Chapter 1
First Dive
A Super Destroyer that can see dozens of battles and only one Helldiver is a scarce thing. An entire Squadron that could all claim the same, absolutely unheard of.
Yet that was precisely the distinguished company in orbit of Super Earth waiting for a new Helldiver, a squadron consisting of four vessels—the Flame of Eternity, the Wave of Infinity, the Iron Sun and the Rogue Shadow.
This reputation was only recently tarnished with the first Helldiver casualty seen by the group. The Helldiver in command of the Rogue Shadow was killed at the very end of the most recent mission. Only instead of what would typically happen with a new random soldier being unthawed from the pods, the vessels were all given special instructions to return to Super Earth.
The three Helldivers, now awaiting their fourth squadmate, all waited in the hangar of the Flame of Eternity. The group's de facto leader, Jason, was standing at the front, twirling a revolver between his fingers; even his full face-covering helmet couldn't hide his bitterness.
"We shouldn't even be here…" He thought with anger while his partner Sylvie glanced over at him. She was busy cleaning her rifle and hiding her emotions well, unlike the men around her, whom even the faceless helmets couldn't hide their displeasure.
"Babysitting duty, yeah, no other reason they'd have us wait for some new guy. We won't even be diving anymore." The last member of the squad, Brick, spoke with a snark, tossing an unarmed stratagem in one hand in an impatient display.
"Does not mean you get careless!" Sylvie warned.
"Servo-assisted for a reason, lass, servo-assisted for a reason." He responds, flexing his arm and revealing the mechanical elements in his black and orange accented armour.
Sylvie chuckled and nodded before returning her attention to her rifle.
Finally, the newcomer, their replacement Helldiver, was on board. As if arriving on a dropship rather than a frozen pod didn't convey his importance, the shine of gold-trimmed armour certainly did.
The armour wasn't the only thing shiny about him. This young man, and yes, Jason, was convinced he was a young man, had all that energy of a fresh-faced Helldiver. Shiny to the core, having never stepped into a pod yet, strutting out of the shuttle with a confidence that even his gold-tinted visor couldn't hide. A sparkle of optimism that would dull very quickly if he stayed in one piece longer than ten minutes.
"Helldiver Galen Marek reporting for duty!" Galen said, raising his right fist in a sincere salute as the three divers stood with a broad mix of emotions.
Sylvie was the only one to return the gesture. Jason just nodded derisively, and Brick shook his head. "Babysitting detail," he grumbled as he walked away.
Galen did not hear this, but it was obvious that the group's men were not happy. Then again, if he was to inherit a ship, it must have been from their fallen friend. He no doubt had some enormous shoes to fill, so he didn't take their anger too harshly.
"Helldiver Jason, a word." Came a stern voice from the shuttle. The mentioned Helldiver looked over to see a woman in a white lab coat and brown hair kept in a bun behind her.
Jason and Sylvie shared a glance and nodded, with Sylvie turning to Galen, "Let's get your weapons and gear all picked out! You landed with a squad with a lot of options!" She said while guiding him to the armoury. The Rogue Shadow came with a vast arsenal, after all.
Jason meanwhile approached the scientist. "I'll spare you the pleasantries, Helldiver; that boy there is a vital asset to the Ministry of Science."
"So Brick was right… we're on babysitting detail." Jason grumbles with disdain in his tone.
"I have been promised that missions will have an actual projected survival rate well above what your team is used to coming back from; it is merely a case of avoiding a friendly fire incident, I'm sure. Besides, the boy is not helpless." The scientist responds, glancing over with a small smile to where she saw Galen currently looking through the Armory for his preferred weapon, picking up and testing the feel of numerous guns from the standard Liberator Rifle to the Punisher Plasma explosive energy weapon.
"Even without the powers we are studying in him, he is more trained than most Divers on their first dive." Dr. Zieg said. It was a rarity for anyone to talk to a soldier so openly without the use of bolstering words meant to inflate egos, and Jason saw this detail immediately.
"If you're willing to stop talking in propaganda with me, it means either you have it out for us or…."
"I know enough about you and your squad to know you are not motivated by Brasch-style propaganda." The doctor said with an almost sinister smile she continues " However if that boy survives enough dives for me to gain a further grasp of his powers. Then you might find yourself a "valuable asset" to the Ministry of Science, deeming you and Sylvie "Mandatory C-01 authorization effective immediately," She said confidently.
The helmet no doubt saved his life for having that dream dangled in front of him so openly had a face scrunched in a furious snarl. With clenched fists, he regains his composure and nods. "He's in good hands." He almost literally spits the words out before turning away, his cape whisking as if accentuating the rage as he went.
Meanwhile, Galen finally found a gun. The SMG-37 Defender, a lightweight Submachine gun that can be wielded with one hand. Perfect, given the weapon he already came with.
"That I haven't seen in the SuperStore, can I," Brick asks excitedly. Galen couldn't help but smile, pulling the weapon on his hip and igniting the crisp blue blade. Originally, his fathers, but the Ministry of Science had found that they could not replicate it, and even if they could, regular people seemed to struggle to wield it, vibrations that took Galen a great deal of time to master through his extra senses.
As Brick discovered while holding the blade and having to grip it tightly, and was caught off guard. Galen quickly took it back and disengaged the blade before something worse happened.
"Damn, that's something else. Heh, don't worry, mate, if you die, I'll pick it up!" Brick said nonchalantly.
"Don't listen to him; this squad extracts together!" Sylvie was quick to reprimand.
Galen couldn't help but chuckle. "As long as Super Earth comes first," he said confidently just as the squad leader passed them, "Get ready; mission coordinates are locked," Jason called to the team.
Brick and Galen were quick to holler in excitement while Sylvie walked calmly, sharing a glance with Jason; even under their helmets, they could practically read each other's minds.
Or so they thought.
Jason looked around, glancing at the spot right to his left where Zee would have loaded the Hellpod beside him. The talented knife-slinging Helldiver is now replaced by this boy. The fact she died thinking she was getting her friends out of this business of death and carnage only served to make his blood boil with anger.
There was no time for that, though; as his feet were locked into the pod, his pod was sealed. Emotions weren't allowed on the surface with bugs or bots surrounding you, a lesson The Creek taught all these veteran divers well.
Hellpods released into low orbit; at over Mach 10, the pods plummetted towards the ground. The Surface of Estanu awaited them.
Thrusters slowed their descent just in time for the squad to be deployed. Galen looked around and was in a momentary haze as he watched in awe. Like well-oiled machines, the team called down equipment, tac-packs and support weapons, all very unique. Jason called a backpack that would cover him in a shield. Sylvie calls down a jetpack and an Anti-Material Sniper Rifle, an oversized gun Galen swore had to be bigger than the Diver carrying it. Lastly, Brick calls down an Auto Cannon and the corresponding backpack. A neigh full-auto machine that shot grenades up to 80 meters.
"Aye, Fresh Meat is too good for a support weapon." Brick teased with an evident smirk. Galen winced; it had made sense to him to have the Rogue Shadow armed with more orbital strikes than call in with a support weapon when his Lightsaber had proven to cut through even Terminid Charger armour during testing. He was about to defend himself but was interrupted.
"Enough, Brick with me. Galen, with Sylvie, we will split up. Stay in coms and no more than 200 meters away." Jason ordered cocking his shotgun and taking point while the laser rifle-wielding Brick followed. Despite his somewhat crazed nature, Brick seemed ready to follow orders.
"Just remember, stay focused; we will get out of here in one piece," Sylvie said confidently, her oversized rifle over her back attached to her backpack.
"Yes, Ma'am," Galen said, his SMG raised in front of him in a one-handed grip, which was not an ideal stance for accuracy but made it far easier to go for his Lightsaber if necessary.
The mission was… quiet, Too quiet; even when the two began climbing a small rock face to get a vantage point, only a handful of small Terminids were around. Easily avoided, and no attention was raised. With how softly the Sniper was able to move, it wouldn't be a surprise were it not for the fact that the coms were also silent, indicating Brick and Jason were having the same amount of luck.
"Okay. Now what?" Galen asks once they are on top of the cliff face, a firm hand and a steeled heart, as his instructors would say, as he prepares for a fight.
"Now, you sit tight and cover your ears," Sylvie responds as she gets prone, laying on her stomach and adjusting the rifle's scope. She was calm as a frozen lake as she looked for the high-value targets.
Yet even with her warning, it was clear that she saw nothing worth shooting at even with this vantage. It made for an eerie silence, a worrying expectation. The chill of Estanu's snowy climate didn't help that fact, like the icy feel of impending doom in his bones. Yet, upon this cliff face, it was arguably the safest place to be, with nothing able to sneak up on them.
The newcomer was left confused, with both a physical and mental chill weighing on him. The information from just before the Dive tells him this should be a horrifying mess from which only inhuman heroes could escape. Yet all his senses, save for his intuition, told him they were safe. On top of that, even if a problem started out of nowhere, he couldn't do anything from up here; he could not shoot even half as far as his fellow Diver with her oversized rifle.
"He sent you with me to keep you out of the line of fire, not to protect me," Sylvie said dryly as if reading the new Diver's mind. "Something, something ministry of science, something something not actually expendable." She added with a note of ridicule, though oddly enough, unlike the others, he didn't feel like her words of mockery were aimed at him.
So this is why these seasoned Helldivers were being sent on such an easy mission and hadn't even seen a Terminid swarm worth shooting. Why they had not been deployed to areas with high concentrations of Bile Titans or worse. Instead, here they were, where even the Sniper with a vantage was unable to see anything worth noting.
Galen didn't have time to complain; however, "Shrieker nest in play." Sylvie said, reactivating her com as she did. It was odd for a Shrieker nest to be in such a low-priority zone, but not unheard of. In these rare instances, they were not well defended and easily destroyed. In truth, she could have just unloaded a clip into the glowing tree-like structure to destroy it, yet with a slight smirk under her helmet, she had a better idea.
"I can protect you from the Shriekers. Think you can fight your way through whatever is on the ground to plant a hellbomb?" She asked with a slight smirk at the thought of bringing hell to some bugs.
"Yes, ma'am," Galen said, raising his fist in a quick salute before running in that exact direction. Sylvie blinked and looked in shock as she watched the boy jump off the cliff, but before the horror even set in, she saw him running, blade ignited as he moved towards the target.
"Alright, kid, let's see what you got." Sylvie thinks as she returns to her scope—about 150 meters to that shrieker nest. The Huge glowing spore sprouted from the ground that housed the Terminid flyers. Galen would barely be halfway there when not only did the winged horrors take flight, but ground warriors would start to swarm.
True to her word, Sylvie had the shriekers under control with ease. The bangs of her rifle were rhythmic as an orchestra. A loud bang, a shriek from the dead Termined, and if you were close enough to hear it, the soft crunch of a spent casing being ejected and landing in the snow beside her. A symphony of death conducted by a woman who was utterly unfazed by the death she was shooting into the sky.
For his part, Galen grinned, not even looking at the sky and trusting in the song of extermination above him as he sliced through the small Terminids. The melody of his weapons is far more gruesome but no less focused. Repeating bangs from the Defender and sickening squeals of dying warrior bugs accentuated with the occasional sound of quickly burning flesh as a bug tried leaping at him only to leap on or through his Lightsaber.
The music of bug-crushing conducted by the two Helldivers was indeed an art in their eyes, and it was perfect until a new sound entered the sound like the skipping of a damaged record. The thud on the ground indicating more considerable bugs making an appearance. And to confusion and shock, it was accompanied by an ugly sight: a dark green cloud moving right towards Galen, shrouding the entire area around it in a mist with almost zero visibility.
Then, an alert hit Sylvie's ears: "Stalkers in play!" Accompanied through her com with the blast of a shotgun.
Only because of it did the Sniper notice that faint outline, a shine that might have been dismissed as glare in her scope.
No time to swing the scope, She went straight for her sidearm and shot at the reflecting light. The light reflects around the camouflaged body. A shrill yelp escaped as Sylvie unloaded three whole shells from her Bushwaker sawed-off shotgun to kill the stalker.
"Galen, get out of there!" She calls out, returning to her scope only to see he was now wholly engulfed in the vision-inhibiting spores, and she had no vision to even report his condition.
On the other side of the mission map, Brick and Jason ran past a literal pill of Termined guts. "Regroup now!" He orders. "Kid, kid, where are you?" He realized, to his shock, that Sylvie and Galen were not in the same location; aside from the fact this wasn't up to the plan, now that Stalkers were in play, this became a difficult situation. No diver should be alone in a Stalker-ridden mission.
They got reckless, and it looked like they would pay for it.
Galen, even if he wanted to follow that order, was stuck. Hell was around him in the form of a green fog. Along with the haze were loud thuds, heralding the arrival of a far more robust bug.
And it wasn't just one. The pitter-patter was so cluttered it was clear at least three are coming right for him.
The only good thing for Galen was that he could still see his target. And it was, ironically, his best chance. Running as fast as he could, drawing on his powers, he jumped over the first Charger and began shooting at the ground, knowing something was there. The formerly invisible stalker yelped in pain and fell and retreated.
He made it to the small hill where the shrieker nest was—in a flash, he input the code on his wristband to arm a stratagem and called in a Hellbomb.
The chargers were climbing the hill slowly due to its rocky nature, but all the bugs had his number.
"Hellbomb armed!" He input the code at record speeds and resumed his run, slicing through more small Terminids as he went.
Back on the cliff face, two more stalkers took a stab at Sylvie, only for Jason and Brick to show up in time.
"Where's the kid? We have to get him out of here." Jason said. Before either of his fellow Divers could call him out on that...
BOOM
The massive explosion from the mini-nuke that was the Hellbomb went off, a blinding flash of light and the dissipating of the fog. Whatever created that spore cloud was destroyed by the bomb, revealing a Helldiver running with gun and blade alight.
The sniper shots would resume, whirring right past Galen to shoot the Stalkers that were attempting to come up behind him. The barely visible Terminids were still visible to a trained eye.
Galen ran as fast as his feet would carry, blade ablaze and slicing through the claws lunging at him. Trusting the gunshots wouldn't land on him.
His faith was well placed because, by the time he was back on the cliff face, Sylvie was one-for-one on all her bullets, even the stalkers.
"Go!" Jason orders, taking point. The dread in his voice was only masked by the sheer volume of his shout to be heard over the hissing of a bug swarm approaching.
Boom, click, click, boom, click, click.
The shotgun goes at full speed right along with the constant bang over and over from the laser rifle. The men took point as hoards spewed out of the ground.
It was a bloody mess as all four divers were quickly covered in guts and gore. Yet, following behind Jason, somehow the group didn't get cut off from each other, the bane of so many other Helldiver squads.
Brick had absolute glee on his face as he armed his Stratagem and dropped it at their feet. While the four Helldivers ran, they all heard an almost buzzing sound from dozens upon dozens of small explosives as a Cluster Bomb was dropped on the hoard chasing them, reducing the swarm to nothing but an orange mist.
"heheh, gotem." He said with a grin. Even Sylvie and Jason couldn't help but let out quiet chuckles. Leading a hoard of Terminids into any number of explosions never got old to a Helldiver.
The main objective is to find a backpack that was abandoned by a science team and contains an essential specimen. The Terminid specimen was latched onto Galen, and the group quickly worked towards the evacuation point.
There were no Terminids in sight, and it looked like it would be smooth sailing, but then a sickening shriek came from the backpack. A shriek that heralded the yellow smoke of a bug breech out of the ground and the powerful sound of dirt being moved, revealing a Bile Titan
A 20-foot-tall monster neigh is unstoppable and coming right for them.
"Sylvie!" Jason yells, the words barely out of his mouth, when a Stratagem leaves her grasp. The Orbital Railcannon from the Wave of Infinity lined up and splattered clean through the monster, leaving it slumping down.
"Galen!" He yells, and Galen just knows. Quickly, he armed his own Stratagem and threw it at the breach, calling in a Gatling Barrage from the Rogue Shadow—the barrage of bullets splattering the more minor bugs coming in behind the dead Bile Titan.
The team stuck close together as they ran; one more stalker would even come from the shadows, taking a stab at Galen, who quickly sliced through the claws and tendrils fluently.
Another tried attacking from the other side but was stopped in its track, staggered by the force of Jason's shotgun and finished off with a barrage of lasers from Brick's rifle.
It only worsened when they saw an armoured Charger between them and extraction, readying to rush into the ground like a bulldozer.
"Galen, the case!" Jason yelled. Galen was going to argue for a brief moment, but then, he saw the plan and took action. He threw the case to Jason before running forward. With a fluent motion, his blade would ignite, and as the Charger bellowed toward him, he quickly dodged and used the monster's own momentum to cut through two of its legs.
With the Charger dealt with, the blade-wielding Helldiver ran ahead and activated the beacon, signalling for extraction while the rest of the squad caught up.
"Pelican enroute T minus 2 minutes!" The whole squad hear the words.
2 minutes... With the shrieking of the Specimen that rang out like a dinner bell for all the Terminids.
The cackling from Brick was almost as unnerving as the hiss of the bugs as he blasted apart another incoming Charger. Snickering under his helmet, he called down an HMG emplacement—a turret mounted to the Hellpod that buried into the stone ground on impact.
The small valley that was the extraction zone was surrounded by Terminids of all shapes and sizes hissing and screeching, made even worse by the crying of their cargo.
Brick got the just landed Emplacement, the turret, gunning the bugs down with a maniacal laugh; Sylvie got on her stomach and loaded her Anti Material Rifle, focusing on the more armoured targets. Jason picked up the forgotten Auto Cannon, and Galen was about to add his submachine gun to the outgoing barrage were it not for the Stalkers about to lunge from the rock formation above them.
As a Stalker would have jumped on top of the HMG, Galen thrust out his hand, sending the airborne monster flying away…. Right into the line of fire, where it was quickly torn apart.
Stratagems were thrown one by one, directed by Jason, which provided covering fire and heavy support until the Pelican finally arrived.
"Move!" Jason ordered, and without a word spoken, all four got into the Pelican just as they saw three separate Bile Titans beginning to rise from the ground.
There was no need to deal with that now; the mission was complete, samples collected, and the Pelican was making its ascent.
"That… was not….. a level four," Jason grumbled, breathing heavily. As the calm of the Pelican finally took hold.
Sylvie would have said something, but Brick was the first to speak. Excitement in his voice. "Aye, and Fresh Meat handled it just fine." He declared, punching Galen on the arm. "A Shiny, you are no longer!" He said with a cheeky grin, evident despite his helmet.
Galen was breathing heavily; he looked down; his black and gold trimmed armour was unrecognizable, covered in green and red gore.
Sylvie gave a light laugh while glancing over at Jason, who she could tell was seething right now. Not that she wasn't angry about being lied to, but it was hard for her to be angry while on the Pelican. The ship of safety, as she had come to learn through her career as a Helldiver.
Only a handful of minutes would pass when the Pelican was landing in the Flame of Eternity, letting the squad disembark as the group all walked to the bridge; Jason, in particular, had a brisk pace and angered stomp in his step. No doubt, he was ready to have some words with whoever was in charge of gathering intel for the Dive or figuring out who had it out for their squad, even despite the promise from the Ministry of Science.
However, as he walked onto the bridge, the sight before him quelled his outrage with shock. For the Democracy Officer, the large man 6 foot tall in ceremonial armour, the very epitome of stoicism and dogmatic devotion, was actually taking a step back from the 5 ft 2 and 140 pounds of pure wrath that was the scientist. "I'll have your other eye and your damn Liver for my next genetic experiment; I'll use your fucking heart to test stims. I'll test neural enhancers on your brain after detaching from your body!" Just a taste of the rapid-fire threats being thrown right at the Democracy officer. The most alarming part was that he was taking her seriously. "Now tell me who sent them that faulty intel! Go on, big man from the truth pillar! Share!"
"Dr. Zieg, this is not your place..." The Democracy officer began but was forced to look into the eyes of the devil these actions had unleashed. "There is a politician from the Ministry of who had this squad deemed expendable before your asset was brought on board; we could not chart new missions in time." he relented—fear of the scientist's reprisal outweighing whatever previous orders he'd been given.
"Expendable, my ass; these three are the greatest REAL heroes this federation has right now!" She was still seething; the rage was like an inferno on a planet like Hellmire. Even Jason, a man who'd seen both mechanical and insect hell, was stunned and sheepish.
Yet, while no one on the bridge noticed Jason listening, the other three Helldivers were back at the Engineering bay, where they heard beeps from their communicators—the sound of a New Major order being sent to all Helldivers from the Ministry of Defence. While Jason and everyone else on the bridge were far too engrossed with the argument between the two highest officials on the ship to look, Sylvie, Galen and Brick all read the orders.
Even with all three of them still covered in bug guts and faces entirely covered by their helmets, they all understood. Even Galen didn't need his sixth sense to feel the emotions of his comrades about the urgency of these orders.
There was grim silence as the three shared one determined nod, righteous wrath taking hold, imbuing all four with resolve only a Helldiver would truly understand.
Dr. Zieg and the Democracy Officer were right in front of the war table arguing until they both felt hands on their shoulders, firmly pushing both apart and out of the way as Galen and Sylvie forced their way past the two arguing bureaucrats to input coordinates for their next FTL jump.
"New Major Order came in while you two bickered like a bunch of married pansies." Brick sneered out at the stunned room. "Kids hospital in Automaton Territory called for help, so buckle up, lads, we're heading to the Wells.
A/N: So here we go. It took longer than I wanted, but here we are, the first real Dive of Galen Marek and his new friends. A squad of Helldiver veterans, old folks in a profession where men die young if you will.
Anyway for anyone who wants a visual reference, the armour of each Helldiver is as follows
Galen is wearing DP-40 Hero of the Federation armour
Sylvie is wearing SC-30 Trailblazer Scout armour
Brick is wearing SA-12 Servo Assisted armour
Jason is wearing FS-11 Executioner armour
And they all wear matching capes: Will of the People Cape
that's all for now so
Until Next Time Ashbringer36 Out