But then, one day, he disappeared. He went MIA, and nobody truly knows if he is still alive, dead, or worse. Among DRG's many teams, there have been countless attempts to find and rescue him, all without success. The search goes on...
"Gunner, I need to talk with you."
"What's up, Engi?"
The two greybeards met at the Abyss Bar. Rock music was playing as Gunner was enjoying his third Glyphid Slammer, Gold edition. He had recently made it to Gold 1 and thus had plenty of reason to celebrate. Gold-tier employees were highly respected; few even made it bronze, let alone silver. Gold, by comparison, was already among the highest of achievements as far as the vast majority of miners were concerned. Engineer ordered a Leaf-Lovers Special as a joke. Gunner did not appreciate it; as an old soldier, he preferred his drinks to actually be stiff.
"Engi, if you want to talk, actually get some real stuff to talk over. Otherwise forget it."
"Fine, fine. Lloyd, forget the special. Gimme some Burning Love."
"Hah, now we're talking!" Gunner slapped the table hard.
Engineer sat down. The drink made him feel burning-hot, literally. Nobody knew how one could be literally on fire from a beer, but it sure was an interesting experience.
"So what's up?"
"I- ouch! I got an idea for a new gun. Remember that Ommoran we broke apart yesterday? What if I convince management to let me take a chunk and try to harness its power? Could be like a portable beamer cannon."
"*Whistle* Sounds badass, me likey. So what, you need help with building it?"
"Weeeell... mainly I need help convincing management."
Gunner slapped the table harder.
"Hahahahah! Right, because those tight-asses aren't gonna fund it without good reason. Well, I do owe you a favour for helping with my promotion, so sure. My word should be enough."
"Thanks, brother."
The next day, Gunner expectedly had a massive hangover. But he was a dwarf; for a proper dwarf a hangover is perfectly normal. He took his cold morning shower and checked his PDA - On-Site Refining. Fun and tedious in equal measure. He would have to wake Driller and that meant... trouble.
"Obstacles? More like a stone... more like a rock... ah, screw it. Oh hey, Gunner, how're you doing today?"
"Heh, didn't expect to see you awake already. Have you seen today's mission yet? It's your speciality."
"Nah, just got up. So what is it?"
"On-Site Refining."
Driller's green eyes started sparkling. He loved pipe riding.
"...Hell yeah."
"Anyway, take it easy with the C4 today. I read we're also getting a new Scout and the poor boy's apparently a total greenbeard."
"Sure, you know how much I like Scouts."
"Just a fair warning, Drillboy."
Mission Control was checking his notes. Today's mission should not prove troublesome, but the usual MULE was in the repair bay. That only left...
"Team, the drop pod is fuelled and ready to go. You're taking the Mini-MULES today."
"MULEs on an On-Site Refining Mission? That's a new one."
Gunner found this very strange; On-Site Refining was generally considered one of two mission types that did not warrant taking MULEs along because there was no real point if you could just dump your stuff into the refinery's shredders. But he was not about to complain; carrying all that stuff back to base every time was pretty tedious.
"Take it or leave it, team."
"Oh I'll take it, alright."
"Then get to it."
Just as he was about to step into the drop pod, it occurred to him that the new Scout still had not shown up.
"MC, about that Scout...?"
"He'll meet up with you on the site later."
"Come on, I'm getting bored here!"
Driller was being Driller. Gunner did not want Driller to be too Driller, so he told Engineer via infolink to hurry it up.
"Did you do your proper check-up, Driller?"
"Yeah, yeah. Mk.4 armour, check. Flamethrower is fuelled, Colette charged. Drills are oiled, C4 is... you know the rest. What about'chu?"
"Taking the new Mk.5 armour for a whirl. Not sure about the hexagons though, they seem a bit sci-fi for no reason. Anyway, the gun's all oiled up, revolver has the extra-nice rounds today, shield gen is charged. Hm, now did I... ah good, zipline mag is full."
He finally noticed that Engineer still had not shown up. He activated his infolink for the second time.
"Engi, either you appear right the fuck now or we're going without you! Which means no pay!"
"Just a moment... I got uh, I got this..."
Gunner facepalmed. Engineer was his most trusted brother, the local expert when it came to repairing stuff as evidenced by the spare minigun suspended in the workshop and all the other weapons - and assorted ammo - strewn about. But Engineer was also a bit of an absent-minded professor type, getting easily caught up in all sorts of projects.
Finally his room's door opened and Gunner could not believe what he saw. Apparently Engineer had pulled an all-nighter to come up with this crazy contraption of a device. Was it the new gun?
"Is that the laser cannon? Looks beefy as hell."
"Yeah, I'm calling it the Shard Diffractor. Got the notice from management that they approved a test run. If this thing performs well, they'll add it to the catalogue. Thanks for the help, Gunner."
He stroked his Bismarck-style, greying beard. Unusually for a dwarf, he was mostly shaved, but from hard experience he learned that there is a good reason one should not wear gloves, loose clothes, loose hair, or any other such things around 50kg of monstrous rotating gun.
"Let's go already!"
Driller was whining again. That was not good. Gunner hastily slammed the button to close the door. Mission Control approved the launch sequence and the pod rumbled, shot out of the space rig in free-fall, then activated its guidance systems and rocket engine.
The trip was uneventful. One would think that riding a space capsule with a giant drill at the bottom to crush through thousands of metres of solid rock was exciting, but after a hundred missions or so it was mostly just routine. So much routine in fact that Driller had fallen asleep. Gunner slapped him on the helmet.
"Wake up, Drillboy! You can sleep in a stupor later, we got a job to do!"
"Huh, whu-? Oh, we there already?"
"Almost."
Turbulence occurred, probably from a gas pocket or something. It did not matter; the drop pod was more or less indestructible. Shortly after it was in free-fall again, then loudly crashed into the irradiated stone. Welcome to the Radioactive Exclusion Zone.
"Let's get the job done and get back in a hurry!"
Engineer tried to lighten the mood with one of his usual lines. Gunner smiled. Driller... probably should not have eaten beans last night.
"Okay, so. Bosco, light that area up. Check for liquid morkite wells. I don't like this biome one bit, so I don't want to spend more time here than needed. And Driller?"
"Yeah?"
"Please don't build another roller-coaster."
"Okay, fine. *Grrmbl* I never get to have fun around here..."
"Engi, you're with me."
"Aye aye, captain."
The two wizened dwarves looked around for a bit, one of the two Mini-MULES following them. The other was set to follow Driller.
"Refinery inbound, keep your heads down."
A great rumbling sounded through the entire cave. Radiation-bleached stone and glowing-green uranium crystals were flattened as a gigantic drill broke through the ceiling and crashed loudly into the ground. A couple unfortunate loot bugs were below it and promptly turned into paste, their innards rupturing and explosively releasing various minerals they had eaten in all directions.
Accompanied by various mechanical noises, the Refinery fully set itself up, offering a a round platform surrounded by slopes, flood lights, and a complex pumping system. Once the pipelines connecting the refinery to liquid morkite wells were fully constructed, the machinery would suck the material out of the wells, refine it into a useable form, and finally pump it into the central rocket's tank. Once fully loaded, it would be sent back to orbit alongside any other materials found during the mission.
"Poor Loot Bugs..." Engineer felt a little dismayed as the cute grey slugs died.
"Bah, they shouldn't eat the minerals. We'd have killed them later anyway."
"Well, true that. Anyway, I'm gonna set up a Sentry. You should take Bosco and look for the wells."
"Will do. Bosco, come here!"
"*Yipyip!*
Engineer walked off to do his thing and collect the gold and nitra on the side. Bosco, the little vaguely dog-like drone, flew over and gave a salute to indicate he was paying attention to Gunner now. Gunner then hefted his Lead Storm minigun and gave it a short spin.
"Time to find some resources."
The search was uneventful for only a short time. A couple Glyphid Grunts thought they could have Gunner for breakfast. He disagreed with that notion.
"Eat lead!"
His minigun was furiously spinning, the ammo counter ticking down by several dozen rounds per second. He swiped it from one target to the next, riddling each multi-legged abomination with bullets to put them out of their misery, or pelted those who came a little too close with a revolver bullet straight to the face. In the distance, he heard the typical clicks of refinery pipelines being built - Driller must have found the first well already.
Gunner checked his terrain scanner. The model was a little older and glitchy, but it worked just fine accessing all the data from each dwarf's personal computer system built into their armours and combining it into a real-time 3d approximation of the cave layout. Unfortunately, he should have looked up because-
(Oh shit!)
A Cave Leech grabbed him by the head and pulled harshly upwards. The monster had waited for who knows how long in the ceiling for unsuspecting prey to come along, and Gunner had made the fatal mistake of not checking properly.
*Grrrrrr* *Bam Bam Bam*
Machine gun shots could be heard even as Gunner was howling in pain and screaming for help. Bosco had opened fire on the cave leech attacking his master. Unfortunately he could not get a good shot in; his targeting software had trouble aiming properly for some reason.
*BOOM*!
A very loud shot rang out and the Cave Leech instantly died. Completely slack, it let Gunner down. He gasped for air, convinced he could not have survived this much longer.
"Haah, haah... thanks, Bosco..."
"*Yipyip*?"
"I hate Cave Leeches so damn much... Bah!"
He got his breathing under control and righted himself up.
"Whatever, we got a job to do."
"*Yipyip*!"
Things were going strangely on Driller's side. He was certain he had made a tunnel into the right direction, but somehow he did not come any closer to the morkite well as indicated on his terrain scanner. Had the thing broken again?
"Piece of junk, I tell you!"
He took out a satchel of C4 and placed it roughly next to the supposed wall where the well should be. He then stepped away and pressed the trigger.
*KABOOM*!
He looked at the hole and frowned. Slag, and rock. Something funky was going on. Driller did not like funky things. He also realised he did not actually hear a well - those things were full of boiling-hot morkite and louder than tea kettles - and his frown deepened. The Mini-MULE next to him, cheerfully oblivious, just kept making cute sounds.
"Dwarf inbound!"
Mission Control's voice rang out via infolink. Barely 5 seconds later, Gunner's HUD displayed an incoming projectile marker - this had to be the Scout.
(Finally.)
The capsule opened and a blue-haired Scout with a massive pompadour stepped out. He looked very extravagant with his gilded beard and even hefted an M1000. There was no way this guy was a greenbeard, and Gunner knew it.
"Nice gun. I assume you aren't actually new to this?"
"No, I'm actually-"
"Swarm incoming!"
"Right. Well, Scout, sounds like we got work to do. I'll buy you a beer later."
Everyone assembled at the refinery. Nobody had been able to find anything of note; this cave was just plain empty!
"What do you mean, empty? Engi, I'm sure I heard someone build a pipeline before."
"Gunner, look around. Nobody built a pipeline. There's no liquid morkite here. Also, I don't see any enemies incoming."
"Yeah well, I nearly got leech'd before and I shot some Grunts."
"This stinks." Driller seemed agitated. "My scanner's been showing faulty info all day. And why do we have Mini-MULES with us? That never happened before."
"The wave is petering out, good job."
"What FUCKING wave!?"
"...Huh? Gunner, do you have something to say?"
"Yeah, I do: this mission is a bust. This whole cave is empty, there're barely any enemies, and we can't for the life of us find the wells. We request an extraction drop pod because this is wasting our time."
"Hrmpf, unfortunate. Okay, drop pod inbound, stand clear."
"Thank you."
About a minute later, a drop pod came crashing down, as confirmed by mission control... but the scanners did not show it. So had one really come down?
"Scout, you've been quiet. Do you want to say anything?"
"Don't trust him."
"Trust who?"
"Him."
Gunner had a suspicion that Scout was referring to Mission Control, but did not let it on. Why should he distrust his immediate superior?
"If you say so."
The four sent Bosco ahead. Scout lighted the way through the caves which were oddly dark. Where had the radioactive crystals gone?
Everyone threw flares at random, but absolutely nothing except white walls greeted them back. The silence aside their own boots stomping on stone was downright eerie. They encountered a wall which was heavily scratched with...
"Are those marks from a pickaxe?" Gunner was not sure, but something was off about these scratches.
Driller touched the markings. As he did so, some kind of dust came off and the random markings revealed themselves to actually be writing!
"Day 4: found abandoned drop pod. Three skeletons were inside. Requested ejection of uplink box; computer was broken. So tired. Hearing noises..."
"Damn, that's harsh. Someone died in this cave and... wait a moment!"
"Gunner, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Indeed, Engi. This feels like a setup."
The group found footsteps in the dust. Judging by the type of boot, they belonged to a Scout. Unfortunately, Scouts were known not to walk much. But even so...
"Look there!"
Scout shouted. The others looked where he was pointing. The sight of an old drop pod greeted the group, an unopened uplink box close by. Gunner shot a zipline downwards over a chasm and everyone rode down the slope. Everyone except Scout, who had his grappling hook of course. But when Driller, Engineer, and Gunner grouped up by the uplink, Scout was nowhere to be seen.
"Where'd he go?"
"He was just behind me."
"Who're you talking about?"
"Scout, who else?"
Driller was confused.
"...What Scout?"
An argument ensued about the evidently-experienced Scout that both Engineer and Gunner had been with. They insisted that Driller had been right next to him, but Driller denied everything. They felt pranked, but Driller kept saying he thought they had gone crazy - ironic, yes.
"*SKREEEEEEE*!"
"Shite, enemies. Engi, get the uplink ready. Driller, carve us some terrain out. I'll blast whatever comes close!"
They got to work. Engineer set up a Sentry with Gunner's help, then prepared the uplink. Driller pulverised the rock and stone in a semi-circle to widen the area. Gunner made sure his weapons were ready to unleash bullet hell.
The shouting of many enemies in the distance became louder. Bosco let out a low growl.
"Incoming!"
And all hell broke loose. A gigantic swarm of Glyphid Grunts came crawling all over the place. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling were full of them. Swarmers came from every crevice, jumping and biting. Gunner and Engineer had their hands full destroying the chaff. One Slasher got dangerously close to Gunner, but luckily Engineer's Sentry shot it square in the face. The monster's head exploded into a cloud of green viscera.
No less than three Menaces started shooting, accompanied by over a dozen Acid Spitters. The carpet of red and blue bugs shooting glowy yellow and cyan acids was a dizzying swirl of colours. But Gunner activated his shield generator, and it held.
"Oh shit, Detonator!"
The horde parted and a truly gigantic Glyphid Bulk Detonator came forth. It was also alarmingly quick-footed and its low, laugh-like growl sent shivers down their spines.
"Is the uplink ready yet!?"
Gunner was getting concerned. Engineer had been shooting enemies in the face with his Stubby or splashed them with plasma. If only he had not taken his improvised gun with him - the thing had already broken down and in the middle of a fight this hectic he could not simply repair it. But then came the salvation in the form of one blue-haired Scout!
"I'm up!"
Fearlessly, the Scout took out a pair of customised Zhukovs and started blasting enemies left and right. Glyphids died by the dozens, exploding into chunky bits. His M1000 roared a cacophony of shots, the bigger bugs too slow to react as he breached their weak backsides and made them topple over. Some even crushed smaller ones. But the Detonator, a mindless, fearless killing machine, still approached the others.
"Not this time, you bastard!"
Scout grappled onto the monster and rammed his flare gun into one of its pustules. He pulled the trigger four times. Four searing-hot bolts shot into the Detonator. It finally gave him its attention... by preparing to blow up on the spot. Scout knew he had to get away, and away he got. Even as he grappled to safety, bomblets whistled around his body and he rode the explosions with a grace that only one dwarf should, indeed could, ever have possessed.
On the other side of the battlefield, things were going better. Driller had jumped into the fray and started smearing enemies into paste with his drills. Axes flew about and C4 satchels carved beautiful explosion holes into ground and walls. Gunner had taken down the Menaces and Acid Spitters with precise shots from his Bulldog revolver, their corpses in a pile somewhere down the chasm... and Engineer had finally figured out why the Shard Diffractor did not work - a simple loose cable. His laser beam sliced through the air, incinerating enemies all over the place, their remains flaking away into embers and dust as their agonised screams turned mute.
It was over and they had survived. A batch of fuel cells came down and they made haste to connect it. The drop pod charged, and for once no enemies came in. Then they opened the door, and...
"What in Karl's name!?"
There were three skeletons, wearing their own weapons and armour, inside the pod.
"Okay, that's hella freaky. Gunner, Engi, let's get out of here."
The drop pod launched, the three dwarves were off. But somehow Gunner had the strange feeling he had forgotten something... or perhaps someone?
As they finally reached the space rig, Gunner woke up. He had not noticed he had fallen asleep. The empty drop pod felt strange and he felt very tired, but also... content. As if he had met a friend from long ago and so much fun he forgot about the time.
He got up and almost fell over as his boot happened to step onto something. He picked it up and recognised it instantly as a bullet casing from an M1000. Someone had carved a single letter into it.
K.
Gunner smiled, and decided to buy a round of a very particular beer in the honour of one very particular dwarf.