As I stormed out of Liar's Burg, I tried to work out my next move. I had to get to Sanctuary, that much was certain. I'd been running independent for years but the Crimson Raiders were going to need help. With a new group of Vault Hunters having escaped Jack, he would redouble his efforts to take out the Raiders and Vault Hunters both. He couldn't afford for them to team up against him.

Despite my feelings about some of the Vault Hunters, I was confident that, with Angel and Claptrap's help, they would reach Sanctuary without issue. Certainly not with anything that they couldn't handle. Which meant that my next objective was to ensure that the Raiders were still alive when they got there. Of course, getting there would help to clear the road for the Vault Hunters as well, so it was a win all round.

However, I was smart enough to know that I was too tired to fight my way there now. But there was a small bandit outpost not far from Liar's Burg on the way to Sanctuary that would give me a place to hole up for the night. It would do, once I had persuaded the bandits that it was in their interest to leave me alone. Somehow, I doubted that they would learn the lesson quickly, which meant they wouldn't learn it at all.

Right now, that didn't bother me in the slightest. They would either be smart enough to give me what I wanted without a fuss, or they wouldn't, in which case they wouldn't be worrying about anything else again.

It didn't take me long to reach the outpost, but if I'd hoped to enter unobserved, I was sorely disappointed. A pair of Nomads and a Marauder stepped into my path. One of the Nomads sneered.

"Well, who's this?"

I smiled mirthlessly. "Just a passing traveller looking for a room for the night."

He snorted. "I don't think you can afford it, pal. Not with that bounty on your head."

So they'd recognised me.

Shit.

I grinned in reply. "If you know who I am, then you know how many have tried to take me out and how many have ended up dead because of it. I'll give you a clue, it's the same number. Money's useless if you're too dead to spend it."

The Nomad brought his gun up but was waved down by the Marauder, who stepped in front. He stared at me.

"What you doing around here, then?"

I shrugged. "Catching a ride on the ferry to Three Horns Divide, but it won't be leaving until the morning, as I recall."

"Won't be leaving any-time soon." He snarled. I raised an eyebrow.

"How do you figure that?"

He nodded over his shoulder to where another, larger bandit outpost stood. "Captain Flynt's stolen the damn ferry and hoisted it onto his ship."

I frowned. "Well, that's going to complicate things."

He snorted. "Yeah, no shit. You want me to give you that ride, then you'll have to steal it back from him."

"You're the operator?" I asked.

"Yeah. Guy's got to make a living somehow. Went into business with a bleeding Claptrap unit. Guy's crazy, but knows his shit. Look, you want that room and the ride, then you'll have to get my ship back."

I nodded. "Fair enough. I'm not going after it tonight, though. Been a long day."

He shrugged. "One more day isn't going to hurt."

"You mentioned a Claptrap unit? Yellow, likes to talk a lot, but can be reasonable?"

"Yeah, that's him. You've met him?"

I nodded. "Yeah, he's in Liar's Burg right now, but probably going to be coming back this way, with company in the next day or so."

His head cocked sideways. "What kind of company?"

I smiled softly. "The Vault Hunter kind."

His eyes widened. "Well now, that is interesting." He waved a hand at his men and they all lowered their weapons. "Got time for a chin-wag?"

I smiled. "I think I can make it."

"Beautiful. Name's Richard."


I talked to Richard for about an hour, relating my run-in with the Vault Hunters, or what bits I was prepared to talk about. To say he was surprised was an understatement. After that, I begged off any further discussion, knowing I was going to have my work cut out for me in the morning. Swiftly setting up my gear to warn me if anyone decided to try something less positive to my well-being, I hit the bed, ready to get what sleep I could. The only problem I was, I had a visitor.

"Jason." Angel's image flickered to life over my HUD before I could take it off. I couldn't help the groan.

"Angel, it's been a long and rather screwed up day. Do we have to do this now?"

"Yes." Her voice was firm, yet soft.

I closed my eyes briefly. "You're angry because I walked away from the Vault Hunters."

"No, I'm angry that they drove you away and you let them. You, of all people, know what's at stake."

"Yes, I do. But I wonder how you do."

Her image paused, confused. "Why? I told you that I'm patched into every system on Pandora."

"Yes, and the majority of those systems are Hyperion. I should know, after all. I also know exactly how hard it is to penetrate them. AI or not, without a lot of knowledge of Hyperion systems, you wouldn't stand a chance. Which suggests that you're Hyperion." I'd been thinking about Angel and her abilities for some time and come to some interesting conclusions.

She replied softly, "I am."

I nodded. "Which brings the inevitable question that everyone is going to ask; how can we trust you?"

She paused. "What do you think?"

I snorted. "After years with Jack and knowing how he thinks, I can see his hand behind this. A safeguard, perhaps, in the event that someone slipped through his trap on the train. That's the most logical explanation. But I'm not convinced that it's completely right."

Her eyes brightened somewhat, the red flecks flaring slightly. "Go on."

"If you're Hyperion, then Jack would have known that we survived the impact immediately. You could have hacked Claptrap and used him to give Jack a position to drop a moon strike or an orbital force on our heads very easily. Hell, you could have used him to lead us into a trap. There's about a hundred different ways you could have finished us off. Hyperion barges are routinely equipped with anti-intruder defences, would have been child's play for you and we'd have been defenceless. But you didn't do any of them."

"No. So what do you think that means?"

"I think it means you're not fully on Jack's side, but you're not exactly on ours either. You're playing both sides against the middle for something. Then again, Jack could be forcing you to do things or deliberately playing with us just for his own amusement. It's hard to tell for sure, wouldn't you agree?"

She nodded. "I understand what you mean and what I have to say to you won't make it any easier."

"That's not ominous at all." I said coldly.

"No." She paused. "I heard you telling your story to the other Vault Hunters."

"Funny, I would have thought that the modified chips would have blocked you out as well."

"As far as Jack is concerned, it has. But even Jack doesn't know everything about me. I can keep some things hidden from him. I slid a program to bypass your defences into your system when I helped you find where the Vault Hunters were to assemble."

I growled. "I thought that it was too easy to get that intel when I'd spent so long trying to get it. What exactly is your point?"

"New Haven."

I was silent for a moment, before speaking softly. "I suggest you explain yourself quickly. I think you know how little I like talking about that."

"I do, and under other circumstances, I would have stayed quiet. But you have the right to know." She paused. "I know why your family was in New Haven that day and it is because of me."

I froze, staring at the image of Angel in front of my eyes, not trusting myself to speak.

She continued. "I don't know exactly what you and your family were after, but their search put them on the trail of the original Vault Hunters. Jack had me make sure they went to New Haven. They probably would have anyway, but I made sure they stayed there."

"For how long?" I said dangerously. Angel was on very thin ice right now.

She bowed her head. "Long enough. After they returned from Elpis, Jack had me keep track of them. When they settled in New Haven, he got me to advise them to stay there and give the residents enough reasons to ensure they hung around. I didn't know exactly what he was planning until later, but I knew it wasn't anything good. But I couldn't warn them, not without Jack being alerted. The only reason I can talk to you openly is because of the ECHO chips you came up with and the fact that Jack's asleep right now."

I snarled, "And the attack? Did you have anything to do with that?"

"No!" Angel said hotly, then more softly, "At least not directly. I knew of the attack eventually, but I couldn't warn them. Jack pushed his plans up when he found out your family would be there. Something got his attention, but I don't know what."

I couldn't be sure what either, but I had a reasonable guess, or rather two. I sighed. "So, you knew about the attack, but couldn't do anything to stop it or warn anyone? Is that about right?"

"Yes. The measures I'm using to get around Jack's monitoring are recent, I've only got them working in the last year or so. I didn't have them then."

I wanted to hate Angel, to blame her. I couldn't trust anything she said, she had to be Hyperion, which meant she was under Jack's control. This was more than likely a little sob story she and Jack had made up to lure me into a trap.

But I couldn't. Some instinct told me that Angel wasn't lying, as crazy as that seemed. And Ghost, along with life in general, had taught me through hard experience to follow my instincts.

"I appreciate that you told me, but you know it's going to be that much harder for me to trust you."

She snorted, something rather unusual for an AI in my experience. "What choice do I have?" Her gaze locked onto me. "I want to be free of Jack, but that will never happen, certainly not on my own. The only way that will be even remotely possible is with outside help. The only people capable of going against Jack with any chance of success are the Vault Hunters. Of that number, the only person I can contact without Jack finding out is you. Whether or not you trust me is irrelevant, I have to trust you to have any hope."

"You sure don't act like any AI I've ever come across."

"Of course not. Jack created me himself."

"So, the creation rebels against the creator."

"You know Jack just as well as I do. Wouldn't you?"

I had to concede that point. "What do you want from me?"

"To do what you're already planning to do. Work with the Vault Hunters, get to and protect Sanctuary, take down Jack and dismantle Hyperion."

"You know, when you put it like that, that seems like a pretty tall order."

She grinned. "You're a Vault Hunter and a Ghost graduate. Impossible is your stock in trade. If anyone can pull this off, it's you."

"Guess there isn't much option. Never was fond of failing." I replied slowly. "But this had better not be a mistake."

"It isn't. You may not trust me on anything right now, but I do trust you. You can do this and you won't regret it." Her image faded out and I collapsed onto the bed. One thing was for sure.

Things were about to get busy.


The next morning, I was quick to assemble my gear. I knew the others wouldn't be far away, even if they had some odd jobs to do for Hammerlock, so I had to move fast. Richard was waiting for me as I stepped outside and motioned me towards a nearby holographic display. He gestured towards the display, showing a map of the surrounding area.

"This is us, here. Flynt's based himself out of the Soaring Dragon, to the north. It's a abandoned hulk, with a giant flame-thrower on the bow, hard to miss. He's got a lot of boys there. Expect at least fifty or so men throughout the ship, but could easily be double that. He's got a small outpost just south of the ship, but that's a cakewalk, only a couple of guards. Biggest problem is going to be his secondary base, just to our north."

He pointed up towards another settlement before continuing. "Flint's first mate, Boom-Bewm, runs it as an advance post. Again, probably fifty or so enemies there. First part's simple enough, there's plenty of cover, the second is more of a problem. Once you're through the main area, you drop down into the next section, but there's also a big artillery piece set up there too. There's some cover there, but not a lot, and that cannon packs a punch."

I frowned. "How big?"

He snorted. "It's an anti-ship weapon. You better find a good shield before you get there, or you'll get blown to pieces before you get close."

"But it's fairly slow?"

"Reasonably. Still, you'll have a lot to deal with. They're all from the Ripper clan."

I shuddered. Even by Pandoran standards, the Ripper clan wasn't a nice bandit group to run into. "That will make things interesting. Won't be simple but should be able to get it done."

Richard shook his head. "You're crazy, but you might just be able to pull it off. I'd send my boys to help, but I think they'd get in your way."

"Probably better for this. I'm used to working alone and I'd hate any 'friendly fire' incidents." I nodded to him. "Thanks for the info."

"Hey, it helps us both out. Good luck." With that, he walked away and I was on my own.


It took me less than half an hour to reach the first of the hostile outposts. From a nearby ridge, I took the opportunity to survey the area through the rifle's scope. Richard hadn't bullshitted me, his numbers, at least for the first part, were pretty well spot on. I counted twenty four bandits, from Marauders and Nomads to Psychos. Given I was still without a shield, I elected not to try anything fancy. Sighting in on one of the Nomads, I declared war on Flint's gang.

It took three bodies for them to notice they were under attack. It took seven for them to realise where I was. By that time, all of the Nomads and several Marauders were out of action. The remainder fired back with the usual abominable aim or, in the case of the Pyschos, charged blindly towards me. I picked off a pair of Suicide Psychos, wiping out a few more of their more direct companions as their charges detonated. But the fire was starting to close in on me and I was soon going to have to deal with a bunch of crazy, axe wielding maniacs if I didn't move.

I dived down the ridge away from the outpost. The remaining Psychos followed me, briefly. Then the grenade I'd left up the top gave them a quick lesson in unpowered flight, though it neglected to explain how to land safely.

Their loss.

Switching to my SMG, I charged in firing, diving behind cover as the survivors adjusted to my new fire. My eyes narrowed as I spotted something of interest. One of the remaining Marauders had a powerful shield that might just give me the edge I needed in the rest of the fight. In another bit of luck, he was on the deck of a nearby house to my right, that offered cover from the remaining bandits.

It looked to me like it was my lucky, and his unlucky, day.

I vaulted the cover, sending a burst of fire towards the other bandits, charging towards my target. His eyes widened as he saw his future and he realised it wasn't going to be to his benefit. But he was far too slow to change things. Diving over the low wall around the deck, I snatched the shield from his belt and slammed my sai through his chest. Swiftly attaching the shield to my own belt, I stayed down as my ECHO established a link with it. Within a few seconds, I saw the reassuring flicker of the shield light up around me. I grinned.

Game on.

The other bandits didn't last too long, now that I could stand and fight far better. Within two minutes, I was the only person left standing. Or so I thought.

"You haven't lost your touch." Gaige's familiar voice called out.

I spun around, a scowl set on my face. It deepened as I saw Axton and Zero. "You know, I rather thought that you wanted nothing to do with me."

"Times change." Axton said quietly.

I snarled and stalked towards the next stage of the battle, hitting the switch for the bridge. The others joined me silently as I crossed it and jumped down. Ahead, I could see the cannon that Richard had mentioned. It was obvious we had been seen too. A figure scrambled into the control seat.

"Light the fuses, bitches. I'm ready to blow!"

BOOM AND BEWM

Here come the big guns!

"Move!" Axton yelled as the cannon turned in our direction. Unfortunately, we both dived behind the same piece of cover. I turned to him, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but he spoke first.

"I owe you an apology." He said quietly. I froze, not having expected this, but the reality of the situation meant I couldn't focus on it.

"Fine, can we deal with this later? We have a few too many people trying to kill us right now."

He nodded. "Fair enough. Did you have a plan when you planned to come here on your own?"

I ducked up, estimating distances and locations. "I did and still do, but I'll need to get closer to pull it off. About halfway to the cannon ought to be close enough."

Axton nodded, throwing out his turret. Evidently this was a signal, as the rest of the Vault Hunters unleashed their own skills. Under the cover of the confusion, I charged forward, aiming for a likely piece of cover. However, I still had one problem.

I hadn't seen Bewm in his jump-pack.

He blind-sided me, knocking me over and into cover from the Vault Hunters. He chuckled evilly.

"Any last words?"

I grinned, working out where I was. "Just two. Weapons down."

With that, as Bewm pulled his trigger, I hit a switch on the inside of my glove, linked to my ECHO. At which point, things on the battlefield changed dramatically.


Obviously, in my time prowling Pandora, I had run into problems that I'd had to solve with excessive amounts of violence. Sometimes, I'd run entirely too close to the line that separated life and death. Early on, I'd worked out that I needed a game changer, something that could swing the battle back in my favour. My skills with hacking gave me a rather unconventional option.

All of the weapons used now were either directly created digitally, or were stored in SDU's and digistructed for use. Either way, it meant the same thing. Every single weapon on Pandora had heaps of technology within them. Technology that could be accessed, interrogated, hacked.

Including the firing mechanisms for each weapon.

What I had done was create an ECHO program that would search out and remotely access any weapons within a certain radius, overriding any hacking protection that they possessed, which was usually fairly minimal. Once inside, it would disable, for a time, the firing mechanisms of the weapon, preventing them from being used against me. The sole exception was the weapons of those with ECHO chips flagging them as friendlies.

Chips such as those I'd given the Vault Hunters yesterday.

The short of it, as far as I was immediately concerned, was that Bewm's gun failed to fire, as did every single one of Flynt's men, including the massive cannon. Unfortunately, Zero and Axton's weapon's also shut down, but while they are surprised, they still reacted far quicker that the bandits, all of whom had expressions and words that could be generally summed up in three words.

What. The. Fuck.

As for the other Vault Hunters and I, well, it just became open season on bandits.

A hail of gunfire poured out from all of us, Bewm having the singular bad luck of being right in front of my SMG. He didn't survive to learn the lesson that it wasn't a smart move. I charged, picking off targets as I went. My HUD was keeping track of the program, it could only run for ten seconds and we were getting close to that.

But those ten seconds got me close enough to get to the cannon, pick off Boom, who was doing a great impression of a sitting duck and a wide-mouthed moron, haul his body out and take over the cannon. Spinning it around, I yelled out, "Take cover!"

The Vault Hunters didn't need to be told twice. The massive additional fire-power and the massive damage to both the bandits' numbers and morale meant that the battle was swiftly over. As the bodies cooled from the massive fire they'd been subjected to, I leapt down from the cannon and looked at Axton.

"Ok, care to explain what's going on?"

"I could ask you that." Gaige said, wide-eyed. "What the hell was that?"

"Later. Axton?"

He shifted awkwardly. "You told us that a woman at New Haven helped you establish what had happened to your family. Do you remember her name?"

I nodded, surprised. "Helena Pierce. She was the Administrator and fairly high up in the Raiders, I believe. We may have started off on the wrong foot, but she's a good person. Lost touch with her after I left New Haven, not sure what happened to her."

The Vault Hunters shifted uneasily. Finally Axton spoke. "We found a series of ECHO recordings in Liar's Burg. I'll give them to you later, but the short of it is, they detail her final moments. She was leading a convoy of refugees to Sanctuary, when Jack and Wilhelm overtook her. She didn't back away and told him she knew about what Jack had done at New Haven, including to your family."

I froze. "You're serious."

"Deadly. She mentioned you personally. Jack laughed it off before killing her brutally."

My fists clenched. "One more thing to add to his tab." I shook my head. I hadn't known Helena long, but she'd helped me when I needed it most. I wouldn't let her death go unanswered.

"Agreed. The fact is, dead or not, her testimony proved your story. I should have given you a fair hearing and I didn't. For that, I'm sorry."

I nodded. "I'm sorry too. This isn't over, not by any stretch, but we have more important things to do." I glanced towards the locked gate and the marooned ship beyond. "We need to get to Sanctuary and the only way is through these ass-wipes."

"Right!" Claptrap said brightly, rolling over to the gate. "Physical lock. Just as well we have a dirty great big cannon to blast it op-AAAAHHHHHH!" Claptrap didn't get to finish as Salvador, who had climbed into the cannon command seat, turned the gun around and fired, blowing the gate apart and Claptrap to who knows where. I glared at him.

"Seriously? You couldn't wait the five seconds for him to move out of the way?"

"He said to blast it, so I blasted it." Salvador shrugged.

I sighed, turning back towards the gate and the new group of bandits charging towards us. "Then why aren't you blasting them?"

Salvador didn't need to be told twice.


We gathered on the ridge overlooking the ship and those of us with sniper rifles examined the task ahead of us. I lowered mine.

"Looks like Richard was spot on with his estimate. Definitely a hundred or so to deal with."

"Agreed." Zero concurred. "Attacking them will/be a considerable/challenge, this I like."

Maya chuckled. "Thought you would. Your bag of tricks be any use here, Jason?"

"Yeah, how exactly does that work?" Gaige asked. "I've never seen anything like that."

"For good reason. The whole concept is complicated, but essentially, I can hack into and jam all weapons firing mechanisms within a certain radius for a time. It might only last for a few seconds, but those seconds can make a hell of a difference in a fire-fight."

"Awesome. But why did our weapons keep working?"

"Remember those chips I gave you?" I asked.

Axton frowned. "You gave both Zero and I those chips too, but our weapons didn't work. Even the missus shut down."

"Yeah, well I didn't exactly trust you not to try something, so I shut off that function on your chips."

"Fair enough, I guess. Can't really blame you. So, what's our plan here?"

I shrugged. "Repeat of Liar's Burg? We should be able to pick a lot of them off from here while you guys move up, then treat it like a sweeping run."

"Works for me." He gestured towards the hut outside the base. "That will be a good place to start from."

I nodded. "Give you a few minutes to get there, then light them up?"

"Deal." Maya, Zero and I set up, ready to engage, while the others dropped over the cliff and stealthily approached the hut. Within a few minutes, they'd cleared it out, giving us the green light to engage. Our three sniper rifles fired in unison, announcing to Flynt that he was in serious trouble. His gang reacted quicker than the other forces we'd faced, but they were still slow compared to us and we made them pay for it. The others took advantage of our fire and moved up, clearing and holding a beachhead for us as we moved up. Maya and I ducked in beside Gaige. She nodded briefly.

"Looks like this lot are going to make things interesting." With a casual gesture, she digistructed Deathtrap, who promptly began to dismember the nearest bandit.

"Well, we can't have things being too easy for us, can we?" Maya asked, throwing out a Phase-Lock, hoisting a Nomad up where she could nail him.

"Remind me, what exactly has been easy for us since our little train ride?" I asked, tossing a grenade toward an unsuspecting Marauder team and stitching another pair with the SMG.

"Point." Gaige replied, before we emerged from cover and charged the remaining defenders, cutting them down with minimal effort. Around the corner, we found Claptrap, being abused and beaten by a trio of bandits that had somehow missed the fire-fight. Shortly thereafter, they were missing everything.

"Hell yeah!" Claptrap celebrated. "Thanks for the rescue, even if you put me here in the first place." The scowl he directed at Salvador, despite the lack of a conventional face, was truly impressive.

I grinned. "Shall we go and show Flynt some proper hospitality?"


(Author's Note)

Sorry for the delay on this chapter, but I've been fairly busy with work and uni. Apparently, pulling 12-13 hour shifts 5 or 6 days a week and having to study for final exams tends to mess with your time to write. Who knew?

This chapter is important for a few reasons. Firstly, it brings up Jason's Action Skill. It may not be conventional but in a world where everything essentially is digistructed, hacking that technology allows for all sorts of interesting possibilities. Jason's hardly going to wipe the floor with everyone, though, the time and range limits its effectiveness, but it's about as much of a game changer on the battlefield as the other Action Skills.

Secondly, it brings Angel and Jason into close contact. Watch this space carefully, because this dynamic is going to be a key part of the story. A lot is going to change and much of the reason why will be down to these two and the relationship between them.

Finally, it brings the Vault Hunters and Jason back into close contact, with each understanding the other a bit more. From here, they can start to work as a team much better.

Now reviews:

Verdin, I'm glad you liked the balance of the last chapter, it was something of an epic to try and balance correctly. Hope this one maintains the same quality. I won't be pushing hard to write chapters, and I might be focussing on When One Domino Falls next, try and get the chapter out there. But then, I thought the same before this chapter, so who knows what will happen.

Blaze, I answered your questions via PM and I'll elaborate for everyone else on the reasons in either the next chapter or the one after, depends how long it takes to get to the ferry. I hope you like what I did with things here.

Well, that's another one down. Please keep the reviews and everything else coming, I love getting feedback of whatever kind.

Until next time.