It was his 100th mission, or so. he didn't know. He was aboard the halo of steel, a ship that SEAF gave him. Or rather where he got dispatched from.
In the last 2 years of his life he's seen the horrors of war more than most, this was due to his abnormal life expectancy.
For an average helldiver the life expectancy is about 2 minutes. This is due to a variety of things such as suicidal bugs, homicidal robots or aliens.
However in his experience the best way to kill a helldiver was to use another, this is also due to the life expectancy of the average helldiver, from the time he "volunteered" to the time he earned his cape his training only lasted 10 minutes, 10 MINUTES. In retrospect he sees why. the average unit wipes themselves out so fast, that if they didn't have an immediate replacement the mission would fail, failed missions means failed campaigns, and failed campaigns mean the destruction of super earth. To be honest that's the only reason he hasn't quit, that and even if he tried his ship would start shelling him to hell, if he tried to run.
As he felt himself unfreeze he had to wonder if this would be his end, would he finally feel death, he's been on every side. dealing and receiving only to be bright back, he wondered why they chose to save him, he sees how the helldivers treat their own.
He flexed his mechanical arm, the rest of him still too solid to move, he felt the deadened sleepy feedback from his arm reminding him of his loss.
As he moves along the conveyor belt in his cryo pod he sees the dark and confined interior of the ship's hull. He hates the feeling still too hard and weak to move only vaguely alert as his nervous system reawakens from his short slumber. Every time he is woken there's another month gone, another possibility of his death.
At first he was hopeful , he believed he was special, that he was going to survive the hordes of enemies that would come his way, splattered in the blood of his adversaries raising the flag of super earth in some far off world. He was covered in blood alright,
His lifelong friend from his block in MC-1-01. Splattered from being too close to a hell-bomb, he remembers being hit by his friend's torso being flung off his feet from how hard it hit him.
It was that catatonic shock that saved him, as his entire squad was replenished 4 times over just to take down one fabricator, he stayed in the back watching as new reinforcements would throw themselves at the machines, as his shock cleared he got angry, and the angrier he got the more ideas he would have.
It would eat away at him, maw at him, like a suicidal tumor ponding away at his thoughts the madness and chaos growing chaos in the brain, as his blood flowed in his veins.
In a rage he threw one of his grenades at the exhaust port at the top of the machine. The rest of that mission was a blur. All he remembers is crawling, smearing the blood, oil and dirt into his hands as he stubbornly refused to die.
That's how he's survived till now, keeping himself distant from others and his face down in the dirt, some would call him snake. out of suspicion of course. it's a bad look to come back alive unscathed. He deserved the name however in his craven attempt to live he would allow the others to martyr themselves for super earth's cause, watching them meaninglessly throw their lives away in the meat grinder, watching them make their mistakes, getting smarter. At first it was baby steps.
His first one on one, then a two on one. Every time he survived he became better, stronger and faster.
By his 10th drop he would be able to solo not just one fabricator but the entire outpost. But his success came with blood on his hands. As he continued to survive he would begin using his allies to survive throwing his fellow helldivers into the meat grinder.
Sometimes it was for distraction, sometimes it was to protect him. His survival allowed him to set the terms of the engagement. When he would first drop he would wait for the squad to wipe themselves. The mechanism for this was usually either them or the enemy. It didn't matter which way it happened as long as he was by himself. Then when he was alone that's when he could officially begin. He was successful.
However, as time progressed he would start becoming hopeless, callously throwing away countless lives.
Sending them into impossible situations for little to no gain, in retrospect it was a metaphor of his life, being thrown into impossible situations with bleak expectations for survival, but he did it and he was hated for it, after all he was the snake.
His pod stopped as he could see the main deck as the door opened. He fell unceremoniously onto the floor. His body still too stiff to move, a side effect from so many flash freezes. All the deck hands watched from a distance with expressions ranging from disapproving to outright hostility, he slowly got up joints cracking from years of abuse, his body long pushed past the limit. Taking a stim he injected himself, not out of any need, only to soothe his cravings to a manageable level. Just enough to function for his mission.
Without any further delay he walked to his hell-pod, no briefing, no information. At this point of his life he has seen everything, destroyed every enemy and completed every mission. anywhere from a simple squad to an entire army, he will live, and his adversaries will fall. The only questions on his mind for this mission is how many people he will send to die, maybe 10 or 20, so far his record is 20 , there is only so much he can do in the course of an hour. He gets sent down into his metal coffin as his holographic display comes to life, showing him his decent course and deployment site.
Its all pointless regardless of where he drops, he will survive. He remembers one of his more colorful memories when he was dropped by the battle master directly into a bug hive world , with no extraction or support, in an rogue attempt to kill him. In a spectacular display of tenacity and grit he came back 4 days later on another squad's return. The outcome of the battle master's actions was an immediate execution on the bridge, one of his more passionate executions, he simply overdosed him on stims, making his heart swell until he died of cardiac arrest. the traitor survived for an hour. Vomiting blood and other excrement from his body, screaming for death and mercy over the ships 1MC for all the ships crew to hear, as much as it was justice it was also, an open threat to all the other traitors, a statement. 'I will do this to you too.' and so he went into the quarter-deck logs of the crew on watch at the time individually administering the executions for all those complicit. In the end he depleted the ship's stims, so he had to start shooting the rest of the rats. All in all he executed 5 people. The battle master, conning officer, officer of the deck, ship's captain, and pilot. All those responsible for wasting valuable SEAF resources in their mutinous attempt to kill him.
"Bad times." as he feels the weight of nothingness hold him he can feel the charge of the launchers as the hell pod is jettisoned out to the surface of the planet, he no longer fights the feeling of lightheadedness as his vision turners red from the blood flow to his his eyes, a single sliver of light before he's enveloped into darkness.