FLY ME TO THE MOON

CHAPTER 2:

HELL ON HELIOS

You know that old cliché about your life flashing before your eyes? It happened, in that instant between the crash, and my waking up. It wasn't a pleasant experience, as my life was not a pleasant one.

An eternity ago (well, really fifteen years, but who's counting?), there was a boy called Richard Snyder. When he was six years old, he discovered, much to his understandable horror and that of his parents, that he had a condition known as the Sci-Zone. When he went into the Sci-Zone, he basically became a mad scientist, capable of feats of astonishing deduction and induction, at the cost of his morality going bye-bye.

When he first got diagnosed, he also met a girl by the name of Angel Clarke, the daughter of a programmer at Hyperion by the name of John Clarke. The two became friends, for they were both something of outsiders. Angel was, you see, a Siren, a girl with extraordinary powers. Her particular one was technopathy, the ability to hack without much effort any electronics…with her mind alone.

Two years after they met, however, Angel vanished, and John refused to tell Richard where Angel went, whether she died, or left, or was lying in a hospital bed, comatose. Richard persisted…but could get no answer from John.

It was a sad day, but it was far from the worst day of his life. He would get a whole lot of those.

One day, while he was walking home from school on Elpis, after parting ways with an acquaintance called Janey, Richard was abducted by scary men. Of course, there's all sorts of nasty things that men like that can do to children. But these men were not just thugs, but the best kind of thugs, hired by the Atlas Corporation.

You see, for some time now, they had been abducting children, and doing nasty stuff to them. Brainwashing them, training them in military arts. Most of them were girls, retained to become the Lance Assassins. But Richard was to become a special experiment. When in the Sci-Zone, Richard could instinctively target the weak points of the human body, and Atlas, in their dubious wisdom, thought that could be harnessed. They performed all sorts of experiments, designed to bury the sweet little boy that was Richard Snyder in the Sci-Zone.

Richard Snyder died screaming for his parents, for Angel. He fell screaming into the darkness within me. Now, there is only Zagreus. Madness embodied.

For some weird reason, the top brass of Atlas used Greco-Roman deities in their nomenclature. Or, if you want me to dumb it down, they had a hard-on for naming their top soldiers after figures from Greek and Roman mythology. You may not have heard of Zagreus, but what of the better-known god he is considered to be, Dionysus? Or Bacchus, his Roman equivalent? Now, I'm not one for partying or getting drunk, but Dionysus was the god of ritual madness(1).

In the field, I was meant to be a spy, a special operative designed to sow discord and chaos amongst the enemy, leaving them vulnerable to a strike. Where the Lance Assassins were the precise knife slipped between the ribs, I was the grenade chucked into the trench. Psychological warfare from the crudest kind to the most precise and terrifying.

In that time of harsh training, however, there was one who was a friend. Hell, we became as close as siblings. It may have gotten more intimate than that, but she wasn't interested. And I was fine about that. Until I knew for sure about Angel, maybe I would have held a torch.

Her name was Athena. She never told me her name before she got abducted by the Crimson Lance. Not that that was relevant. All that I knew was, she had a sister on Pandora. And I had my parents.

Until Atlas decided to tie up loose ends.

And the worse thing? They tricked us into doing it ourselves.

After Steele's failed attempt to open the Vault, Knoxx, along with myself and the Lance Assassins, were sent to restore order. And that's when Atlas made their mistake. Athena was sent on a night-time operation to purge the village where her sister was staying at. I was sent to seal the entrance to an Eridium mine Hyperion was in charge of. It wasn't until I saw the surveillance cameras that I saw my parents, dying as poisonous gas filled the mine. Athena, who was ordered to use thermal cameras, didn't realise she had killed her sister until it was too late.

To say that we were upset was something of an understatement.

Our reactions were how we came to end up in the brig together, awaiting court martial, and execution by firing squad. Wait, scratch the former. I doubt we'd get even that. We got a bit too 'stabby', as old Knoxxie put it, to even warrant a token court martial.

We escaped, and ended up helping a quartet of mercenaries kill our former employers. Fun times, huh? Of course, you know that story, Lilith. You were there.

But you weren't there when the Lost Legion began invading Helios…

One of the worst ways to come out of unconsciousness (at least while not in an immediately life-threatening situation) is to be woken up by the inane chatter of a Claptrap unit. One came to greet us, sprawled on the ground near a rent in the rocket's side.

"Hello, Vault Hunters, and thank you for answering Hyperion's summons! Unfortunately, the Helios Space Station is currently under attack by insane Dahl military forces! Come with me! I can take you to your contractor liaison!"

Athena helped me to my feet, and I helped Jack's body double to his own. The others were already staggering after the Claptrap unit, as it began moving off, wanting us to follow it to Jack.

I won't go into detail about what happened there. We went through the station, the Helios Claptrap unit making banal observations, Loaders running around trying to repair things or avoid getting shot, and a group of Dahl soldiers ambushing us. Then, we came across a door where a Loader was lying, broken and shattered.

"Well, the Lost Legion must've killed this one. People think robots can't feel pain, but we actually feel it in slow motion, with great intensity! This robot died in horrific agon-!"

The Claptrap, as it opened the door, was turned into metal Swiss cheese mid-sentence by a volley of bullets and laser shots. We returned fire on the Dahl soldiers, and then, we heard our employer over our ECHO devices. "Hey, did that Claptrap die? That's awesome! You guys the Vault Hunters I hired?" Before we could reply, we heard another volley of shots from the ECHO, and Jack yelped, "Damn! HELP!"

The seven of us burst into the control room where we saw a man, with a jutting chin and thin, handsome looks firing wrist lasers desperately at a group of soldiers swarming at him. "HELP! Lots of help! I dunno who these assholes troops are, or why they have a murder-on for this space station, but they have me pinned!" Even as he felled a few of the soldiers, another managed to get the drop on him, sending him spinning to the floor with a powerful punch.

JACK CLARKE

The Jawline of Dan Dare. The Smile of a Bastard(2). The Attitude of a Dork.

We waded in, and killed the soldiers surrounding Jack. But as we finished up, more soldiers swarmed in. Athena looked to me and Jack's double. "Zagreus, Other Jack, guard him. Zagreus, heal him."

I nodded, my face set in a grim expression, as I took an Insta-Heal vial from a supplies pouch, and jabbed it rather viciously into Jack's leg. Over the ECHO, we heard an older woman's voice announce, "Attention, Hyperion: Your Helios Space Station now belongs to the Lost Legion. Surrender before it's too late."

Jack shook his head. "Crazy bitch." He then looked up at me, and froze, his eyes wide.

I looked back at him myself. "Hello, Uncle John."

"Dick?" Jack asked. "Little Richard Snyder? God, I thought I had seen a ghost when I saw the pictures of Zagreus."

"You did. Richard Snyder died screaming for his parents and Angel. There is only Zagreus now."

"Whoa…that's freaky. Okay, well, 'Zagreus', you ready to kick some Dahl nutbar ass?"

"Of course."

The body double frowned. "How do you know this guy?" he asked.

"His family knew mine," Jack said. "He got abducted by Atlas for the Crimson Lance when he was, like, ten years old. Looks like they turned you into a stone-cold psycho, Richard."

The others soon mopped up the Dahl soldiers, and we helped Jack to his feet. "Whoo! Thanks for that! Holy crap, you saved my life! Thanks! Sorry, my heart's pounding, never really got shot at before…kind of exhilarating, really."

"What's going on, Jack?" Nisha asked. "What the hell are these idiots doing here?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, babe," Jack said, panting. "These crazy bastards attacked right after I sent for you guys. If we can drive them off, then we're free to look for the Vault on Elpis." He then turned to a console, and began tapping at it. "Here, let me activate the defence systems. In a few seconds, we'll have turrets, laser wires, forcefields, the works. These assholes won't know what hit them."

As if on cue, the computer said, almost as if discussing the weather, "Critical failure. Helios defence systems are being jammed."

"Marvellous," I remarked.

"What the hell? How?" Jack yelled.

"Jamming signal originates from Elpis." Turrets began to descend on either side of the control panel.

"Shit! Kill the turrets, kill the turrets!" Jack babbled in a near-panic. Athena, Wilhelm, and myself complied instantly. "Dammit, this day gets better and better. Plan B! If we can't retake Helios, then we need to get the hell out of here. Follow me to the evacuation ships!"

As we followed Jack, we heard the woman from earlier yell over the ECHOnet "We MUST take this ground!"

"Who's the crazy chick?" Nisha asked.

"Umm, she leads these jackasses, I think? Look, it doesn't really matter. The first person to shoot her in the head gets a high-five and a turbomansion."

"Meh, I'd prefer a sexy robot girlfriend and a decent house," I only half-joked.

Nisha gave me an amused look. "What, I ain't good enough for you?"

"Trust me, Nisha, you'd be shooting him before a week is out," Athena said. "I'm his sister, and he drives me crazy."

"And that's a short trip," I remarked, earning another glare from my sister. "Anyway, Nisha, you're hot, but I've seen the way Jack's eyeing you up. I don't wanna get in the way. I'm a sadist, not a masochist."

Nisha smirked. "Pity."

"Hey, if we're done with the banter, we've got to get going!" Jack said. "The escape ships are this way!"

We scurried onward to a door leading to a landing area, only to find a Dahl mecha emerging from an elevator, and shooting the ships. The cockpit was open, revealing a middle-aged but fit woman with stern features…and glowing purple eyes. Which are never a good sign. Especially when accompanied by glowing purple scars running from the eyes. She looked familiar, perhaps from a file I had once perused while I was still part of the Crimson Lance.

"Son of a taint," Jack cursed when the woman shot them down, before he did a double take. "Hey, it's that bitch! Shoot her!" He yelled.

The woman turned to face us. "Hello, Jack," she said, very calmly, despite having eight sets of weapons pointed at her.

"Shit," I said, finally recognising her. I remembered her because, shortly before my abduction, she had been on the news on Elpis for disappearing, along with an entire Dahl legion. "That's Colonel bloody Zarpedon!"

COLONEL TUNGSTEENA ZARPEDON

The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions.

"Who cares? Fire!" Jack yelled.

But even as everyone else did, Athena and I didn't, as we suddenly saw something moving so fast, it was a blur. Even I, with my brain locked permanently into the Sci-Zone, only got a brief impression of something flipping over and over, before it was in front of Zarpedon, a hand outthrust, and the bullets frozen in front of it.

The creature was elongated and strange. I recognised the general shape from the reports Commandant Steele had sent of strange, alien entities that had attacked her men as they had approached the Vault, strange insect-like humanoids that moved with a strange grace and agility, and wore bizarre masks. This creature fit the description, as well as holding a massive halberd.

"Naughty…" it said chidingly in a distorted, warped voice that was vaguely androgynous.

THE WATCHER

Well, That's Fucking Ominous. Not To Mention Enigmatic.

"Okay, new plan," Jack said. "Retreat!"

We dived back inside the doors just as Zarpedon closed up her mecha's cockpit, and began firing around her alien ally. As the door closed, I yelled, "That was a motherfucking alien!"

"No shit, Sherlock!" the double snapped. He looked the most out of his depth of all of us.

"How did you know who that woman was?" Wilhelm asked, frowning. Other than my sister, he was probably the calmest and collected.

"Just before I was kidnapped by Atlas, her disappearance, along with that of an entire Dahl Legion, made news on Elpis. I think Dahl hastened to cover it up. I guess something happened to her, other than death. Eyes should not glow like that, if at all."

"Dick, we're in agreement on that point," Jack said, panting in panic. "Now, I suggest getting the hell out of here. We'll need to find another way off the station, if we can avoid running into that thing again. Dunno what the hell that alien was, but I'd put money on the fact that it can kill us with its brain…"

CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:

Second chapter down. Zagreus' past revealed (though you would have read that in Zagreus' Song, had you read that), and Zagreus meets Jack for the first time in years. A heartwarming reunion it ain't.

1. (Reproduced from the relevant annotation in Zagreus' Song) Yes, this is true. I chose Zagreus as the name, though, partly in homage to the villain from the Doctor Who audio stories by Big Finish Productions. Paul McGann plays Zagreus (an entity composed of anti-time infecting the Doctor) in the eponymous story with marvellous aplomb and madness. In case you're wondering how it's pronounced, well, the pronunciation in the audios is 'Zah-Grey-Us'.

2. 'The jawline of Dan Dare and the smile of a bastard' was how Steven Moffat first described Captain Jack Harkness in his script for Doctor Who: The Empty Child. It's fitting, as I have read somewhere that Handsome Jack was actually named for Captain Jack Harkness. Incidentally, Dan Dare was a famous science fiction comic series from the Fifties and Sixties about a space-faring pilot.