Chapter 1
I'll let you in on a little secret, kiddo. The truth about Handsome Jack.
He slammed the door to open it. His hand smeared blood onto the panel before slipping off as he stumbled into the control room, SMG cradled in his other arm. The alarm was going off in the corridor, peals of mocking laughter and violent sweeps of orange emergency lighting that left his head aching. The room was dark, and empty. The window overlooking the loading bay was cracked on one side, like a huge ham of a fist had slammed someone's head into the glass. And that stain... Jack preferred not to think about it.
When the door slid shut behind him, he stumbled to the consoles, grappling his way along until he found one that was still powered. His ribs ached, but the station was in worse shape. The display bloomed softly red all along the executive offices, crawling its way toward their quarters as patiently as a caterpillar chewing down a stubborn leaf - well, there goes Butt Stallion, he thought numbly when the caterpillar swallowed up his trophy room in a soft red glow. Helios Station was burning, and Handsome Jack didn't even have a fiddle on hand.
In fact, Handsome Jack, Hero of Elpis and, to a lesser extent, Pandora, CEO of the multiplanetary multitrillion dollar corporation Hyperion, and fearless leader of every last man, woman and bot on Helios, well -
Handsome Jack was terrified.
This wasn't the first time Helios had been attacked. There'd been the Lost Legion, a bunch of filthy, moon-baked primitives, vicious like you wouldn't believe, and armed to the teeth on top of that, and Jack's army of loaders had made short work of them. It had been... briefly off-putting, at worst. And the Tassiter uprising, if a one-man bitchfest could be called an uprising, but it was one that had nevertheless been quashed.
This was different. There was something very, very wrong here on Helios with them.
Wiping one shaking hand on his pants, Jack tried raising Wilhelm on the comm. A loud scream of metal on metal below him in the loading area made him duck down out of sight, crouched under the window as cold sweat renewed its assault on him.
"C'mon, Wilhelm..." He smacked sharply at the ECHO when only static came out. "Scrot-sucking son of a -"
A burst of gunfire answered him from the loading bay, sharp pop-pops and the unmistakable fizz of a laser weapon. Jack flinched, then shot a peek at the screen. The red areas on the model had grown and stretched. The fighting was getting close. Jack was in deep doo-doo. He couldn't exactly hide and wait it out. The door to the control room wouldn't hold, and the SMG, a factory second Convergence with the red and black he hated, only had two rounds left in the clip and bucked like an angry bull when fired. Bet Nisha'd make those two shots count.
Jack briefly, morosely considered calling her. It was, what? Early afternoon down on the dust capital of the galaxy. She'd be sitting in the shade of the sheriff's office, the brim of her hat tilted against the flies and the sizzling heat, pulled down low enough to hide her predatory smile.
"Jack," she'd say, sharp and hungry.
And what would he tell her? "Babe, I don't wanna scare you, but Helios is kinda on the fritz - well, pretty much getting torn a brand new one right now, and you'll see it blow up at some point if you look up, just one big... frickin' fireball of death and sadness, and we're probably all gonna die in a minute or two before our scorched giblets rain down on Lynchwood, so don't wait up, kiddo."
No. He wasn't gonna say that. Heroes didn't die in the first act, and he was just getting started, dammit. Jack rallied, pushing up from his cower to frantically type in commands on the now blood-smeared keyboard. The cushy emergency pods up in the Hub of Heroism were either launched or scrap at this point - no point in even checking - but the cheap cans that served as escape pods for the disposable masses lay untouched under two years' worth of space dust. If Jack had known he'd be needing one, he'd have ordered more frequent inspections. Now, if he could just turn on a few of these loaders to escort him to the launch bay...
An explosion kicked the thoughts right out of his head. The ensuing tremble that ran through the station knocked him off his feet, painfully slamming him into the console. Jack lay on the floor for a moment, dazed. He knew it was impossible, but he could've sworn he felt the station buckle like an empty cereal box. Lightheaded, ears ringing, he went to punch in the authorization code only to find the screen dark.
"Cocksuck," Jack commented. No way around it. It was a mad dash to the escape pods all by his lonesome, or bust. He couldn't even bring himself to get chair-throwingly mad. Still, just for old times' sake, he hefted up one of the scattered chairs and halfheartedly hurled it at the cracked window, a movement that sent a sharp stab of pain shooting up his arm into his chest - God, his kingdom for a med hypo. When the window unflinchingly deflected the hit, he deeply regretted putting in shatterproof glass after the Zarpederp incident.
Getting down to the pods wasn't the hard part. After those initial bursts of gunfire, the area had gone quiet again. That distinct lasery smell hung in the air. In the shelter of stacks of unused containers, Jack quietly made his way across the cluttered loading bay towards the escape pods, Convergence at the ready, looking less like the suave bastard he was and more like a drowned rat. There was blood seeping down his shirt from a deep gash, courtesy of Wilhelm. In the heat of the moment, he'd tried batting Jack out of the line of fire and ended up punching him aside with his metal arm. But things could've been worse. Things could always be worse.
As Jack pried the round hatch open with excruciating slowness, there was the sound of a door opening nearby. Jack didn't look up. He dropped the SMG on the floor and redoubled efforts, working the hatch open inch by heavy inch, until it was just wide enough for him to scramble up and squeeze himself through. For one terrifying moment, he thought he was stuck, but he wiggled hard and landed with a thump inside the pod with four very basic seats, a round porthole with a peaceful view of the ass end of the galaxy, and a big red button labeled "DO NOT PUSH or the cost of this pod will be docked out of your pay". He could hear yelling. At least three people, and a louder, stranger sound that could only be -
Oh shit, oh shitshitshit, son of a taint-kissing buttweasel.
He slammed the big red button. Instantly, lights came on in the pod, the window flashed the words "DON'T PANIC" in large friendly letters, and the heavy hatch swung shut with a hydraulic hiss. Jack lunged for a seat and strapped himself in, fingers shaking on the buckle. The hatch had shut out most of the noise, but he still heard the muted thumps of gunshots, followed by screaming.
Something slammed up against the hatch. Startled, Jack looked up and into his terrified reflection, only his reflection was now staring at him in wide-eyed recognition and had started pounding on the glass, screaming his name.
Wow, was that what he really looked like when he was shitting his pants with fear? Jack shook himself. Timothy fucking Lawrence, always turning up where he was least wanted. He could see something in the darkness beyond the escape pod, and was careful not to look directly at it, instead fixing Tim with what he hoped was a sympathetic grimace as he said, "I'm sorry, kiddo." He tapped an imaginary wristwatch.
He couldn't hear it, but Tim's mouth formed the word. "Jack!" He looked so desperate it was nearly beautiful. As Jack watched, Tim ducked out of sight and reemerged with the SMG. Jack got a sickening lurch, thinking he might shoot out the window, but Tim aimed into the darkness and fired, a quick rat-tat that probably went wide, and then the gun was dry. And then he threw the gun, and backed up into the hatch until he was pressed against it.
Better you than me, Jack thought grimly, hand hovering over the release. There was an unpleasant twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach.
The truth about Handsome Jack?
He doesn't have a goddamn clue what he's doing.
Before he knew what he was doing, the hatch was open and he was pulling Tim into the pod with him. The air shifted and a horrible smell of burning filled the pod, and then Jack had slammed the hatch shut and hit the release, and something was scratching at the window - don't look, don't fucking look - as the pod rolled and tumbled into open space.
Alive. He was alive. Jack picked himself up from the rocking floor, smoothing his hair back. He grinned and even laughed, but what came out was a manic cackle. Timothy was huddled up to the far end of the capsule, holding onto a seat and looking greenish.
Jack snorted. It was nice not to be the most panic-stricken person in the room. "Well... let's not try that again. And you -" He leveled an accusing finger at Tim. "You owe me one, pumpkin."
It was at that point that the pod's engine kicked into gear, throwing them around their tiny sardine can as it rocketed away from Helios Station and arced down towards a Pandoran crash landing.