I took a moment to collect my thoughts. "I guess it all started on Eden 6, at the main university there, Ghost Technical. Though calling it a university is a bit of a understatement. The place is pretty well the premier place to study at for programmers and engineers, especially those heading out into the border worlds."
"Why?" Maya asked, though I could see that Gaige had recognised the name.
"Because they don't just teach you about programming or engineering, they teach you combat skills too. How to survive out in the 'less civilised' areas of the universe. Part technical college, part military academy. But it has a damn good reputation and it's well earned. A lot of the big corporations send their combat engineers there before sending them into the field. A lot of those aspiring to be combat engineers go there too."
"Back up a sec. You were at Ghost?" Gaige asked, a degree of awe in her voice.
I grinned. "Yeah, thought you'd have heard of it. You'd do pretty damn well there, I reckon."
Gaige's jaw dropped, utterly speechless. I took advantage of the silence to continue.
"The good thing about that place, it doesn't require massive pockets to get in. If you can prove you have the talent to do well there, they'll find a way to get you in. One of the few philanthropist organisations that are more reasonable left, at least to the students. They are picky on talent, though. You have to be able to prove you have skill. Anyway, the year I started, there was a guy in his last year, real hotshot by the name of John Hanson. He was the top student there, and by a long way. Didn't have much to do with him then, but heard a lot about him. Ace programmer, crack shot and practically a super soldier. Everyone in Ghost wanted to be him. Graduated top of his year with daylight second and third, had his pick of jobs when he left. Guess where he went?"
Maya snarled, "Hyperion. He's Jack isn't he?"
"Yep. Hyperion got practically the best person they could have possibly had and jammed him in a tiny office doing the most mundane crap you could imagine. He didn't take it well."
"How not well?" Axton asked, frowning.
"Exactly what happened, I'm not sure, it was before my time there. But judging by the rumours, I've heard, he was ruthless in moving up though the ranks. Got on the wrong side of a lot of people, including the President, Howard Tassiter. Tassiter was a prick and he had no problems letting Jack know that he didn't want him around. Jack's career could have ended there, except for one thing. He worked out the value of Pandora ahead of nearly everyone else, got a satellite there to watch it and had the company perfectly positioned to take advantage of the event after the Vault of the Destroyer opened."
Salvador whistled. "Quite a bit of luck."
"Sure was. Jack went from hanging by his fingernails to major up-and-comer in the space of a month. He got approval from the board, despite Tassiter's objections, to expand Hyperion's operations, including building Helios. That was about the time he recruited me."
FLASHBACK STARTS
I'd been working pretty hard on one of my final projects for the programming side of my course. It was late and I wasn't expecting anyone to be around. But five years of experiences at Ghost had honed my combat instincts and senses to a fine touch. So I knew when someone entered the lab I was in, despite the fact they didn't come through the door.
Instead, they chose to use the ventilation shaft behind me.
A lot of students had chosen this method to prank each other. They'd learned not to do it to me after I nearly blew off the head of one particularly devious prankster. Lucky for him, my eyes caught up with my ears before I could pull the trigger.
I dived away from the desk I was at, snapping up behind another, pistol in hand and levelled at the intruder.
What surprised me was that they applauded.
"Not bad, kiddo. Not too bad at all."
Despite the fact that I'd never personally met him, and hadn't even seen him for four years, I recognised the voice.
"John Hanson. Now, why would you been sneaking into here well after hours?"
He shrugged as the lights belatedly came up to their normal level. "Heard you're pretty good. Best way to find out exactly how good, don't cha think?"
I raised an eyebrow, lowering but not letting go of the pistol. "Sure there would be a less dangerous way, but I'll give you the point. So, why is a high-flying technician like you talking to a guy like me?"
"Consider it a hunting trip. I'm checking out the competition and wondering if they really need to be."
I frowned. "Hyperion sent you to head-hunt me?"
"Hardly. I told them I wanted the best and that I'd chose them myself. You were the first on my list."
I snorted. "I'm flattered. You have an interesting idea of a sales pitch."
"Huh, maybe kiddo. Look, I've been around enough to spot talent. Your record put you on my radar, got my interest. From what I've seen of you, you might just be the only person that comes close to me. Think of what we could achieve together."
"What exactly do you have in mind?"
"Little project of mine at an absolute shithole called Pandora. I think you and your skills would fit in just fine."
"I'll think about it."
FLASHBACK ENDS
"I did think about that offer for the rest of the year. I had more than a few offers from other corporations over that time too, but Jack's stood out. Eventually, the prospect of working with the very best of the best, and the money they were offering was enough to persuade me."
"That sort of thing happen often? Getting head-hunted wasn't that common." Axton commented.
Gaige spoke up, having finally regained the power of speech. "Axton, what you don't understand is that being a Ghost graduate is a big deal. They don't make much from each student, but the quality of those they turn out is so incredible and renowned that they ask for and get a spotter's fee for each student that gets recruited later. Even their barely passing students are equivalent to seasoned professionals in their field, by the time they leave. That's how Ghost makes their money and stays functioning."
"And those spotter's fees are huge. Students that barely make the grade usually have a price of between a quarter of a million and a million that the employer has to pay Ghost, which is cheap to them, because they'd spend twice that training them up any other way, at least, plus the time it would take as well." I added.
"So what did Hyperion pay for Jack?" Salvador asked.
I snorted. "Let me put Jack into context. When he left Ghost, not only did he leave as their top student, but he held every single record Ghost had. Students of Jack's calibre are once in a lifetime opportunities to employers."
I paused, letting that sink in, "Jack had people breaking down his door to talk to him and all of them paid over ten million per conversation for the chance."
There was a stunned pause before they all erupted, "HOW MUCH?"
"Surely you jest," Hammerlock stammered.
"Not one bit. I think Hyperion paid over a billion to Ghost eventually when they hired Jack."
"They paid that much and stuck him in the equivalent of a broom closet?" Maya asked.
"Plus what they paid him. But to companies like Hyperion, that's nothing. In any case, Jack made that back for them in the first six months, despite how they treated him. As I told Zero, both the New-U and Fast Travel Stations are Jack's brain-child."
"So what did Hyperion pay for you?" Axton asked.
"Enough. I'm not at Jack's level, but Ghost made plenty out of me, that's for sure."
"So how good are you?" Claptrap asked.
"Most areas, Jack's better but not by a huge amount. If he hadn't gone through Ghost when he did, pretty well all of the records would be mine instead of his. Even so, I managed to beat a couple of them. In a fair contest, one on one, he'd beat me every time, but he'd really have to work for it. But it won't ever be a fair contest between us. Not now."
"So, Hyperion/hired you and you worked/for Jack. What was next?" Zero asked.
"Jack and I worked well as a team. In many ways, we were two sides of the same coin. His speciality was order. He was structured, methodical and thorough. Brilliant mind, able to work out cause and effects of actions very quickly and precisely. He didn't have many Eureka moments, but what he did have, he could turn into workable concepts pretty quickly."
"You sound as though you admire him." Axton accused.
"I did, and in some ways, I still do. Don't get me wrong, I utterly despise the man now, but he wasn't always like that and it's hard not to admire his level of skill. I respect him, in much the same way that you would respect an apex predator that hunts you."
"So, if he's order, then what are you?" Salvador asked.
I grinned. "Chaos. Formal, structured issues and plans, I can handle them, but they aren't really my forte. What is my forte is improvisation."
Maya blinked. "Like that shield."
"Exactly. For whatever reason, I can take a look at a problem, whether it's a programming issue, or a battlefield, and work out something that can turn it the way I want. It might not be pretty, but it's functional and will do the job well. Which is why in a fair battle, he'd kick my arse. But the only occasion where we've had anything approaching a fight, it wasn't anywhere close to fair. Granted, I had a fair bit of luck there, but that one bit of luck was all I needed."
"What was that?" Gaige said, smiling slightly.
"I'll get to it. Anyway, we got along well, until Elpis. Something changed him then. Mind you, very few of us emerged from that debacle unchanged."
"You were involved?" Claptrap asked.
"Not directly. Was working with a team of programmers tightening up some of the programming on the moonshot supply cannon. We'd taken a lot of the systems off-line when the Lost Legion hit the station."
"You were working on the moonshot cannon just before the attack?" Claptrap seemed rather interested by that.
"Yeah." I said slowly. "Why?"
He chuckled then laughed. "If we ever meet up with Athena, she's going to hit you. That moonshot cannon was how we escaped Helios. Only thing was, the automatic launch systems weren't running and the fragile contents setting that Jack selected wasn't functioning either. She got a hell of a headache from that impact."
Oh. Yeah, she'd probably have a good reason then. "Ah, oops?" I said sheepishly.
The others chuckled. I continued. "I didn't have a lot to do with Jack during that time, he was doing his own thing, trying to retake Helios he said, while I was trying to defend what little parts of the station we still had control over. We managed to hold our own, but we didn't start retaking ground until Jack came back. When he did, we started to be able to push them back into areas we could deal with them in. I'm guessing that you guys had a lot to do with that." I looked at Claptrap.
"Yeah. Wasn't a simple task but we managed it somehow." He replied.
"Hmm. Someday, I'd like to hear the full story of that. Never did find out exactly what happened from Jack. Anyway, after the Lost Legion was dealt with, Jack headed back to Elpis, said he had something to deal with. I was stuck trying to get Helios back into some kind of shape. Jack had already changed somewhat when he came back to Helios the first time, but the second? He came back with a major scar on his face, an eye blinded and one HELL of a chip on his shoulder, ranting about bandits, Pandora and how he was going to make them all pay."
Maya shivered. "Damn. But you stayed with him?"
"At that point, I was more wary around him, but he started purging Hyperion real fast. He throttled Tassiter in his own office and anyone he suspected of disagreeing with him were fired, mostly literally. Given that, I was concerned with trying to keep things in one piece. A lot of Hyperion employees either embraced Jack's new ideals, or pretended to. I elected to keep my head down until I could work out exactly what was going on."
"What changed things for you?" Salvador asked.
"New Haven."
Salvador, Hammerlock and Claptrap all stiffened at that, while the others just looked confused. "What's New Haven? Axton asked.
"Not what, where. It's a small town here on Pandora. Or at least it was."
"What happened?" Gaige asked.
FLASHBACK BEGINS
I had been working on refining some of Helio's systems, since the attack had exposed several issues that needed to be solved, when I was notified of an incoming call. Glancing at the ID, I grinned as I activated my end.
"How you doing, Dad?"
"Not too bad, Jason. It's good to be able to talk to you." My father replied, smiling.
I hadn't actually seen my family physically in years, not since I left Ghost. But I stayed in regular touch with all of them and savoured calls like this.
"Back at you. How's everyone?"
The camera pulled back, revealing my mother and sister. While I had inherited Mum's red hair and freckles as well as Dad's tall stature and green eyes, my fourteen year old sister had the reverse, with Dad's golden hair and tanned skin, coupled with Mum's petite frame and blue eyes. Even at her age, it was obvious that she was going to be as much of a heartbreaker as Mum was. They both grinned at me. All three were causally dressed, long shirts and jeans being the order of the day.
My sister waved at the camera. "Hey Jason!"
"Heya, squirt. You been staying out of trouble?"
"Of course." She said with perfect innocence.
"Uh-huh. Let me rephrase that. Have you been caught?"
"Jason, I never get caught, you know that." She laughed. All of us chuckled along with her.
"Now that sounds more like it."
"How are you holding up, Jason?" Mum asked. "We heard about the attack."
My smile became a bit forced. "It was rough, Mum, but I got through it. A lot of others didn't, though."
She nodded and we all elected to change the subject, chatting and generally catching up. Finally, Dad cleared his throat.
"We did have another reason to call, Jason. We got a new lead in our search, but we need your help to follow up on it."
I raised an eyebrow. "What sort of help do you need?"
"We've heard that Hyperion has locked down Pandora but we need to get there."
I frowned at the planet outside my window. "Pandora? You have any idea just how dangerous that place is?"
"It's the only lead we have, Jason. We have to know."
I grimaced, both understanding Dad's determination perfectly and cursing it. "Stay on the line, let me make a call, see what I can work out."
He nodded as I switched lines, putting in a direct call to Jack. I didn't have to wait long.
"Hey, kiddo. What's up?"
"You busy, Jack?"
"Not really. You need something?"
"Yeah, a favour. My family's interested in visiting Pandora."
There was a pause. "That's a hell of a favour, Jas. I'm gunna guess that they don't want to just have a look around."
"Not really. It's personal and it would mean a lot to us."
"You know why we locked Pandora down. It's not safe down there."
"I know." I sighed. "I've warned them but they're insisting that they need to go."
I could hear Jack considering things. "Like I said, it's a hell of a favour. But then, I definitely owe you at least one by now. Ok kiddo, but they have an escort. It's too dangerous for them not to have one. I'll get one of our teams to look after them. Not too close, so they can still have some privacy but still close enough to be able to keep an eye on them."
Personally, I didn't think that they'd need an escort, but I wasn't going to argue with Jack, given he'd given me what I wanted.
"I appreciate it, Jack. Thanks."
"Hey, no problem, kiddo. Send me the details, I'll sort it out. I assume you're going to want to meet up with them at some point?
"If I have a chance. I haven't seen any of them since Ghost."
"No sweat. Once we've got this stuff finished up, you can take some time off and catch up. Catch you later." Jack hung up and I switched back to Dad's call.
"All sorted. I'll send you the details. I won't be able to join you straight away, but we should be able to catch up pretty soon."
Dad grinned. "Appreciate it, Jason. Looking forward to it."
"Me too. One last thing. There'll be a Hyperion strike team watching over you guys as backup. We both know that you won't need them, but Jack insisted and it's best not to argue that point."
He shrugged. "Never know, they may be useful if things go south. Thanks, Jason. We'll see you soon."
FLASHBACK ENDS
"Jack bent his own rules like that?" Maya asked.
"By that time, Jack and I had a pretty damn good working relationship and a reasonably friendly one as well. I hadn't asked him for anything before, so he probably felt that he couldn't knock that one back. Still not sure if it was a decision made with my interests in mind, or his, given the result."
"The result? What do you mean?" Gaige asked.
FLASHBACK STARTS
I'd finally finished up and was grabbing my gear for the trip to Pandora when the comm chimed. Groaning, I activated it to see Jack's face.
"Lucky you caught me, Jack. I was just about to head out the door."
"You'll have to wait, I'm afraid. Come to my office, you're not going to like this."
I frowned but nodded, keying off the comm and moving at speed towards Jack's own office. I knew the best routes there and two minutes later I was walking into his personal office.
"What's wrong, Jack?" I asked.
"Take a seat, Jason." He gestured towards a chair, his expression grim. I compiled, a feeling of dread beginning to emerge. He sighed.
"I've just had a report from the surface. Apparently, a group of bandits have launched an attack on a place called New Haven. They've wiped it almost completely off the map."
I froze. I wasn't that familiar with New Haven, but I knew it was one of the bigger towns on Pandora, not the sort of place that most bandits would go after. That a group of bandits would do so spoke volumes as to their daring. However, that was of less concern to me than another fact.
The message I had had from Dad this morning said that they were heading for New Haven today, with the best information they'd come across being there.
My family were most likely at ground zero during the attack.
I swallowed. "Any survivors?" I asked nervously.
"Not that the reports suggest. Even the bandits have cleared out. I'm sorry Jason, but the report was from the team we had with your family. There was nothing that could have been done."
My anger was beginning to rise and I stood. "I'm going down there."
"Jason-"
"Jack, if there is even the slightest chance that they're alive, then I'm not going to abandon them. I will find them, one way or another."
I didn't wait for Jack's answer, turning to his Fast-Travel Station. I saw that New Haven was off-line, but there were other locations that weren't far away, such as the Dahl Headlands. Keying the destination up, I activated it and was seconds later on Pandora. Seeing a nearby Catch-A-Ride station, I hacked it and grabbed a Light Runner, before racing towards where I knew New Haven to be. It wasn't hard to find.
The smoke rising from its ruins saw to that.
As I pulled up, I saw people wandering the area and my heart rose. Maybe there were survivors after all. One woman turned towards me as I exited the car, with a heavily scarred face and mechanical arm, she was definitely distinctive. She snarled as she saw me and levelled her rifle at me.
"Hyperion scum!"
"Whoa!" I stepped away from the car, keeping my hands visible. "Ma'am, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm not your enemy right now."
"After you bastards destroyed our home, you think I'm going to believe that? You shouldn't have come alone, asshole." Her finger tightened on the trigger, but I didn't even notice.
She said that 'you bastards destroyed our home". But I was clearly a Hyperion employee, the logos made it damn near impossible to mistake me for a bandit.
What the hell was going on?
"Ma'am, I was told that a group of bandits attacked and destroyed New Haven. That there were no survivors."
She snorted. "Wrong on both counts, scum. You didn't do that good a job on us."
I swallowed and said slowly, "Are you saying that this was a Hyperion attack?"
"Of course it was! I know a GUN Loader when I see one, and I saw plenty today. Who the hell do you think you are, trying to fool us like that?"
"The name's Jason." I said mechanically, falling to my knees.
Hyperion had attacked New Haven.
What little of my mind that wasn't dealing with grief at that point could only come up with two ways that that could have happened.
Firstly, someone had gone behind Jack's back and ordered the attack, for what reason I couldn't fathom. As crazy as it was, I hoped it was true, because the alternative was worse.
The only other option was that the attack had been launched with Jack's knowledge and approval. That would mean that Jack had lied to my face and set this up from the moment I'd called him. But I couldn't work out why.
Dimly I became aware that the woman was looking at me like she was waiting for a response. "I'm sorry, what?"
"You work as a programmer? Reasonably high up in Hyperion?"
I replied slowly, "High enough. Why?"
"Come with me." She gestured towards a nearby building that was largely untouched. I followed her into a makeshift hospital and morgue. The stench of death pervaded everywhere through the room. She led me towards a group of open body bags in one corner that had a tall, dark skinned man with the look of a soldier standing beside them. As we approached, I saw a head of hair that was all too familiar.
I raced past the woman, dropping to my knees beside the fallen body of my mother.
"Mum." I whispered, tears openly falling from my face.
I thought I had been prepared for the reality of what had happened. I hadn't come close. Seeing her there, when I had spoken to her less than a day ago, shook me deeply.
The woman coughed slightly, drawing my attention. She held out an ECHO recorder for me. "She was fatally wounded during the attack, but she survived long enough to give me this and tell me of you. With her last breath, she told me to give this to you. She was recording into it when we found her."
I nodded, tucking the recorder away. "Thank you." I managed. "Did you find anyone else with her?"
The man that was standing close by turned towards us. "It looked like there were two other people with her, but not all of those that died had much to recover. A lot of them were reduced to practically nothing." He held out a pistol and a locket, both of which I recognised immediately. "We did find these nearby."
I reached out and took them, turning the pistol so I saw the base. I recognised the symbol cast into the bottom of the Maliwan revolver. Like me, Dad had been a Ghost graduate and every one was given a custom weapon when they left. Dad had chosen an incendiary revolver. Every one also had the Ghost symbol and the student number cast on it somewhere, and I had seen Dad's gun enough to recognise both symbols. Opening the magazine, I frowned, finding it fully loaded. Dad was no poor marksman and warrior, which meant he'd been taken by surprise.
That didn't bode well.
The gold locket, too, was a familiar piece. I'd given it to my sister for her tenth birthday and it had a picture of the four of us inside. Mum, Dad and I all had identical lockets made. Looking back at Mum's body, I was confused to not find her one. I clutched the locket in my hand.
"Was there anything else you found with them?" I asked.
Both shook their heads. "We haven't looked closely, though. No one wants to hang around here."
I nodded grimly. "How about fallen loader bots? Any of them still left?"
The man nodded and led me back outside. I took a second to say a final farewell to Mum, before following. He pointed towards a pile. "Over there."
I crouched beside one, pulling out a tool kit and beginning to work on extracting the data drive. "I don't know who was responsible for this at Hyperion, but I'm damn well going to find out."
"Oh, I know who was responsible." The man replied. "Handsome Jack."
"You sure?" I didn't bother looking up, continuing to work, not paying that much attention.
"Very. Hard to be mistaken, given that I recognised him and some of his cronies."
That got my attention. My head snapped up. "You mean, he led the attack? Personally?"
"Hard to mistake him for anyone else. There's something about him that I don't think anyone could fake. That lumbering cyborg and cowgirl with him are pretty hard to confuse for anyone else as well."
"Wilhelm and Nisha." I murmured. Those two had developed a reputation as Jack's enforcers, since Elpis and Helios were hit.
What was more of a problem was that Jack had apparently been here during the attack. Any hope that I had had that he wasn't involved died at that moment. At that moment, a blaze of anger began to boil. The man, apparently realising exactly how furious I was as I ripped the data drive out, took a step back.
"What are you planning to do?" He asked.
I glared at him, but my anger was directed at another target. "What has to be done."
"Bullshit." Axton said coldly.
Everyone snapped their heads around towards him. He'd been quiet practically the whole time, I'd almost forgotten he was there. Now, he was on his feet, fists clenched and eyes blazing.
"You seriously expected us to believe this little sob story you concocted? How thick do you think we are?"
"I don't know about the others, but I think I overestimated your intelligence by several orders of magnitude." I stood swiftly, my rage propelling me to my feet and my eyes narrowed at him. "I don't know what your problem is but I'm starting to wonder why I should bother helping you when it's clear that you're beyond help."
"Good, because we don't want your help." He snarled.
"Whoa!" Maya stepped in between us. "Cool down, alright."
"No." Zero stood. "Like Axton, I too/have heard enough of this filth./I don't believe it."
"Fine." I replied, turning and gathering my gear, pausing only to deactivate the two chips I had given to Axton and Zero. As I turned back, I saw Zero with his hand on his pistol.
"You are not leaving/ this place until we have agreed/ what we will do with you." He said coldly.
"Try and stop me. I could use the challenge." I said quietly. "But you better make that first shot count, because it's all you'll get. I've survived being hunted by Jack and every bandit and bounty hunter on this planet for the last three years, I don't need your help and I'm certainly not afraid of you."
"Jason..." Gaige stepped up. "Please."
"Sorry, Gaige. But those two don't trust me and I doubt they ever will. I'm not going to wait around and give them a chance to put a bullet in my head when my back is turned." I put a hand on her shoulder. "You take care, kiddo. I'll probably see you around anyway."
I nodded to the others and walked out, expecting to hear someone going for their weapon. As the door closed behind me, I did hear a lot of shouting start, but elected not to stay and listen, cursing the turn of events.
I may have had a good shot at Jack, but my best chance still lay with the Vault Hunters. I did need them, and they did need me, even if they didn't realise it right now.
After all, I hadn't told them everything just yet. There was a very good reason why Jack was so intent on seeing me out of the picture.
He knew what I was capable of. He'd experienced it first hand and only barely lived to tell the tale. From the rumours I had heard, only one other person had ever managed to mark him and she was long dead.
I wasn't.
This wasn't anywhere close to being over.
(Author's Note)
Honestly, the way this chapter was going to go changed about half a dozen times over the time I wrote this. The ending literally only got finalised in the last hour, before that I had a completely different approach planned out. I haven't finished with the history, but that will come later on, there's a bit of stuff to cover.
I do want to make one thing clear. It may look like Jason is going to be overpowered to hell and in fairness, he and the other Vault Hunters will be fairly strong and above the norm.
But so will Jack.
I don't know about you, but I was disappointed with how little a fight Jack puts up when you finally get to face him. This isn't going to be like that. Jack is at the top of his game in almost every level and is going to have a lot of tricks up his sleeve. I've said before that I'm planning on getting all of the Vault Hunters into this story.
The reason for that, bluntly, is that that's what it's going to take to have a chance in hell against Jack.
For the most part, I'm not going to explain this chapter further unless people want some clarification down the track, I think it stands well on its own without much other comments from me.
Now, reviews and thank you for them, I appreciate it.
Verdin, I will admit I have something of a soft spot for Maya and Gaige as the characters I've played most, so you'll see them a lot here. Don't worry about missing the Author's Notes, I deliberately put them at the end of the chapter so people can choose whether or not they want to read them. Having said that, I want to write the kind of story that I want to read. If I'm not happy with it, then I won't put it up for you all to read it until I am. I know that I may have different ideas to others, but I write primarily for entertainment, so if people are enjoying what I write, then I'm a very happy person.
Devo, I'm glad you like it.
Eu, thank you.
Well, that's another one down. I'm still going to keep some focus on here, but I also want to try and work on my Starcraft story as well, so no guarantees as to when the next chapter will be out. Please keep reading and reviewing.
Until next time.
