced star drives supply shipments to Pandora increased dramatically further cementing Dahl as the dominant force. Their E2-Bombs were able to wipe out entire cities at once though in rare cases surviving creatures would be dramatically enhanced. In one instance an E2-Enhanced Skag was able to rip apart an entire team of Dahl advanced troops before being taken out by one troopers final grenade.
The Crimson Raiders and indeed the Vault Hunters could not sit idly by as their home became even more of a crap sack world than it already was. Lilith has led the Raiders for some time following the death of Roland but she was reckless and overconfident. She and a number of Raiders attempted to overthrow the city of Opportunity in the months following Jacks' defeat but this heavily protected city was far too much for her. She was presumed dead by the other Vault Hunters following further recon missions to the city leading to no intelligence on her.
Brick had left Sanctuary favouring a more offensive approach to ridding Pandora of the mega-corps. He was able to lead a group of bandits, psychos and other such inhabitants of Pandora in resisting the Dahl advancement but they were largely defeated. Their however had been a single major victory at the Washburn Refinery where Brick with the help of Krieg and his bandits were able to expel Hyperion .
This left the Raiders with no clear leader Mordecai was one of the original vault hunters, winner of Moxxi's Underdome but was a chronic alcoholic. Axton tried to assume command but his glory seeking ways had him sending his troops into unwinnable battles against superior Dahl troops. Axton soon stepped down in favour of the experienced Raider Vincent who although he did not have experience fighting unstoppable monsters was a keen tactical mind and a fair leader that took advisement from the experience Vault Hunters.
Gaige spent the majority of her time in Sanctuary improving its defensive and offensive capabilities. The auto-cannons had been her addition as had been a fast-travel lock-out device. This device was unique across the cosmos in that it modified a fast travel station to only reconstruct passengers if they had transmitted a valid code before being deconstructed. To date this had prevented 873 unauthorised people from entering Sanctuary.
The assassin known only as Zero continued to operate out of the floating fortress but was largely uninvolved with the Raiders efforts. He would only join them in their attacks if they offered him some sort of incentive. Zero would go missing for weeks on end only to return with a large bounty he would use, part of anyway, to reinforce his home. His haikus however had become largely nonsense. The man beneath the mask was getting older, he wasn't quite all there anymore.
The dwarf gunzerker Salvador had agreed with Brick's actions but did not want to take orders from the idiot Brick. He stayed in Sanctuary and was often the one to lead the charge in raids. He single handily went to save Tiny Tina from Torgue forces that had captured her and forced her to construct better bombs for them. Though he arrived too late to stop Torgue getting their hands on their first E2 Bomb. This bomb was detonated just above the Varkid Observatory resulting in the destruction of most of the Tundra Express area.
In the years after Malwain set up shop at ground zero utilising the remaining Badass Varkids in their attempts to gain a foothold on Pandora. Malwains attempts were just that, in the last ten years their troops had only managed to hold areas no-one else actually wanted. They were formidable troops capable of dealing massive amounts of elemental damage quickly and effectively but they were outnumbered 8 to 1 by bandits and 12 to 1 by Dahl. They were more evenly matched with Torgue but their access to E2 in later years made their explosive weaponry difficult to overcome in straight up fire fights.
Maya remained in Sanctuary after the defeat of the Warrior but Krieg had become a bit too attached. Stalking her and screaming random collections of words as she walked past. Eventually she had too much and used her Phaselock ability to send him down to the highlands below; even she was surprised that he took this ever so subtle hint. Krieg would stay away from Sanctuary and even join up with Brick on a number of occasions in the following years.
The Vladof CampaignThe Vladof company has ceased complete control of a rather large area on Pandora. They were probably the only group who would be capable of defeating the Dahl forces but they were content. They did not want to wage wars they might not win. No instead they picked off the smaller outliers and slowly built up their control. Vladof did not have access to E2 at all but that did not stop them being an effective force.
Vladof didn't need any fancy bombs, they just needed more bullets that everyone else. Their men patrol the Salt Flats and surrounding areas on the backs of armoured skags spraying bullets at any unsuspecting creatures or bandit they lay their eyes on. The blue blood of spiderants coloured much of the salted grounds except around a central building that had been constructed when Vladof first ceased the Salt Flats. It could be easily seen that the building had been hastily added to with various bars and extensions prodding out from the central building.
Here was stationed Vladofs most experienced war chief, Commander Orson. He was the one who had restrained Vladofs advancement in favour of a more secure base of operations. Though he was an older gentleman it did not show. He constantly had a grey Vladof assault rifle slung over his back though in recent years it had barely seen any use except to discipline his men. Strapped onto his belt a powerful absorption shield that had absorbed many of the shots fired at him over the years though not quite enough, for on his upper left arm he had metal plating where once was skin.
Commander Orson had only encountered the Crimson Raiders and the Vault Hunters once in his six years in the wasteland that is Pandora. It was the middle of the night with the star shinning with a red mist somewhere I the Arid Badlands. Hyperion forces still controlled much of the Badlands including the info stockade which was under increased guard since the Vault Hunters raid. The Vladof forces had begun their assault on the area around the stockade, their mini-guns spinning and spinning drowning out even the annoying robotic voices of the Hyperion loaders. Flood lights triggered as the assault began revealing what once was hidden : the Assassin Zero, the gunzerking Dwarf and a handful of Crimson Raiders that had snuck past the rather ineffective beefed up security.
Mere seconds after being illuminated Zero had deployed his holographic decoy drawing the fire from both the Hyperion loaders and the Vladof assault forces, Salavdor whipped out both of his pistols and quickly dispatched of the loaders around him and the Raiders allowing them to bunker down and begin to return fire. Commander Orson watched on from behind his men on his armoured badass skag. He slowly observed how these misfits fought; he recognised shards of their armour belonging to the Crimson Lance but they had been decimated years before. This group of misfits were just bandits pretending to be a strong military unit like the Crimson Lance.
Zero had made his way up on a perch above the battlefield before his holographic decoy vanished. He begun to line up a shot, that man on the Skag was surely the most important… killing him may cause enough panic amongst their ranks to give the Raiders a chance to escape. He took a deep breath as he looked down the barrel of his sniper rifle and lined up the shot. The Commander was not oblivious to this in fact he had seen this technology before though never on Pandora, as soon as the decoy had vanished he had begun scanning the battlefield realising that the real warrior could not have gone bar. Only a mere second before Zero pulled the trigger had the Commander fired a quick flurry of shots from his rifle but not at Zero, no he has aimed these shots as the rusted supports of his perch knocking off target and leaving Zero's bullet firmly embed in the armour of his steed.
The Assassin struggled to regain exposure as more and more loaders turned their attention toward him. His fellow Raiders were being overwhelmed only Sal seemed to be holding his own. He deployed yet another decoy and jumped over to a nearby structure and began climbing as quickly as he could. He looking down on the battlefield once more but this time he couldn't help. He was hidden for now but there was no way out for his comrades. He would have to return to Sanctuary alone and emptied handed.
Sal had spotted Zero and knew precisely how bad the situation would look to a wimp like Zero. "Pft Wimp's going to disappear again" Sal thought as he single handily dropped a War Loader on the ground. The Vladof assault forces were moving in, their wall of bullets only interrupted by the Gun and War Loaders that stood in their path.
"Go!" Shouted one of the Raiders to Sal as he was shot through the head. Sal charged through the Loaders blocking his path but he couldn't escape. Super Badass Loaders had been deployed to contain the situation and now Sal running low on ammo, his pistols using up 5 or 6 bullets with every squeeze of the trigger.
Sal's small stature allowed him to duck into a rather narrow pipe lying only a few feet away. He rolled a single MIRV Grenade out of the pipe before running away from this unwinnable fight.
Commander Orson and his men mowed down even these Super Badass Loaders though not with the ease of the more standard War Loaders. The majority of Hyperion's robots had the same exploitable weakness in their joints, points easily hit when firing hundreds of bullets. The battle was a long and painful battle but eventually Vladof had seized the area and with it one of Hyperion's greatest remaining assets, the info stockade.
The Malawian ExperimentHyperion had done many experiments with Slag, a by-product of Eridum on both humans and creatures. By in large this practice had stopped with the company now focusing on building bigger and better war machines but the elemental specialists Malawian had taken over. Their base of operations on the site of Varkid Observatory featured several underground laboratories and prison cells where the experiments took place.
It was here where the great Doctor Mel resided. He was a well-built man with scars down both of his arms from the various patients he had administered medication to. He always wore the same blood and slag stained lab coat, some say it was originally white but he dismisses such claims. He carried an E-Tech Pistol to help control his subjects, like all E-Tech weapons it did not fire regular weapons but instead fired needles to deliver whatever cocktail of drugs had been loaded into it – effective against both animals and humans.
Elemental Skags had long been observed on Pandora, there were even references to them in ancient writings but it had been unheard of to be able to imbue Varkids or Bullymongs with elemental properties, that was until Doctor Mel began experimenting with slag. Some of his colleagues had expressed concern that this was dangerous but he had developed a way of controlling these creatures through the use control collars that sent signals throughout the creature to direct them.
It had taken years to get to the point where his experiments were ready for proper human trials, on willing volunteers instead of captured Bandits and enemy forces. Though the procedure often had unexpected side-effects on humans with one subject even sprouting extra limbs out of his body. Doctor Mel believed he had perfected the procedure however, well enough that the side effects might be beneficial to the company.
His subjects of which there was five were all seated on individual wooden chairs and chained down with rusty metal chains. They looked terrified but Doctor Mel was assured they were willing though that did not matter much to him. He drew his E-Tech pistol and placed a new cartridge into the side of it, discarding the emptying old one. With this insertion the swirly patterns all over the gun lit up with a purple glow, the fins of the gun extended. He carefully lined up his first shot then quickly fired all five shots into his subjects; he had done similar feats before.
It would take several hours before the effects took full effect but until then the subjects would be out cold. Doctor Mel left the room, instructing a pair of Maliwan Shock Troopers to stand guard in case of any unexpected mutations, they had been rare but had often been disastrous. The good doctor had not been gone an hour before one the subjects started experiencing a change. He screamed out in agony as his bones grew denser and pointed out into spikes out of the joints before the muscle grew out and the skin grew denser. His lower jaw spilt in two has he let out more of a roar than the scream.
His chains broke as he lunged forward at the guards, they lets of only a few rounds from their guns before being ripped apart by the man. He frankly looked around but his vision was different he didn't recognise anything, it was as if everything were slightly distorted but not in any particular way. He bounded out into the hallways tearing apart any opposition without much effort. The Maliwan wares wielded by the people in the facility often inflicted him with elemental effects but these didn't seem to weaken him in the slightest.
All the defences of the facility pointed outward not inward and thus it was easy for this beast-man, this Skag-man fusion to escape. Doctor Mel promptly had the other subjects lock away in cells before securing permissions to seek out and recapture this clearly powerful beast. If he placed the control collar on soon Malawian would be able to use this creature as a weapon.
"Maybe these wimps will transform like that too!" Doctor Mel thought to himself, "A nice army of Skag-men!" He was hopeful most similar subject had transformed in similar ways before.
"Doctor." Declared a Maliwan Shock Trooper stepping through the threshold of the lab. "My name is Silver and I was be leading the team to capture that creature."
"Test Subject 005 is very powerful, how many men are you taking?" Asked the Doctor .
"Nine." Silver replied in a stern voice, confident that ten men including himself would easily be able to capture the beast.
"Not going to be enough, did you see how it shook off all those Elemental Effects?" The Doctor countered, beginning to think he should just go out and capture the beast himself.
"Yes" Silver murmured. "We are using the latest Maliwan Gear, shouldn't be a problem for us." He replied slightly shocked at the good Doctor's lack of faith in him.
"We'll see." The good Doctor replied, not confident in the troopers' ability.
The Hyperion CoefficientHyperion was no longer the dominate force it once was on Pandora. It had been reduced to a much smaller operation operating out of their few remaining strongholds in the Highlands and in Opportunity. In an effort to keep Pandora under its control following the demise of their fearsome leader Handsome Jack the company had placed a strong emphasis on creating more war units.
War Loaders were produced by the hundreds; Super Badass Loaders became the usual response to any situation while wasteful EXP-Loaders were all but phased out in favour of Loaders created from the improved designs of the Angelic Guard, specially designed loaders created for protecting Jack's siren catalyst Angel.
Though the Vault Hunters largely controlled The Dust they had never been able to take Hyperion's Prison complex. Historically the location had always been one of Hyperion's most reinforced bases but in recent years it had been converted into a more military centric base. War Loaders constantly patrolled out of the outer courtyard while a pair of Constructers V3.1 sat at the entrance slowly constructing War Loaders and Surveyors to protect the facility.
Hyperion had however lost their main staging platform, their moon base thanks to the Crimson Raiders resulting in them making extensive use of their drop-barges to attack any area. These barges are able to drop several dozen War Loaders into an area and often a high powered Constructor. These barges were difficult to construct and the only area Hyperion held capable to constructing them was in Opportunity.
Hyperion still had vast stockpiles of Eridum but without a way of converting it into E2 the were at a severe disadvantage to those who did. Dahl had decimated their outposts and mines near the Dahl headlands using E2 bombs that Hyperion was powerless to defend against.
Deep underground beneath the Friendship Gulag, in what once was the prison warden's office sat the new CEO of Hyperion – Victor Hel though he was better known as Viscous Victor amongst the stars. He was rumoured to have ripped an arm off his son for talking back once. To the outside world Opportunity appeared to Hyperion's main base of operations, their mighty stronghold but Victor knew that the city was nowhere near as defendable as the Friendship Gulag.
He valued Opportunity greatly for its ability to construct his quickest delivery platform but beyond that he saw little value in the city. He devoted the majority of his resources to reinforcing the Gulag seeing the Highlands as a lost cause. The Gulag no longer kept many prisoners but there were still a few high-profile prisoners that could be of some use in the future.
One such prisoner was a siren kept in a dark cell and deprived of Eridum, kept alive through only the most basic nourishments. She was only still alive because Victor believed that a Siren may yet be required to active some Eridian technology still on Pandora just as one had been used to charge the Vault Key . When she was first brought to the prison she had tried to escape using her natural abilities to attempt to trick her robotic guards but Victor punished her greatly for this.
Over the last couple of years he had broken her spirit, she was more subservient that ever before, more accepting of her faith. Victors daily visits were once painful and humiliating, she would fight back – attempt to kill him but it was futile without proper nourishment she was no match for him. He was the one in charge.
This was not uncommon behaviour for Victor; he needed to be the most powerful man around. Even in the era of Handsome Jack Victor was working to overthrow him, not because he disagreed with what Jack was doing but because he didn't think Jack was doing it right. He should have pumped Angel full of energy much, much quicker. He should have positioned Loaders outside of Sanctuary and just waited for the Shield to drop instead of this elaborate plan to have their power core replaced with a dud. No, Victor thought Jack was a coward and a fool. Victor's rule of Pandora would be much harsher.
After his visit with the broken Siren Victor visited his office once more, there he would direct Hyperion forces to where he wanted them to be. He often moved a large number of War Loaders around the Highlands and surrounding areas just to look as if Hyperion had a much better presence there but this façade did not full the inhabitants of Overlook let alone the forces that opposed Hyperion. Victor wanted to expand, to take over the land controlled by Maliwan in particular but he barely had enough bots to defend his strongholds.
The Dahl DropA rumble echoed throughout the region as a giant fire ball plummeted from above. To anyone below this fireball would have appeared to be just that, a giant fireball, but it was far from it. It was Dahl drop ship, a giant near spherical space ship designed to drop Dahl troops and supplies from orbit onto the planet.
Entering and exiting the atmosphere of a planet like Pandora with a large interstellar craft used up massive amounts of energy, energy that Dahl were reluctant to use. Instead of securing an area large enough for these ships to land in they decided to simply drop smaller ships from orbit. These drop ships typically carried 50 men and a variety of supplies. They were not designed for any use other than the trip from orbit but they had been known to be used as command posts while more permanent facilities were built or as an offensive weapon when dropped from orbit as the impact speed and mass of these ships was great.
This particular drop ship had been jettisoned to land somewhere in the thriving town of Oasis, Oasis was of little worth itself but it's location provided a perfect staging ground for Dahl's campaign to take the desert and with it the Washburn Refinery, one of the few still operating refineries on Pandora.
Oasis had once been a ghost town after many of its residents died to dehydration despite a large underground system of rivers and lakes only a few dozen feet below the hot, sandy surface of the town's paths. Once this system was discovered the resident mad hatter Shade had been able to route the water back into Oasis' well allowing the city to have a reliable supply of water, the only thing it had previously been lacking.
The citizens of Oasis fled in panic as the drop ship plummeted toward the town. Shade looked up from his shack on the promenade, his trusty sunglasses allowing him to discern a few details of the plummeting pile of junk that the panicking residents could not. He could just about make out the Dahl logo printed on the side as well a pair of spear like extremities on the bottom of the sphere but this did not make him and less worried. He slammed down the shutter on his shack and took shelter beneath the counter knowing if the flaming ball did hit his shack it wouldn't help.
As the fireball impact on the compacted sands of the dried riverbed a shockwave propagated throughout all the underground sandworm tunnels that littered the area, the loose sand tossed into the area and superheated by the immense heat created a cloud of fine glass. All went quiet for a few moments before the sandworms surfaces from their underground homes.
They danced about looking for what had caused the disturbance but they were not intelligent creatures. It wasn't until the main doors of the drop ship began to open up with a whoosing sound that the sandworms began to lob their acid at the structure. The extremely hot outer shell of the drop ship merely boiled away the acid without any serious damage to the armour. Four Dahl Soldiers emerged from the ship. They were in a desert fatigues and armed with the latest Dahl assault rifles which they quickly used to dispatch of the closest of the sandworms, the burst fire trait of all Dahl weapons allowing them to score multiple critical hits to the sandworms killing them instantly.
They moved out onto the glassy sand keeping an eye on the remaining sandworms but they weren't really concerned with the wildlife, Dahl had seen how effective local wildlife was for defending a location when they took a Skag Gully from Hyperion and this company had been instructed not to decimate the wildlife if possible.
"We're off target." Stated one of the Dahl troops looking around at the rocky hills and worms.
"Not too much, Oasis is behind us." One of his partners retorted.
"So are we going to kill more worms so we can get up there?" Another asked.
"I suppose we'll have to, We should see if they'll attack a large group though. There are another forty men in there waiting for some action." Their leader stated looking back at drop ship. "Steve, go tell them we're going to risk it, it's not like they're hard to kill."
It was only as few moments later than the Dahl troops began to exit the pod in groups of four and slowly fanned out from the exit. The sandworms did not attack, they would stand no chance but they did watch carefully eying up what was potentially their newest food source. Once the immediate area around the drop ship had been secured a few drops began climbing the hill up to the town.
"HELLO NEWCOMERS, WE WILL BE BESTEST FRIENDS." Shade screamed at the top of his lungs as fired rockets from atop of his shack. The rockets impacted the first of the Dahl troops sending him hurtling backward and crashing him amongst a group of sandworms that quickly devoured his corpse.
"Take that fool out!" screamed one of the higher ranking officers as Shade reloaded his launcher. A number of the Dahl troops kneeled and took aim but Shade had already managed to reload and had fired another shot into the midst of the troops sending sand clouds over the area. There was a brief moment of silence as the sand cleared and the Dahl troops struggled to locate the crazy old man.
"Where is he?" Shouted one of the troops who had been aiming at him.
"HERE FRIEND PERSON!" Exclaimed the more than slightly delusional man as he fired his steel grey revolver into the troopers face, sending him crashing to the ground. This was the last action of the brave lunatic as the fallen soldier's squad opened fire into him. Shade's hole ridden corpse crashed to the ground, his signature sunglasses came flying off shattering as the impacted the hardened sand.
Shade's noble death was but the first in the occupation of the town of Oasis. There were only a few that even attempted to stand up to the occupation force but they did not have anywhere near the success of the crazy old man and their actions caused the deaths of many innocents as Dahl made an example of them and their friends.
The S&S Sales PitchS&S were an after-market modifications company that was once a common manufacturer on Pandora and many other worlds but they had since became nothing more than the annoying kid at the adults table. Their once reputable standing had allowed them to contact with the bigger companies such as Hyperion, Vladof and Dahl but they couldn't compete militaristically.
The failing company now walked a fine line as it attempted to service all sides of the war that consumed the cosmos. They armed militias such as the Crimson Raiders and Captain Scarlet's pirates which made would normally have made them enemies of the great Dahl Corporation but they had a treaty with Dahl, one where S&S would provide them with their knowledge and intelligence in return for safe harbour.
This effectively made S&S a disobedient child of Dahl. They still worked with Dahl's enemies but they themselves were not enemies though Dahl Troopers on the ground often viewed them just the same. S&S did not have the same diversity as any of the other galactic level companies, they didn't even have the diversity of Jakobs who in addition to weapons also sold property and had a lumber division, this left begging for business on any world they could travel to.
In the dark void between Pandora and Eden a rusty deprecated S&S interstellar craft rendezvoused with the much larger, much sleeker Hyperion vessel. Only a few of S&S personal were allowed onto the Hyperion vessel but it wouldn't have mattered much S&S' dwindling stock values had forced them to lay off many of their staff leaving their remaining interstellar crafts with only a skeleton crew.
Amongst the three S&S crewmen that gained access to the Hyperion craft was a man in a tacky blue-striped suit. This man was tired with great, dark bags under his eyes. It had been a long journey and his fifth in as many days each more unsuccessful than the last, if he didn't make this sale he would be out of job and probably killed when he reported back to headquarters. He carried a single blackened briefcase with a small numerical keypad on the side.
The S&S crew were escorted from the docking bay to large office somewhere in the centre of the ship by a pair of what appeared to be modified Gun Loaders. They looked near identical to the standard Gun Loaders Hyperion manufactured but instead had heavy plating over their critical joints. Behind a large mahogany desk set a Hyperion execute with jet black slick hair and a rather expensive suit, smoking what was in all likely hood an expensive cigar.
"Oh come on, this is a business meeting Jeffery" The executive said as the three S&S crew entered the office, the large metallic doors shutting behind them. "You should wear a decent suit." He continued.
"I promise I'll get a new suit if you invest in some cutting edge S&S Hyperion Modification Units." Jeffrey , the man in the tacky suit replied.
"So what have you done?" the executive cut to the chases, he didn't really care about these meetings it had been arranged months before and he had long forgotten about it.
"Well we've created these modification units that can add a variety of features to a Hyperion Standard Fire Arm or HSF. These units can improve the time it takes for a Hyperion automatic or semi-automatic weapon to reach maximum accuracy, add elemental modifiers to rival Maliwan and add ammo regeneration." Jeffery confidently spouted out, barely even stopping to take a breath.
"Very impressive. " the executive replied. "How much will it set me back?"
"I can offer you licences for 1,3 or 10 years which would come in at $12 Billion, $27 Billion or $64 Billion."
"Best I can do is $10 Billion for 10 Years." The executive shrewdly countered.
"Come on, I can maybe do $10 Billion for 1 Year or I can get it down to $50 Billion for 10 if I get rid of some employees."
"We'll take a 10 year contract for the price of 1 year or we will blow your little ship out this dimension. We've recently had some setbacks with our efforts to retake Pandora thanks to the increased presence of Dahl and Vladof on the planet so that is the best I can do."
"Fine" Jeffery accepted that he could get no more. He saw an opportunity here for both him and his men to survive if he was able to get the cash directly instead of some electronic transfer. "But it's in cash, right now!" Jeffery boldly stated.
"Very well." The executive replied opening a drawer in his desk and pulling out enough cash to pay off Jeffery. "And my designs?"
"Here." Jeffery handed over the brief case he had brought aboard. "The code is 1337" he continued as he turned to leave, the executive popping open the brief case to see several blue prints and external hard drives.
The Atlas ProjectDeep in the blackest void a single Atlas ship remained, their company devastated by the events on Pandora many years ago. Despite it age it was an elegant craft, it had been well maintained by the dedicated Atlas employees and Crimson Lance operatives on board. The ship however had developed a malfunction in its faster than light drive, a module that allowed the ship to travel at speeds greater than light. The Lance Engineers could not fix it without supplies and with Atlas no longer operating there would be no supplies coming.
Without these vital supplies the ship – The Damocles – essentially drifted toward the nearest inhabitable world, Pandora. Their leader Alan Quake, a general of the Crimson Lance had rationed supplies well enough that there would still be a sizable number of them alive when they enviably reached Pandora. A time that was quickly approaching 10 years after their drive malfunctioned.
At their current speed they would reach Pandora in a little over a week. General Quake knew Pandora was not the place they needed to be, there would be little in the way of FTL Drives on offer there and frankly if the planet was still anything like the descriptions he had read they'd be lucky if they didn't have to spend the rest of their lives fighting off bandits and robots.
Looking out of the observation deck the crew could see Pandora, they could just make out the Dahl ships in orbit around the planet and they were worried. The Damocles was an old, single ship and would likely be no match in a fire fight against at least 2 but most likely more Dahl ships. The General however dismissed such negativity and preferred to direct the crew's efforts to preparing the ship for the atmospheric re-entry.
He hadn't discussed his plan with his underlings but he did not plan on engaging the Dahl vessels, he knew The Damocles would likely not survive and he did not spend 10 years aboard the wretched vessel to be killed before reaching some nice solid ground. No, he planned on heading straight down to the surface. With any luck the Dahl ships would consider The Damocles nothing more than a relic.
Even if the Dahl ships did engage them The Damocles' shields were still functioning perfectly and would hopefully take enough of the fire to allow them to land on Pandora and lower the effectiveness of the Dahl weapons. There were a lot of "hopefully" and "should work" elements of his plan but it was all he had, straight up combat was out of the question for now.
The general was hopeful that Dahl just didn't care about them, as they had not yet engaged or even acknowledged their existence even though they were clearly within sensor range. As they grew closer, Dahl did not fire upon them. It was not until the eventually began to pierce the atmosphere of Pandora that one of the Dahl ships fired on The Damocles with its main energy weapon.
The shit impacted the shields of The Damocles but accelerated the ship when they were attempting to decelerate. They crashed into the jungle below driving through the ground at tremendous speed. Their burning ship set the trees a light forced much of the wildlife to flee north. The jungle bullymong screamed out in agony as their dark green fur burned, the borak roared warning their pack of their impending doom.
As the smoke and dust cleared around The Damocles the crew were able to see where they were. It was a dark cavern full of strange glowing artefacts. They had someone managed to crash land into a rich Eridian ruin. A rumble shook the ground above, rocks began to fall onto The Damocles trapping them in the cavern and removing all but the faintest of light from the glowing ruins.
"Get the fucking lights back on." General Quake ordered. "That went better than expected." He proudly declared, though the crew thought differently they did not object as the general had been known to get rid of those that voiced their disagreement with him.
A few minutes later a minimum amount of lighting lit the control centre and observation deck allowing the General to start considering the situation. They were alive. They were sheltered from further attack. They had landed in a ruin full of potentially powerful artefacts. They were however several hundred metres underground without any clear way down. The ship wasn't in good shape at all with several systems simply not functioning.
After almost an hour the ship's life support and other basic systems were online and the General ready to lead a team of his men into the ruins to investigate. It took some work to get the airlock doors to open, they had not been opened in some time and now had rubble lodged on the other side but Lance were still strong, fit men and were able to eventually get it open.
The General and a selection of his men walked out into the darkened cavern, there were only a few moments in the purple glow of the ruins before two more Lance emerged from The Damocles with flood lights which quickly illuminated the ruins. The General ordered his men to begin taking relics and artefacts back into the ship where the Atlas Scientists could examine them to determine their use. He himself routed amongst the rocks at the base of a pillar they had crashed through, there amongst the debris a single orange glowing prism not unlike the other artefacts in the cavern. He bent down to pick it up and as he did he was enveloped in an orange light so bright that the entire cavern lit up highlighting its immensity. They were lucky to have landed where they did, atop of a plateau with hundreds of metres of a drop all around.
The Lance turned, stunned in awe as a fluctuating inner hide the General. It was modifying him. The Lance did not realise this unlike the inner light had disappeared into the General and the outer orange light receded. His once crimson armour had tinted to a combination of orange with highlights of a deep purple around the rims, strange disks patterned the armour on his arms. His face and hands were covered in what appeared to be tattoos similar to the glyphs on the walls and pillars of the ruins.
What the Lance did not see was the infused smaller versions of the artefact all down his spine. He was in a fair amount of pain from the process but he did not want to show weakness, fearing it may cost him. The artefacts slowly pulsed a visible orange energy stream between each other, each time causing a small amount of pain to the General and causing tattoo like scars to slowly grow out from them. At the rate they were covering him; if they did not stop he would be covered in a matter of days.
"Get back to work!" Quake snarled, "That's an order!" he barked before wearily heading back into The Damocles.
The TowerThere once was a lighthouse atop of a natural rock formation. Amongst the rock formations there were many buildings, settlements of pirates not quite cut out for sailing the seas. Now however this rock formation and lighthouse had been transformed into an impenetrable fortress of rocks and metal. Within the fortress walls was one of the safest places on Pandora.
Captain Scarlet was one the one responsible for the construction of the fortress. Though she had lost her chance at the fabled treasure room to the Vault Hunters she had been able to find stashes of the infamous Captain Blade's treasure hidden all around desert. These finds had made her a powerful force as even the curses of the weapons couldn't stop her and her men.
She had united the pirates of Pandora under a common banner, against those that call themselves bandits and against interstellar companies but most importantly against Vault Hunters. Her ship continually circled the tower though there was but a Skelton crew aboard.
Atop the lighthouse pirate snipers lay in wait every hour of every day. When the tower was first constructed they were picking off would be raiders once or twice an hour but now they were lucky if they took out a sandworm or two. A large steel and iron bunker extended out from the base of lighthouse, there was only one way in through an elevator under constant guard. It was from within this bunker that Scarlet ran her tight operation.
Scarlet stood at her old wooden desk just scaring at the various maps scattered across the table. Some maps indicated where more treasure was to be found but most were updates of the various armies on Pandora. The one map she was interested in had the Dahl logo stamped across Oasis with indications that they had begun moving into Wurm Water, no doubt heading toward the bandit controlled Washburn Refinery.
Unlike most of the would be raiders of the Tower Dahl was an organised army, if they weren't able to take the Tower directly they would be able to make it a war of attrition. One of Scarlet's trusted pirates walked into her office. His name Sam Cooke, he wore a deep blue trench coat embroidered with a golden lace. Hung over his shoulder rested a rather large blade said to have decapitated one million men. His eyes almost matched his coat.
"The scouts are reporting Dahl drop ships dropping between Oasis and Wurm Water." He began. "It won't be long before there are several hundred of them on their way here."
"We have four thousand slightly lower quality men within the Tower." Scarlet replied.
"I think we should consider sending an emissary to the Refinery before Dahl gets there."
"Why ever would we do that?" Scarlet countered her hand on her hip.
"The one called Brick will want to attack Dahl, he'll fail but with our help we could set back Dahl's campaign months even take Oasis for ourselves."
"Perhaps." Scarlet pondered. She was silent for a few minutes before she finally gave the go ahead for a single emissary to be sent to the refinery. Scarlet did not trust the majority of her men, she knew they were only loyal because they feared her yet still wanted the protection the Tower offered. For this reason she elected to send Sam alone, trusting he would be able to make it out of the refinery alive even if the Slab King didn't accept her offer.
As Sam walked through the settlement within the Tower the pirates usually rowdy attitudes became humble and quiet. This man had shown his true nature to these pirates too often for them to act ignorant of it. Though to most he appeared a quiet, even sophisticated man he was in fact a cold blooded killer like most of the residents of Pandora but he was a particularly viscous sort of murderer.
Rumours floated about the settlement that he had literally bit off someone's head just for looking at him funny. However not all of the rumours were as ridiculous or farfetched, most of them were actually true and all them involving decapitation. He demanded respect and respect he was given.
"Open the gate!" he yelled as he approached the only way in and out of the Tower. Two iron-clad whalers compiled with his order pulling on two giant chains to lift the heavy metal out of Sam's way. Just as he passed across the threshold the metal slammed down as even the whalers could not keep the metal gate elevated for long.
Cooke did not look back at the Tower, instead fixing his eyes on the path ahead of him. The path would be horrible for any sane person to travel, the corpses of bandits and sand worms littering the sands but to Cooke it was somewhat relaxing.
The PsychoDeep in the confines of the Washburn Refinery stood a shirtless psychopathic wearing nothing but his jeans and strangely a white lab coat. Beside him, Brick the king of the Slabs his hair greyed, his face covered in scars. The Slabs were a group of bandits that had grown over the years now encompassing several once prominent bandit factions such as the Bloodshots and Sawteeth. The two vault hunters were conversing most elegantly about the approaching Dahl forces.
"My fine cohort, I'm most gratified that you have sought me out for advice on our predicament." Krieg began. "Might I suggest a more elegant and refined tactic than the usual 'Punch it'?" he continued.
"BACON!" Krieg snorted thrusting his arms into the air.
"I apologise most sincerely, the Mr Hyde to my Dr Jekyl still occasionally seeps through." Krieg continued as he walked out to a cabinet mounted on the wall.
"I have no idea what you just said." Brick started, "But I could go for some bacon."
"Before Dahl arrives here you should position your Bad Ass troops and Goliaths in beneficial positions." He paused a moment, "The goliaths tend to turn against our men so I recommend placing them in sealable locations. Long corridors."
"Ye then when they get in we punch 'em" Brick continued pretending to understand the reasoning behind Krieg's words.
"Well hopefully I won't need to release the inner beast again." Krieg continued. "God, that is a horrible experience, especially after all those years with him in charge of my body." Brick turned round and walked away from Krieg.
"I really preferred the old Krieg." Brick murmured to himself.
Dahl would be at the refinery in the next few days and Brick's tactics were anything but tactical lucky smart Krieg and Rocko were there to guide is orders in the right direction. Brick had decided that they needed to be ready for an attack at any time. He sent some of his finest men, bad ass marauders and equipped them with snipers and shotguns, to the outer platforms. They would be the first line of defence alongside mounted turrets.
Brick personally jammed the elevators from the ground up to the refinery using long metal poles into the gears but not before sending a pair of goliaths down to the surface to help prevent Dahl getting control of the elevators. The inner facilities staggers Psychos, marauders, ordinary bandits and even midgets. Any door point that could be used to advance into the facility was reinforced, Goliaths left in unused offices and labs to surprise any occupying Dahl forces. The Slabs were well prepared this time; they wouldn't make the same mistakes they made in Thousand Cuts.
Thousand Cuts was once home to Slabs but once handsome Jack was killed Hyperion stepped up their campaign in the region in order to rescue the Control Core Angel from bandit control. To this end they sent War Loaders after War Loaders, Constructers after Constructers, Jet Loader after Jet Loader until the bandits without their leader Brick were forced to retreat.
The slab towers and other building that once populated the mountainside had been levelled in Hyperion's assault, though they were of questionable structural integrity even before Hyperion attacked. Hyperion however had not done much with the area, instead choosing to secure the Control Core facility in order to enact repair work on one of Hyperion's most powerful creations which had been disabled in the first ever successful assault on the facility.
The RaidRakk had always one of the most fearsome creatures in the skies of Pandora. They inspired one man, a prisoner brought to Pandora to work in the mines to don the identity of the Rakkman. He was not the hero Pandora deserved nor was he the hero they wanted, no he was something else entirely. Though he was a bit of a joke among the Crimson Raiders he had been very effective during the downfall of Hyperion being able to keep the areas he claimed to watch over free from the clangers.
Truth be told Hyperion didn't have much interest in the Fridge or his other domains at the time, only the occasional loader was sent in to survey the area but now Dahl had their eyes on it anything to restrict passage from to the Dust to the Highlands, two areas full of their enemies. Rakkman spent his time making sure the rats that were once plentiful in Fridge did not return. Rats were hated across most of Pandora by freedom fighters like the Crimson Raiders and the mega- corporations
The rats had once invaded his Rakk Cave on mass forcing him to use every tool in his utility belt including his very powerful yet odd Gunerang, a tediore pistol that returned to the user after being thrown much like a boomerang. He carried a variation of this gun for every situation, corrosive for bots, fire for the rats and shock to disable the powerful shields some of his more memorable adversaries used.
On this day Rakkman stood at the edge of his cliff facing cave looking out onto the ice where the Crystalisks would frolic, well what he would describe as frolicking. He noticed the large doors at the far end begin to open. From the tunnels emerged Dahl troops dressed in their artic camouflage without the rats that normally inhabited the area they faced no resistance as they advanced up the cliff, the Crystalisks did not bother them unless they stepped onto the ice and so they merely avoided the ice for the time being. Dahl preferred to set-up a base of operations in an area mining the crystalisks for their very valuable crystals, obviously they had not learned their lesson from the incident in the Caustic Caverns.