Chapter 3: One Step Above
Chapter three of Diving Deep, a Helldivers 2 Fan Fiction. It follows the hapless Lucas Loverso as he tries to discover who he truly is while fighting for managed Democracy.
Well shit.
Dead again.
My organs inside me still felt frosty – somehow. It feels like my lungs are crackling as I breathe. As if to add insult to injury, my skull is pounding as I relive the memories of dying, twice over, as they are etched into my brain.
At least I got my beacon off before I tripped into that landmine. I don’t know how I didn’t see it. Now forever more, us Lucas’s will remember Lucas Two was a dumbass who dove into a mine.
Add that to Lucas Prime who forgot to use a stim pack – maybe we are dumb.
But this waking is weird.
This time, I thawed directly into a hellpod and I’m watching drone feeds of Super Citizen Rhyno and Cadet Rogers.
“Request a call in from your squadmates,” the Air Boss’s soft feminine voice said into my headset.
“Can’t you just release the pod?” I asked, feeling annoyed.
“We cannot risk you falling outside of immediate support,” She replied. The intoned ‘dumbass’ in her voice did little to dissuade my earlier assessment that all of us Lucas’s were a disappointment to our fellow Helldivers.
“Rhyno, can you call us in?” Cadet Rogers asked over the comm.
I’d missed seeing him eat it on the feed. I kinda wish I could’ve seen that. Watching Super Citizen Rhyno dive out of enemy fire and drop precision headshots, spilling oil like a badass banshee – well, let’s just say, does little to inspire my own confidence.
“Rhyno, get us in!” Cadet Rogers calls again, tapping his reminder repeatedly.
“Give me a second, Rogers,” He replies as I watch him over the shared video feed tapping into his arm computer.
He pops a blue pod out, and I hear the Air Boss, “Resupply inbound.”
“C’mon, man!” Rogers shouts into the mic.
“Don’t get your cape in a bind!” Rhyno groans as he throws another blue beacon.
It takes a second, but I feel the Hellpod lurch, and my stomach lurches as the electromagnetic cannon fires Rogers and me toward the surface.
As we fall towards the surface, my camera view switches to the high composition of my pod falling towards the surface. “Rhyno, can you target something big? I’ll hit it!” I say just as I feel the control stick form in my power glove, and the retro thrusters start to fire.
A targeting square appears on my screen. “Aim for the fabricator you missed the first time,” he replies with just a little too much ribbing humor.
I know Super Citizen Rhyno is a better Helldiver than me, and this fraternity of divers is definitely built on a banter system of merit – but I really, really wish I would’ve actually hit that damn fabricator with the orbital strike!
Well, that actually wasn’t me. That was the lackluster Lucas Two.
I’m Lucas Three, and I’m going to be the best damn Helldiver of all the Lucas’s!
I felt the pod punch into the ground, and the platform I was on rose quickly. Cadet Rogers was laughing, standing on the platform next to me.
I’d been too distracted to maneuver and totally missed the fabricator.
The glowing red fabricator seemed to mock me, not twenty meters from where my hellpod landed. “Uhh, I think you missed it,” Super Citizen Rhyno chided me.
“He didn’t maneuver at all,” Rogers laughed. “It was like –”
Listen, I’m not proud of it. But, c’mon, it’s Rogers; he’s as green as I am. I pulled out my P-2 Peacemaker, and plugged two 9mm rounds into his chest.
He tripped backward from the impact and hit the ground hard. His gear bounced hard away and my screen updated to show the kill.
I bit my lip hard, waiting for the reprimand. Heck, for this, they might just execute me on the spot.
Simultaneously, Super Citizen Rhyno and Cadet Rogers began shouting in my ear. “Did you just shoot him?”
“You shot me!?”
I couldn’t help but laugh as I turned to jog towards the fabricator. “Yeah, sorry.”
“You just burned one of our respawns,” Super Citizen Rhyno complained.
“Yeah, but c’mon, he deserved it,” I laughed as I fired my AR-23 Liberator at a pair of Automaton sentries who just noticed me.
Rogers laughed over the comm, “Yeah, but I’m gonna get you back with my pod!” He said as Rhyno threw another reinforcement beacon.
I wonder which version of Rogers this is.
My 5.5mm round punched through the arm of an Automaton Commissar just as he lifted his arm to call reinforcements.
The round severed one of his primary hydraulic tubes. Black oil oozed from the damage and the arm fell limp.
I re-sighted my rifle, and fired again, popping a hole in his ugly white skull carapace. The back blew out of his metallic brain, and the whole unit dropped lifeless to the ground like a sack of replacement parts.
I suppose they’re always lifeless – so maybe commandless is a better word?
Rogers’ Hellpod came crashing into the roof of the fabricator at terminal velocity. The building erupted as the kinetic force of the impact blew apart the armaplast shell, breaking the ceramacrete base. Rogers rose out of his Hellpod at the center of the debris, cape billowing in the wind.
“Damn, that was heroic!” I shouted, throwing my arm up in celebration at Rogers.
He gave a salute back, “Since I took out your elusive fabricator, I’ll call us even.” He laughed, punching his stratagem code into his arm.
“Now that you’ve finally blown it up, I have a S-E-A-F Artillery in sight; converge on me.” Super Citizen Rhyno called over the net.
Looking at my map, I dropped a tag on Super Citizen Rhyno’s position, “North, 200 meters.” I said to Cadet Rogers as we took off jogging.
“Can’t see the jungle through the jungle,” Rogers said as he quickly changed out the magazine on his primary. “You know, I think I’m going to buy the Stalwart with our requisition slips from this mission.”
“Yeah? How much is it?” I asked, thinking back to what I would want to use my slips on.
“Thirty-five hundred, and I’m almost there.” He said, giving me a genial punch in the shoulder as we round a grove of trees.
Just ahead, I see an indicator for Super Citizen Rhyno on my heads-up display, “Coming in from the south,” I say into the comm, as I notice his attention is on the trio of Scout Striders holding position by the artillery cannon.
The mechanical walkers were little more than turrets mounted on legs, commanded by a Trooper. It was a robot inception, a machine controlling an even simpler machine.
“Hook around to the flank,” Super Citizen Rhyno commanded. “They know I’m here, but not where.”
The heavy plating on the faceplate of the Striders blocked Rhyno’s attempts at blowing the pilot off his perch. He was using the R-63 Diligence, a good marksman rifle, but he couldn't punch through the armor without a clear shot at the pilot.
Keeping low behind the foliage, Cadet Rogers and I made a sharp turn to the right flank. Clearly, the scouts had spotted Super Citizen Rhyno, but they weren’t interested in giving up the captured artillery position.
At the edge of the treeline, I could see the supply trench ten meters through the cleared brush. Fortunately, the Striders still had their attention firmly on the felled log that Super Citizen Rhyno was holed up behind.
“Don’t fire until we reach the trench,” I instructed Rogers. “Pop out, fire, and clear.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Rogers replied.
“Once the Striders have been dealt with, hit that terminal and power up the cannon.”
“What are you going to do?” He asked while reloading his machine gun.
“I’ll start collecting ammunition in the trench so we can reload the artillery.”
“Shouldn’t that be the job of the SEAF Army?” Rogers asked impatiently.
I pointed near to the nearby supply pad. I could see at least two soldiers' blue-grey uniforms now blotched with sickening dark red stains. The ceramacrete barrier wall had splashes of blood across its surface like some dissidents' new age artwork.
“I don’t think they made it.”
“Clanks gonna pay,” Rogers grumbled, leveling his machine gun. “Ready, Loverso?”
“Go!” I shouted as we both broke cover, sprinting towards the armored trench. Reaching the wall, I popped around the side and clicked off four rounds, striking the first Striders’ pilot and knocking him off his perch.
Rogers opened up with his MG-43, catching the second Strider across the linking and control surfaces along the leg joints. The powerful rounds punched through and through, dismantling the Strider before it could respond.
My next pair of rounds ricocheted off the heavy faceplate as the Strider unleashed at our position with its heavy machine guns.
From behind the faceplate, I saw the pilot's head fly off from right to left as Super Citizen Rhyno finally had an open target.
“Secure the terminal,” Rhyno exclaimed as he clambered to his feet.
I knew Rogers was already punching in the command sequence when I charged into the trench toward the supply crates.
The mangled remains of three more SEAF Army soldiers lay around an open container. The box was filled with APFSDS rounds – armor-piercing, fin-stabilized discarding-sabot ammunition – the exact wrong type for an artillery cannon.
“What kind of idiot shipped these here?” I asked in disbelief. “These can’t provide indirect fire!” I complained as Super Citizen Rhyno came down the ramp next to me.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
Maybe I’m not the dumbest Helldiver after all, “These are sabot rounds. Look for something with a more domed head.”
From up the ramp, I could hear Rogers' machine gun start firing. The clicking over our comm told me he was laying on the ground firing, and the vox was activating. “What’s going on, Rogers?” I asked at the same time as Super Citizen Rhyno.
“Bot drop, I didn’t see the Troopers… they popped a flare,” Rogers replied as I saw his health monitor flash in my HUD.
“Haul back down here,” Super Citizen Rhyno said as he tapped my shoulder. “Loverso, I’m calling down some anti-tank rockets. Grab one.”
Rhyno gave the stratagem a slight toss to the ramp's opening just as Rogers crested the top.
Something heavy strikes Rogers in the back, the impact tossing him forward down the ramp. Rogers slid past the blue beam of light shining into the sky, just as the Hellpod crashed into the ceramacrete ramp behind him.
As the Hellpod deploys its glowing blue case of EAT-17 Expendable Anti-Tank rocket launchers, a massive ironclad Devastator crests the lip of the ramp. His armored body with the dark grey hull shining in the afternoon sun. His right arm bristling with two heavy cannons.
The Devastator reacquires its target on Rogers as the injured Helldiver crawls to his feet.
I move to help him up, but Super Citizen Rhyno pulls me towards the Hellpod, “Get a rocket.” The Devastator blasts a hole through Roger’s shoulder as he attempts to slam a stim pack into his neck. The second burst takes off Roger’s head, painting the back wall of the enclave with another abstract art of blood.
I set the rocket on my shoulder, and the Devastator realizes a second too late that I was the greater target.
As I click the trigger, I scream out, “Eat shit, Sparky!”