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As the old proverb goes: Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space.
“Pelican 1 landing sequence initiated. Watch where you're standing.” Thumbing his communication buzzer, he efficiently worked the sidestick to bring his plane down safely on the designated landing zone. His name, emblazoned proudly on his jacket, was a non-factor to the many Helldivers he has saved from the Democracy-hating claws of death. To them, he had a plethora of titles: Extraction Man, Flying Freedom, and, his personal favourite, Mister Bagmouth. But, most often, they just called him:
“OUR SAVIOUR!” The Helldivers looked up in sheer relief and awe, arms shaking from a long day of fighting valiantly in the name of Super Earth. “EXTRACT IS HERE! WE’RE SAVED!”
One of the Helldivers began racing up to the descending Pelican. Bagmouth recognized him from the morning’s crew breakfast: this guy was a new cadet, freshly picked from the survivors of Ingmar’s colonies. The son of an algae farmer, he’d declared proudly. He practically threw himself at Helldivers recruitment after seeing his planet fall to the accursed clankers a mere week ago. His brand-new, standard-issue Helldiver armour didn’t even bear any tears from cryofreeze.
All of these things could only be noticed by Mister Bagmouth because the Helldiver was running way too fucking close to the landing zone.
“WE’RE SAVED! WE’RE--” The loud and telltale CRUNCH of Helldiver bones being smashed under the democratic force of Sir Isaac Newton’s gravity ricocheted through the cockpit, delightfully in-tune to Super Earth’s anthem. Which was, of course, playing non-stop in the Pelican at all times. “AUUURGH!”
Mister Bagmouth grimaced at the sight. And then grimaced even more when the Helldiver’s whimpering remains were sucked into the Pelican dropship’s five-kiloton engines and crushed into bone-paste.
He did warn them to watch where they were standing…
“Pelican 1, hold position!” A stressed, yet levelled voice shouted over the din of endless gunfire. “Got a Helldiver still on the way!”
Before he could speak, a nearby automaton fired off a full round into the Pelican’s windshield, though every undemocratic blast was deftly tanked by Super Earth’s superior engineering prowess. “Make it quick,” Bagmouth grumbled, honing in on the approaching enemies. He aimed the Pelican’s auxiliary weaponry and expertly blasted their metal heads off, just nearly missing another Helldiver in the process. “We can’t linger here for much longer.”
“T1, there are even more coming from the back!” With a grunt of exertion, the Helldiver that Bagmouth had almost shot ran to the dropship, but stopped just short of entering. “There’s no way Y4 is gonna make it!”
“I don’t want to hear any of that talk from you, D2!” After deftly massacring the nearest Commissar with a punch from her bare hands, the Helldiver designated T1 immediately drew her arm back and began typing in a series of commands. “Defeatism is non-conducive to the delivery of Managed Democracy!”
“Y…yes, ma’am!” Trying to swallow his fear, D2 continued shooting the incoming horde. “But the bots are gonna keep dropping! What do we do?!”
Then, T1 plucked a glowing black orb from her belt. “Just watch,” she declared, and even behind the thick glass panes of the Pelican windshield, the striking glow of a stratagem was unmistakable.
Bagmouth leaned in with anticipation. With a valiant swing of her arm, T1 flung the stratagem into the horde of automatons, and he watched in awe…
…Only to watch as the stratagem missed entirely, bounced on a nearby tree, and came back to rest at their feet, activating its marker beam of deadly red light right next to the Pelican dropship.
“Ah, shit.” T1 turned to D2. “Run.”
D2 did as he was told, bursting into a full-on sprint away from danger. “AAAAAH! RUN AWAAAY!”
Bagmouth, too, slammed on the emergency defences, quickly covering the plane perimeter with a shield. As he jerked his head frantically to check the shields, he spotted the green glint of a Helldiver’s laser sight, emerging from the crowd of screaming cogs…
“Here comes the cavalry!”
…just before the Eagle pilot swooped in, dropping a series of cluster bombs right on top of them.
The beautiful flurry of Liberty-loving explosives shattered the landscape in half, along with the dozens of automaton bodies that were chasing them down. “Enemy down, baby!” A proud voice came through the comms, calm and cocky even as she manoeuvred the Eagle fighter plane through the tightest corners known to mankind in order to return to swoop-ready position.
And she was right: for a rare, breathtaking moment, a strange quiet fell upon the surface of Pöpli IX, with only the blanketing dust to keep them company. “...They’re dead,” D2 suddenly gasped, staggering out of the rubble. “They’re dead, and… and Y4…”
Just like that, a miracle ripped straight from the history books of Super Earth showed itself:
In the shaky reappearance of a green laser sight, accompanied by the rhythmic thud of boots on the ground. “Wait, is that… Y4?!” D2 rushed forward, utterly shocked and ecstatic. “Oh my sweet Liberty, it IS you! Y4, you MADE it!”
Y4 promptly responded with a silent thumbs-up.
“That’s right!” At that moment, T1 crawled into view with one leg bent the wrong way and victory singing in her tone. “NO Helldiver left behind!”
“T-- T1!” D2 immediately raced over to grab her arm, hauling her over his back. “Come on, let’s get to the dropship before reinforcements catch up!”
Nodding in agreement, Y4 dove into the Pelican and strapped their body tightly into the seatbelt (remember kids, safety first). D2, too, helped to place T1 down and lock her in. “I hope this has taught you the true Helldiver way, D2!” Even in her stim-hazed delirium, however, she continued to chide D2. “It’s not over till its over! And even if its over-- Liberty requires sacrifice! A sacrifice that we, today, did not have to pay because of our incredible--”
Then, she looked around and counted her remaining teammates. “Hold on, where’s H3?”
“In the engine,” Bagmouth said, pointing at the plumes of black smoke and occasional spurts of blood coming from the Pelican’s right wing.
“Oh.” T1 shook her head sadly. “Whoops.”
-----
After a successful extract, surviving Helldivers are given a rare treat before being sent back into the cryopods: a real meal.
“I can’t believe this, T1!” D2 grabbed another slice of toast with wide brown eyes and unfiltered glee on his face. “Real, cooked bread! I’ve never tasted anything so glorious!” He was eating so quickly that crumbs were starting to get stuck in his fuzzy black hair.
“Feast your eyes and mouths, recruits…” T1, meanwhile, indulged in handfuls of boiled eggs with tears streaming down her pale face, emotionally moved by Super Earth’s spectacular show of love. “...for THIS is the lengths that mankind will go to for its most beloved Helldivers.”
Y4, meanwhile, quietly indulged in a massive bowl of Democrunchy™ Cereal, complete with a serving of Liberty-Lovin’-Liquid (only 95% synthetic!). After swallowing the whole slurry in one swift gulp, they gave a mighty thumbs-up, before refilling their bowl for Round 2.
“Glad to see you’re all enjoying the meal.” Mister Bagmouth, meanwhile, leaned against the nearby wall with his arms crossed. If you asked him, he didn’t quite like the mouthfeel of unprepared food. Give him a standard-issue nutrient tube and he would be good for hours. For one, it’s not exactly easy to do all the twists and turns needed of a Pelican dropship without feeling queasy in itself. Add a full stomach to the equation? That would be bad.
“--Sorry I’m late!”
With the click of a door, someone new entered the dining hall. “Had to spray some automaton oil off the Eagle,” she sighed, hopping on one foot while trying to release the clasps on her boot and helmet at the same time. “Got a little too close to them this time. But I’m glad I actually managed to catch you Helldivers before cryo-time. Hello, Helldivers! I’m the Eagle pilot assigned to this ol’ ship. My name’s--”
With a fizz of released air, her helmet came off with a swift movement, revealing a head of short, sun-burnt hair, paired with russet-gold eyes. Through his sunglasses, Bagmouth took an awfully long time before realising she was staring right at him.
“...Haven’t seen you before, have I?” Kicking off her boots, she took a curious step towards him. “Definitely not-- I would’ve recognized a handsome face like yours. You must be the Pelican pilot. What do they call you? Mister Bagmouth? I never caught wind of your real name.”
“That’s alright, ma’am.” With a polite nod, he gestured towards the name on his jacket. “I like being called Bagmouth. It suits me.”
“So, you’re a nickname kind of guy, huh?” A smirk slid across her face as she pointed to herself. “In that case, you can call me Miss Eagle-Eyes!”
“Miss Eagle-Eyes it is.” He stretched out his arm, and she took it with a firm grip. She gave a strong handshake; just a touch too strong, actually. “Happy to be working with you on the SES Founding Father of Family Values, ma’am.”
Eagles-Eyes proceeded to let out a bark of laughter. “Wait, is THAT what this Destroyer is called?!”
“...You didn’t know?”
“Maybe I did.” Her swift recovery was accompanied by two bats of her eyelashes. “Maybe all the thoughts in my pretty little head left me the moment I laid my eyes on you, hotshot.”
Immediately, his brows furrowed in concern. “Really? That sounds bad. You should head to Medical to get that checked.”
For a few seconds, Eagle-Eyes stared at him blankly, before her smile returned. “Oh, c’mon, hotshot. You're sending me off to Medical when all I need is standing right in front of me?”
“In front of you?” He turned his head to the side. “I suppose there is a bag of stims here. Need any help with the injection, ma’am?”
“I’m more than familiar with using a stim, baby. I wasn’t born yesterday,” she laughed. “But there might be another type of injection into my body that I could use some help with…”
“Sure, I’ll lend you a hand…” Bagmouth looked to the side, and only then did he notice that none of the Helldivers were eating anymore. Instead, they were looking right at him, eyes as wide as saucers. “...What’s with the look? Something on my face?”
Immediately, the three of them jolted their heads back to their meal, pretending that they were not just staring intently at him. Odd.
“Oh, there’s something on your face, alright…” She took another step closer, and he touched his cheek self-consciously. Did he leave some nutrient paste on his lips? “Cute little stubble, strong brows, and a face sculpted like it would fit just nice on my--”
“ALERT! ALERT! EMERGENCY REINFORCEMENTS NEEDED ON ANGEL’S VENTURE! ALL CREW TO STATIONS!”
The Helldivers leapt out of their chairs before lunging for their armour. Both pilots also flew straight back into action-- Eagle-Eyes slammed her feet back into her boots while Bagmouth clicked on his survival vest with practised ease. “Back to work,” she sighed, rather exasperated.
“If you’re not feeling well, Eagle-Eyes, you should tell Medical now.” He adjusted his shades and checked his gun. No good Pelican pilot lands planetside without means to protect themselves when their Helldivers no longer can. “Wouldn’t want anything happening to you in an active combat zone.”
“Oh?” To that, she flashed a wide grin. “I appreciate the concern, hotshot. But I’m fine. Plus, even if I was ill, the enemies of Freedom aren’t going to just tap out till I’m over it, are they?”
“True,” he noted. Over the speakers, the countdown had already begun for the FTL jump to Veld. “In that case… good luck out there.”
“Good luck to you too,” she cooed, before slapping on her helmet and waving farewell. “I sincerely hope you don’t need it.”
-----
It turned out that he did, actually, need all the luck he could get.
“This is Pelican 1, I have visual on the extraction zone…” He trailed off near the end, fingers trembling slightly on his buzzer. “What in the name of Super Earth…?”
“Bile Titans,” Eagles-Eyes buzzed in, the trepidation in her voice mixed with equal parts of excitement. “Big bugs, huh?”
“Yeah,” he replied, utterly speechless. “Big bugs. And there’s four of them.”
There were, in fact, more than four of them. There were over a dozen, closing it directly on the screaming Helldivers below. Thick and viscous acid dripped from their vile mandibles, drowning the ground by their massive legs.
Needless to say, the extraction zone was completely overrun.
But a few bugs were not enough to stop a proud citizen of Super Earth from fulfilling his duty. Calibrating the optimal angle, he took a deep breath before pushing down on the control yoke. He pressed the buzzer again, resolutely this time. “Pelican 1 landing in progress,” he declared, before releasing. “Alright, let’s kick this puppy into motion. Come on!”
Then, he slammed the thrust levers, diving downwards.
He weaved around the Bile Titans with expert precision. As one raised its filthy leg, he swooped underneath it, banking tightly to avoid the incoming vomit of acid from another. He slapped the gun controls, firing wildly into the air around him-- frankly, when surrounded so thoroughly on all sides, aim no longer mattered. He sprayed bullets into the bugs around him, clearing the path down.
As he approached the ground, he immediately slammed the reverse thrust, bringing his speeding plane to a sudden yet controlled stop. He landed gingerly on the ground, in stark contrast to how harshly he had been jerking around to avoid becoming bug food. “Get in,” he shouted, barely audible over the roars. “Now!”
“We… we made it!” Covered in gunk and running with a limp, D2 emerged from the horde. He was badly battered, and it seemed like his helmet was about 60% filled with brave Helldiver tears, but he was alive. “R3, look! We’re getting out… of…”
R3, as he may once have been called, was promptly delivered onto the extraction point in five separate pieces. From the look of his wounds, it seemed like Brood Commander had its way with him. The decapitated head of his former comrade rolled up and clinked against D2’s boots before he started screaming.
“GET A FUCKING HOLD OF YOURSELF, D2!” And, just like clockwork, T1 dove out of the mayhem, shooting widely from the hip. When her Breaker ran out of ammo, she started sniping at the Bile Titans with her railgun. “THERE WILL BE TIME FOR MOURNING LATER! GO, GO, GO!”
Like a scene ripped straight from a government-issued Democratisation Movie, Y4 grabbed D2 by the waist to stop him from running back into danger, all while D2 continued kicking and screaming. “NOOO! R3!” With an animalistic scream of rage, D2 lifted his Breaker and fired into the swarming bugs, even as Y4 carried him all the way into the Pelican. “HE WAS JUST A BOY! JUST A BOOOY!”
T1 covered the two surviving Helldivers from the back, before quickly backing in herself. “Strap him in, Y4! We’re getting out!”
“LET ME AT THEM, T1!” Instead of being swamped with relief at the idea of escape, D2 instead thrashed at his seatbelt. The tears in his helmet swished around to the sound of his agonised rage. “I’LL TURN THEM ALL TO CINDERS! JUST LET ME GO!”
“We’re leaving, D2!” T1 shouted back, adrenaline pumping to the tune of the bugs encroaching even closer. “We’re done! Mission complete! Spilling your blood on this battlefield will not lubricate the wheels of Liberty, D2!”
But D2 wasn’t listening. Somehow, even with Y4 holding him in, he managed to pull out a glowing-red stratagem from his pocket, before tossing it right at the foot of the Pelican’s closing ramp. “ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD, R3! ONE MORE!”
Oh, for fuck’s--
“Extraction complete! Pelican 1 preparing for takeoff!” Going into pure survival mode, Mister Bagmouth hit the evac switch and revved up the engines. “I am NOT going to be turned into a friendly fire statistic today!”
He lifted off the ground in an instant. The first obstacle towards safety presented itself immediately: the Bile Titans rumbled above them, huge and frothing with acid. But he was prepared. With one finger rolling the side-stick and the other yanking on the yoke, he deftly darted the Pelican, left, then right, then all the way up before diving down to avoid every enemy that dared to lay another hand on Super Earth’s Helldivers.
“Coming in hot!” The second obstacle now arrived, drenched in ruby-red rays and bearing the proud flag of Super Earth: Miss Eagle-Eyes, called in to answer D2’s stratagem. And answer it she did: she flew in fast, and Bagmouth banked hard to the left, narrowly avoiding her Eagle jet as it raced downwards. The bellies of their planes almost became a little too well-acquainted with one another. But that wasn’t the hard part.
The hard part was dodging the dozens of bombs that followed behind her.
Bagmouth slammed on his reverse thrust to avoid flying straight into one, before immediately picking up the momentum to dodge another coming screaming in from the side. The Helldivers at the back were being jostled around like the marble in an aerosol can, but he remained calm, collected, and flying the damn Pelican by the seat of his fucking pants.
Finally, he cleared through the barrage, narrowly escaping a fiery death-- and allowing the bombs to deliver it unto the bugs still below.
“Whoa! Didn’t see you there, hotshot!” Eagle-Eyes, meanwhile, let out a peal of laughter at Bagmouth’s predicament.
“Good thing I did,” he muttered, before wiping the sweat off his brow.
Just as they broke through the clouds, Bagmouth could hear the sonorous thunder of an airstrike being dropped directly underneath them. “Another one bites the dust,” Eagle-Eyes bragged, and soon she joined him by the Pelican’s side, soaring through the clouds. “Tough extract, huh?”
“Could be harder,” he brushed off. She responded with an impressed-sounding whistle. “Probably worse for the Helldivers at the back. One of them’s probably due for some Stress Control Training…”
“That bad?” She clicked her tongue and sighed. “Damn it. These bugs keep pushing deeper into the Eastern Front… we’d better liberate Angel’s Venture soon. If only I had that fancy new Liquid-Ventilated Cockpit upgrade. With less time with me out of action, that means more time with me on the battlefield. We’d liberate this planet twice as fast!”
“R3…” Now, D2 was full-on sobbing into his already water-filled helmet. Y4, to their credit, patted him awkwardly on his back as he let it out. “It was his first mission… dammit! Dammit! That was me just one mission ago! And I…”
“Come on, rookie. Have a drink.” T1 popped her helmet off, dropping it onto the ground before uncorking a bottle she’d tucked into her armour. It immediately filled the plane with the stench of concentrated alcohol (“Uh, excuse me? No drinking at the back of the Pelican--”), and she brought it to D2’s lips. “At least… we preserved his memory.”
D2 looked at the bottle and sniffled pathetically. “His… memory? A memento? Something we can… send to his family…?”
“Huh? Oh, no, none of that.” She grabbed the flask from her hip and jingled it around excitedly. “I retrieved his sample container. He had twenty in there! Priceless, I tell you.”
D2 started sobbing louder.
Bagmouth pinched his nose and sigh. It was going to be a long flight back to the Destroyer.
-----
Once docked aboard the SES Founding Father of Family Values, the surviving Helldivers spilled out of the Pelican like overpacked sardines flapping towards Freedom. Before being allowed back into sanitised space, they needed to step through the Decontamination Chamber, which was basically just a mini-carwash for Helldivers. Can’t have that terminid gunk all over the floor; who knows how hard it’ll be to clean off.
Once they were washed, dried and polished, they were ready for presentation. Stepping onto the podium, the Helldivers were raised up to the adulation of the ship-side crew, clapping wildly.
“Congratulations, Helldivers!” Eagle-Eyes was the one cheering the loudest. “Angel’s Venture has been liberated! Onto the next mission!”
“Next… mission?” In contrast to the joyful atmosphere, D2 looked about ready to melt into a puddle on the Destroyer’s ventilated floors. “N-next… mission…”
“Aaalright!” Trying to salvage the situation, T1 pulled D2 into a very forced-looking noogie before giving an awkward thumbs-up. “We’re just as happy about the rightful restoration of Super Earth’s glorious control as you all are. But we Helldivers need to rest and recover before our next bout of justice can be delivered!”
To everyone’s joyful whoops, T1 practically dragged D2 off to the side, before disappearing into the ship’s hallways. Y4 bowed towards the celebrators politely before running off after their teammates.
As the revellers dispersed and began charting the course to their next objective, Bagmouth leaned back and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He’d crushed them a little in the hectic extraction, but he wasn’t picky. Cigarettes taste the best after a day of hard work dispensing Managed Democracy across the galaxy. He placed the cig between his lips and brought out his lighter.
But when he flicked at his lighter, no flame shot out. Not even a single spark. Dammit. Where was he going to find a new lighter out in the…
…all of the sudden, another flame strayed in front of his gaze, lighting his cigarette. “Didn’t know you smoked, hotshot.”
He raised an eyebrow. He could see her glittering gold eyes reflected on his shades. “Appreciate the light, Eagle-Eyes.”
“You should probably quit,” she immediately followed up with. Slumping against the wall next to him, her armour thudded loudly against steel pillars. “Would be a shame if a handsome guy like you got taken off the service for lung cancer.”
“These don’t cause lung cancer,” he retorted, flashing the cigarette box to her. “It’s a Patriot product. Latest in Super Earth technology. Head they’re based on the stims we give Helldivers. Whole thing’s government-funded, so you know it’s good.”
“Oh.” She hummed to herself, a little bemused, and just a little unconvinced. “Cool. Anyway, hotshot, I wanted to tell you… nice flying out there. It couldn’t have been easy to dodge my airstrike like that, especially with your big, bulky plane.”
Bagmouth shrugged, trying his best to be polite about the whole ordeal. “I understand you were just following orders to strike at the stratagem point. Besides, I’m trained to survive situations like that. And… the Pelican’s a bulky plane, but not an oafish one by any means. With enough work on the side-stick, I suspect it could handle turns just as tight as your Eagle jet can.”
“Can it?” Eagle-Eyes responded with a cocky grin. “Care to show me how you’d ‘work’ the ‘side-stick’?”
“Next mission.” He took a long draft from his cigarette. “Taking a registered military craft out of a joyride outside mission time is a Class-A Offence.”
“You’re clueless,” she laughed, before snubbing out his cigarette with a pinch of her fingers. “C’mon, baby! Use your brain! I’m not asking you for that kind of joyride…”
Bagmouth blinked in confusion, though most of his bafflement was concealed behind his darkened shades. She seemed amused, but also slightly miffed-- was there something he was missing?
…Ah, of course!
“How about I show you a tour of the Pelican, then?” Of course she was trying to get a look inside his plane! Every pilot, no matter what their specialty, loves to see a variety of metal birds; fighter pilots love the wide spaces of a transport plane, while cargo pilots marvel at the sleekness of a bomber’s cockpit. She was probably just acting coy about it-- all bravado on the surface, but too shy to ask directly. “A private tour, so you can get the full view of it.”
Now, Eagle-Eyes’ sparkled with delight. Looks like he hit the mark. “Private tour, huh? Lead the way, hotshot.”
-----
“...And here we have the engine controls. This bad girl can land and takeoff wherever she wants, whenever she wants, no runway required. The horsepower in just a single one of its separate-propulsion tilted engines could level an entire automaton outpost and turn its occupants into spacedust.”
He gently brushed his fingers over the buttons and notches with the same loving caress he would give to his firstborn. “A perfect feat of human ingenuity given form. I could fly this baby into any planet, damn the conditions. It isn’t just a good plane, Eagle-Eyes… it’s our soul. The soul of Super Earth, able to thrive in any and every place in the galaxy. With just a flick of a switch, these engines roar to their full strength. Even on planets with the most suffocating gravity we’ve ever observed, the Pelican can extract into orbit within just fifteen seconds…”
“Uh-huh.” Eagle-Eyes nodded along, her eyes lidded. Not out of sleepiness or boredom, no; her eyes are lidded out of sheer awe at the Pelican’s incredible engineering. So overwhelming it is that she could only behold them partially at one time. “Cool.”
“Next is the most important part of any plane.” Bagmouth slapped one hand on the premium leather of his headrest, while his other took a satisfying puff from his almost-exhausted cigarette. “The pilot’s seat.”
He sat down on his familiar chair, sinking into its high-quality ergonomic design. “This, right here, is where the magic happens. Impressive, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. Impressive…” Her voice trailed off slightly, golden eyes slowly moving down to trace the edges of his shades. “You know, I could think of a different kind of ‘magic’ we could make happen here, Mister Bagmouth.”
With a smile of curiosity, he looked up and met her gaze. “What do you mean, Miss--”
Then, she whipped around, standing in front of the pilot’s chair-- before sitting right down, straddling his lap with both of her finely-armoured legs.
Uh.
Bagmouth’s smoldering cig fell gracelessly from his mouth and onto his pants. What in the name of Super Earth is this woman doing? “I’m sure you can guess what I mean by now,” she cooed, picking his fallen cigarette and pressing its orange tips to her own lip. “Think about it, hotshot. Just say the word…”
“Ah!” His jaw dropped in realisation. “I understand now!”
Eagles-Eyes smirked back. “So, what will it be?”
“Of course you can sit on the pilot’s chair!” Then, he stood up to his full height abruptly. The sudden motion almost sent her tumbling down onto the ground. “My apologies, Miss. What kind of host am I being without letting the guest sit down at the controls? Have the seat, I’ll guide you through the configurations.”
“...I…” In response, Eagle-Eyes stared blankly. He quickly whirled her around by her shoulderpads and sat her down, before excitedly taking her wrist and moving her hands over the control yoke. “Whoa, hey, hey!”
“Oh… sorry.” Immediately, he let go, stepping aside. “I got caught up in my own thoughts. Didn’t mean to grab you like that. My bad.”
“It’s fine,” she answered quickly, regarding him with a newly-formed and more genuine smile. “You can grab me however you like, hotshot.”
Her swift acceptance caught him by surprise. “You sure? Well… in that case…”
Bagmouth grabbed both her hands against, before placing them on the controls. “If the plane was one, pressing this button would send you straight into the sky. And then, you would twist the yoke this way, to perform evasive manoeuvres. It’s sensitive, so you’d have to be careful-- though, I believe your Eagle jet's controls are three times more sensitive, so when it comes to you, maybe I should be saying you’d have to be more forceful. Oh, that button you’re looking at is to play the anthem. I always got it running during extract-- not enough to drown out everything, but enough to send our undemocratic foes scampering for their cowardly lives. And then, you can kick the pedal here into gear for even greater propulsion…”
“You’re pretty cute when you’re infodumping,” she chuckled, and he already figured she was just joking around with him… but he felt his cheeks heat up a little, all the same.
-----
Just a few hours after giving Miss Eagle-Eyes a full tour of the Pelican and crashing into bed with exhaustion, the Destroyer’s comm system screamed out in blaring red lights, jolting him from his precious little sleep.
“THIS IS NOT A DRILL! OUR FACTORIES ARE UNDER ATTACK, HALTING ALL OUTPUT. HELLDIVERS HAVE BEEN DEPLOYED TO LIBERATE TIEN KWAN!”
Immediately rolling off this bed, he smacked his coffee machine to deliver a desperately-needed dose of Patriot-branded brew (also stim-based, so you know it’s the good shit). As the machine dispensed his pick-me-up while singing out Super Earth’s anthem in cheery chiptune, he buckled up his flight jacket and put on his all-important shades, before grabbing his cuppa as it was finished with a ‘ding!’.
Storming out of his private quarters with coffee in hand, he watched as the Helldivers rushed down the corridor right in front him, freshly-unfrozen. Their brief stint in the cryopods seemed to have rejuvenated them to full health: such is the mighty power of Super Earth technology. “Wish I could get frozen for a while,” he muttered to himself, sipping his piping-hot drink. “Probably feels like the best sleep in the world…”
“--Sup, hotshot!”
Eagle-Eyes soon made herself known, running up behind Bagmouth and slapping his back with her hand. He nearly spilled his coffee all over himself, but barely managed to keep himself upright. “Sounds like the damn clankers are targeting Tien Kwan. That’s where the Patriot Exosuits are being made!”
“The Patriot Exosuit?” When he heard that, his groggy brain scrambled to catch up. “Same Patriot as the cigs? The coffee?”
“The coffee, the cigs, the guns, the exosuits-- you name it!” Despite the gravity of the situation, her frenzied voice sounded more jubilant than concerned. “You know what we gotta do, hotshot. We’re gonna wipe these automatons off the face of Tien Kwan! Now, I gotta go suit up. See you at extract!”
And then, just as she dashed off ahead of him-- “One more thing. Watch out for the meteors!”
Bagmouth blinked slowly. “The… meteors?”
-----
Half an hour later, Bagmouth slammed on his breaks and watched a massive ball of ice rip through the sky in front of him, all while yelling: “The fucking meteors!”
“Fun, huh, hotshot?” Eagle-Eyes’ excitement rang out through his comms, interrupting the torrential howl of meteors flying far too close to his beloved Pelican. “Head’s up-- I’m coming in above you!”
Immediately, Bagmouth smashed his yoke down, just barely diving out of her way. The turbulence of her high-speed jet rocked his already-wobbling Pelican. “Couldn’t you say that a little earlier?”
“Haaahaha!” Laughter was all that followed. He would’ve protested her recklessness a little further, if something else didn’t distract him.
‘Something else’ being a piece of paper flying off his dashboard and right over his face, blocking his view.
“What the--?!” First things first: he didn’t even know there was a piece of paper left on the dash. Hell, he always made sure there were never any loose objects inside the cockpit, solely to avoid his current situation.
But that didn’t matter right now. What did matter is the paper was turning him blind in a fucking meteor storm, and he scrambled to rip it off him. When it stuck on stubbornly to his shades, he instead started desperately diving the plane downwards to make its vertical surface area as small as possible-- which also risked the chance of entering into an unrecoverable tailspin. “Get off, get off, get off--”
Finally, his left hand managed to dig into the paper, pulling it off his face. His eyes quickly adjusted to both the sight outside his windshield-- dodge that fucking-- okay, good-- and the readings on all his instruments. With an abrupt lurch upwards to level his plane, he brought the Pelican back into control while also bringing up his lunch into his throat. Even for a pilot of his experience, all that motion was just a little too much.
Still, he swallowed his queasiness. Democracy wasn’t going to reach this planet if he gave in so easily. As he resisted the urge to throw up, his eyes wandered to the words printed on the paper.
…
A C-01 permit?
Now, this was definitely not something he’d left behind out of carelessness. The last time he had his hands on one of these was when he was still a schoolboy and trying to play a prank on his teacher-- he got his ass whooped for that one. So who could have possibly left this here? The only people who have stepped into the Pelican were himself, the maintenance crew, and…
The answer came to him just as the realisation hit. On the bottom left, written in cursive under Participant 1, was an unfamiliar name-- but the title under it, with hearts dotted on both sides, made the signer known to him instantly:
♡ Miss ♡ Eagle ʚ♡ɞ Eyes ♡
…Damn!
She must’ve left this form behind by accident!
Bagmouth hit the Pelican’s glove department with a jerk of his knee, popping it open and tossing the form inside. He’d best return it to her; a C-01 permit was serious business, and she must be fretting over where she’d misplaced it. It’s just the right thing to do.
First, though: he should survive this bloody extract.
Rolling away from another set of meteors, he finally broke through the misty clouds and got a look at the extraction point. “This is Pelican 1, preparing for touchdown.” Applying his reverse thrust, he lowered the Pelican right onto the extraction point, to the anxiously-waiting Helldivers below.
“Extract is here!” T1’s familiar voice screamed over automaton rocket fire. “Get in, NOW!”
“I-- oh my Liberty! I made it!” Now an unfamiliar voice joined in, surging with overwhelming joy and relief. “Let’s go home, everyone!”
“S3!” D2 shouted after her in panic. “WATCH OUT! WATCH--”
Just as S3 took one step forward, a stray meteor smashed right where she was standing, turning her into a fine blood mist.
“NOOOO!” D2 let out a blood-curdling scream of pure despair. “NO, S3, NOOO!”
Once again, Y4 had to grab D2 by the belt of their armour and drag them into the Pelican dropship. “DEMOCRACY DAMN THEM ALL, SHE WAS SO CLOSE! SO CLOOOSE!”
T1 followed close behind, Punisher firing shot after shot till the very last bullet. “We’re in, Bagmouth! Get us outta here!”
“Heard you loud and clear!” Lifting off, he rolled the autocannon turrets to shoot through a few incoming meteors as the Pelican’s nose tilted upwards, flying off into the sky. “And, uh… sorry about your squadmate. …Again.”
“Valiantly sacrificing your life for Super Earth is nothing to be sorry about,” T1 chirped in-between D2’s wails of agony. Bagmouth silently nodded along in agreement.
-----
After doing their part to liberate a tiny portion of Tien Kwan, the SES Founding Father of Family Values was lawfully forced to enjoy a few hours of rest.
Bagmouth never liked these mandatory downtimes; like any other true champion of Managed Democracy, he wanted to be working towards achieving the greater good every second of every day. But, loathe as he was to admit it, he did need this break-- they’d been having back-to-back-to-back missions for several days, and it was affecting everyone’s performance. Service Technician Higham almost used the wrong bolts on the Pelican’s wingspan, which could’ve led to catastrophic damage if she wasn’t stopped in time; meanwhile, Ship Master Frandsen requisitioned ten times more hair conditioner than the crew would ever need, especially considering half the damn people onboard were shaved bald. Even Democracy Officer Heathcote, their shining paragon of Liberty, accidentally approved an undemocratic scam call for shipwide broadcast. Thankfully, most of the crew didn’t have a car to worry about the warranty of, so victims were few.
“Yeeeah baby! New high score!”
And no one needed a break more than D2.
Now hammering away at the ship’s recently-acquired Stratagem Simulation Machine: Dance Dance Revolution edition, he was bonding swiftly with their new squadmate, unfrozen just an hour ago. “Here, L3, this is one you’ll want to practise the most-- if any of us ever get KIA, you’ll have to call for back-up with the Reinforcement stratagem. Oh, don’t give me that look! I’m sure your training’s still fresh on your mind. Any of us could get killed out there… but, our team’s got a pretty solid survival rate, so maybe you might get lucky! Hah… hahaha…”
Bagmouth leaned back against the wall with a sigh. Even in the break room, you couldn’t get away from the truth: the large windows showed a glimpse into the stars twinkling outside, but also the other Destroyers patrolling nearby, all firing lasers or dropping Helldivers non-stop. It’s part of the reason why he never liked these mandatory breaks. It just doesn’t feel right-- chilling out and sipping drinks while the galaxy burns down all around them.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, he watched an automaton beam scream out from the atmosphere and blow another Destroyer right out of orbit, turning its magnificent engineering into a starstream of smouldering wreckage.
“Nasty sight, isn’t it?”
He spun around on his boots. “Eagle-Eyes.”
“Don’t worry,” she hummed, clapping him on the shoulder before peeking out the window. The fiery glow of the burning Destroyer illuminated her pale face in burnt-orange hues. “That shit only happens when the Helldivers on-ground totally fail their mission. Ship overextends all its weapons, main objectives aren’t cleared, the AA defence is still up… boom.”
It doesn’t quite comfort him. “So it could happen to us, is what you’re saying.”
“It could,” she conceded, “but it won’t. Our Helldivers are cream-of-the-crop.”
And he had to admit: their Helldivers had a much better survival rate than most. Or, at least, three of them did. So it was unlikely they would mess up so badly that their entire mission would end in failure, exposing the Destroyer to obliteration…
“But if it did happen, hotshot…” Then, Eagle-Eyes turned away from the window to look at him directly. “...You’d extract me from danger, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would,” he answered, confidently and swiftly. “It’s my job to make sure all survivors are… hey, it’s not a laughing matter.”
“Hah! Sorry, sorry…” She slapped her knee, trying to get ahold of herself. “The way you said that was just a little…”
“A little… what?”
“Nothing.” She looked away, smiling knowingly to herself. “You know… despite all the war and death and all. It’s pretty sweet out here, isn’t it? The view.”
“The…” Now that she mentioned it, he took a long, good look at the view. It wasn’t easy for him to appreciate all the sights he’d seen; always needed to get to extract, needed to get out of danger, needed to prepare for the next mission… but, as the Training Manual suggested, one should always take a few seconds to enjoy the vista.
Dark swathes were drawn between the stars, all interrupted by the glow of a nearby gas giant. Its white rings cut through the inky abyss with almost angelic radiance, matching stories of halos emerging atop the heads of legendary Helldivers during the First Galactic War. The purple sheen of another moon rose overhead, juxtaposed with the jade-green hues of Tien Kwan below.
It was beautiful. A canvas of galactic colour, ancient and still, against a backdrop of war.
“...Ah!” Suddenly, he remembered something, as if reminded by the breathtaking view. “Hold on a minute. Where did I put my bag? There…”
He reached into his bag, before pulling out a piece of paper: the half-filled C-01 permit that nearly caused him to crash his plane. “By the way, you left this in the Pelican cockpit.”
Miss Eagle-Eyes proceeded to grin so widely that he could almost see the gums of her pearly-white teeth. “Are you an idiot?”
Bagmouth, for lack of a good response, stared stolidly at her in quiet confusion. At some point, T1 and Y4 had slipped into the room, bags of popcorn in hand. T1 was also somehow eating the popcorn through their still-attached helmet. “...I’m sorry?”
“Hopeless!” Then, with a smack of her hand, she sent the C-01 permit flying back up into his face, slapping against his shades. “Hooopeless! What’s a woman gotta do to send a message out here? For the love of Super Earth, you’re a pilot too! You’ve passed the same aptitude tests I have, so you must be pulling my leg!”
“S…sorry?” He simply repeated his apology, gingerly pulling the papers off his face. “Miss, if you want to tell me something… you can just say it directly. I’ve never been a mind-reader, just a pilot. If I’ve offended you… that’s my bad. But I need to know what I did to make it right. So…”
Behind Miss Eagle-Eyes, T1’s PPS (popcorns-per-second) was increasing at rapid speeds. Her hand was basically a gatling gun delivering handfuls of buttered kernels right into her mouth, somehow osmosizing smoothly through her solid-looking helmet. Y4, in awe, silently offered her their own bucket of popcorn for her to promptly devour.
Right now, though, Mister Bagmouth wasn’t focused on the Helldivers. He was focused on the variety of expressions flitting through the Eagle pilot’s expression: shock, amusement, concern, and all in all… reluctance?
“Not here,” she finally answered, and T1 let out a very obviously dismayed groan from behind her. Eagle-Eyes responded to that by tossing her helmet right at T1, knocking the popcorn out of her hands as she cried out in surprise. “And not in front of these guys. Maybe… another time.”
And when she stormed out of the break room, Bagmouth became intensely aware of how all the Helldivers had stopped at what they were doing to stare intently at him. “Alright,” he grumbled, “can anyone with a clue tell me what the hell I did wrong?”
Instead of answering him, they all fled out of the room, clearly not wanting to get involved. They shut the door behind him, leaving him in the dust with only the spilled popcorn for company.
-----
The liberation of Tien Kwan came with the delivery of some shiny new toys.
“Delivering walker!” As he flew towards the stratagem point, he felt the exosuit wobble rather precariously in the Pelican’s grip. The Patriot Exosuit was a new-age miracle in military technology, purpose-built to deliver Liberty through the deft hands of serving Helldivers… and it was also somewhat of a walking iron coffin.
Not that he would ever question the decisions of Super Earth’s government directives. If they told him to dive out of the Destroyer naked and do a backflip as the vacuum of space tore him into shreds, he would do it gladly, though his sacrifice would come with much confusion.
The exosuit landed heavily on the ground below, much to L3’s glee. “Oh, boy! I can’t wait to tear up the bugs with this!”
“Easy on the controls,” Bagmouth muttered to himself, knowing damn well they will not be easy on the controls. Or anything else in the exosuit.
By the time he was called back for extract, he flew in to see three of the four delivered exosuits lying in a twisted pile of melted metal, with the remains of L3’s mostly-obliterated body lying bloodied on top of the heap. “NOOOOOO!” D2’s cries of anguish once again filled the skies above the extraction point, mixed in with the sound of his exosuit’s machine gun belting bullets at incoming bugs. “HE WASN’T EVEN HIT! HE WAS AIMING AT A BILE TITAN, AND-- THE ROCKET JUST-- BLEW UP IN THE ARMCANNON! IT’S NOT FAIR! IT’S NOT FAAAIR!”
Frankly, Bagmouth was starting to think this Helldiver team was cursed. But his job wasn’t to feed into superstitions; his job was to get these Helldivers the fuck out of Space Dodge. “Clear the area,” he repeated, tersely noting that D2 was piloting the one remaining exosuit right through the landing pad. “I repeat, clear the area!”
Seemingly getting the message, the remaining exosuit strolled out of the extraction zone, giving Bagmouth a tiny bit of space to land. And land he did-- he was nothing if not an expert at landing in tight corners. “Get in, Helldivers!”
“--Get the fuck inside, D2!” T1 shouted for her wayward comrade once again, and Y4 looked rather lost; with D2 firmly seated inside the exosuit, it wasn’t exactly easy to pick him up and force him into the Pelican like every previous extract. “Stop shooting! We’re done here!”
“I STILL GOT BULLETS LEFT!” D2 roared in protest, and Y4 quickly typed in a stratagem. “BULLETS-- AND A ROCKET FOR THAT DAMN BILE TITAN!”
Sure enough, an even bigger than usual Bile Titan strutted into view, seeping with acid and looking mighty deadly. “Just a rocket?! That ain’t enough!” T1 yelled back, trying to reason with D2’s lingering self-preservation instinct. “Sacrificing your life without due reason isn’t going to give birth to a new age of Democracy, soldier! It’s just going to a foolish waste of your experience! NOW GET OUT AND GET INTO THE DAMN PELICAN!”
Panicking, Y4 ran forward, a red stratagem in hand. For an Eagle Airstrike, as Bagmouth would figure out, with her familiar voice breaking through comms: “Eagle 1 flying in!”
The stratagem fell right into the Bile Titan’s gaping maw, sending a red beam up into the skies above. “JUST ONE MORE!” Still, D2 was not deterred. His exosuit arms rotated upwards, aiming right at the Bile Titan’s head as it leaned back to prepare a spew of burning acid. “JUST! ONE!”
D2 fired the rocket.
And Miss Eagle-Eyes swooped in right at the same time, sending her airstrike into the Bile Titan’s head-- while also taking the rocket in the Eagle’s left wing.
“Shit! I’m hit!”
“MISS!” Immediately, he slammed a button to the side to bring up a map of the area. The radar on the Pelican tracked her jet as it staggered across the sky, trying to regain altitude-- before banking sharply to one side, entering an unrecoverable fall.
“Ejecting!” Her final transmission came with the sound of gasping and the whoosh of air that would come with a parachute opening. “Coordinates are-- oh, shit, oh, shit, oh shit--!”
“Hello?!” Bagmouth rattled his mic, not realising how tightly he was gripping it until the metal started to bend under his fingers. All he heard on the other end was static. “Dammit! Dammit!”
But there was no time for unproductive anger. Instead, he channelled his rage into the engines of his Pelican-- he hit the ignition harder than ever before, preparing the engine to carry upwards at the highest speed possible.
“I’m sorry!” At that moment, D2 spilled into the back, along with T1 and Y4. “I didn’t-- I didn’t mean to--”
“New objective, Helldivers.” He closed the opening behind them, but not for long. “We’re going to evac our Eagle pilot.”
“YES SIR!” All three Helldivers saluted in unison, before rushing to resupply themselves with the boxes scattered around the Pelican. The sound of guns being reloaded filled the plane as it lifted off the ground.
After the crash, the Eagle jet’s radar had fallen off the map. Thankfully, the estimated location was just a minute away-- Lady Luck had thrown them a small bone. “I’m going in full-speed,” he barked. “Get in, get the pilot, get out.”
“--This is Mission Control.” At that moment, Bagmouth realised he hadn’t updated what he was doing to Mission Control. “Reason for delay in extraction, please?”
“Mission Control, this is Pelican 1!” He spotted plumes of black smoke rising in front of him. That must be the crash site. “Eagle 1 is down, I repeat, Eagle 1 is down. Pilot has ejected and is potentially in a hostile situation. I’m heading over to the crash site to extract her--”
“Negative, Pelican 1.”
He paused, startled by the response. “What?”
“Eagle 1 will be reported as KIA. You are to return to the Destroyer at the earliest opportunity, Pelican 1.”
“But she’s not--!” He bit down on his tongue, knowing very well that she was probably dead. “I’ll confirm status when I find her… dead or alive. But I’m almost there! Just give me a few minutes!”
Mission Control’s next statement came much more coldly: “Are you disobeying a direct order, Pelican 1?”
“I…” He turned his head, scanning the burning ground for any sign of Miss Eagle-Eyes. No dice-- he couldn’t find her anywhere. “Five minutes is all we’ll need! Just five!”
“Very well. Return in five minutes or be branded a traitor. This is Mission Control, signing out.”
“No!” Bagmouth wrenched the headphones off him and tossed them against the windshield in frustration. “Fuck! But it takes three minutes just to fly back to the Destroyer! Five minutes isn’t enough! It’s…”
“Sir.”
T1’s voice landed softly, briefly quieting the panic in his mind. “Two minutes is all we need,” she declared, before turning to the other two. “Right, Helldivers?!”
“RIGHT!” D2 shouted back resolutely, while Y4 gave a strong salute.
“Guys…” Bagmouth breathed out slowly in disbelief, before a smile returned to his face. “Alright! Get ready, I’m flying in now!”
Opening the hatch, Bagmouth descended the Pelican to just a few feet above the ground. The encroaching bugs, alerted by the crash, were gunned down by the Pelican’s autocannon. “Go, go, go! Find her and bring her back!”
“UNDERSTOOD!”
The Helldivers jumped down to the ground, guns firing. Pulling up, Bagmouth soon found himself face-to-face with a Bile Titan-- and, after a few seconds of loud cursing, he trained the autocannon onto its drooling mouth, blasting its head into a hundred separate pieces.
It was at that moment that he realised he could see a countdown electronically projected onto his windshield. Mission Control had ever-so-nicely made the five minutes he had easy to track, with the timer blaring out at him in bold red letters. “Four minutes and eight seconds,” he muttered, looking out the windshield to see the Helldivers fighting their way deeper into the crash site. “C’mon, Eagle-Eyes… surely you landed around here somewhere… tough lady like you won’t die that easily, right?”
Still, he couldn’t just sit on his laurels while waiting. He manoeuvred the Pelican and its autocannon expertly, making sure to keep the area as clear as possible from incoming terminid reinforcements. All the while, the timer slowly ticked down, bringing them to three minutes and thirty seconds… three minutes and ten seconds… three--
“Hoooly shit, hotshot!”
“Eagle-Eyes!” Joy surged back into his voice. “You’re alive!”
“Helldivers got me!” Her laughter crackled through the Helldivers’ somewhat-damaged comms. “Got cornered by five chargers. You should see what Y4 can do with a flamethrower! Now, that’s some hot stuff!”
“We’re one click south-west-south,” T1 added on, conveying the actual important information. “Get us out of here!”
“On it!” Immediately banking left, he pushed his ship down to their location in record time. He was so swift about it that nearly smashed straight into Y4 as he swooped down, though Y4 managed to jump out of the way just in time. “Touching down! We only have two and a half minutes left to get back before we become traitors, so pick up the pace!”
“We only have WHAT?” Now, Eagle-Eyes shouted straight into the Pelican with her own voice. She staggered in first, arm over T1’s shoulders and blood all over her face-- she’d gotten battered around pretty badly. “Excuse me?”
“I may have disobeyed direct orders by Mission Control to come save you,” he quickly replied, before closing up the ramp behind them as everyone entered. “And now it’s two minutes and fifteen seconds, so I’m going now!”
D2 dropped his weapons, before slumping into the chair. “I’m sorry sir, but I remember you said it takes three minutes to get back to the Destroyer. Are… are we already too late?”
“Enough, D2! Haven’t I told you a thousand times and it’s not over till it’s over?! We cannot swaddle the newborn flame of Freedom with lack of belief, lest we smoother it entirely!” T1, reliable as always, somehow still had a weird childbirth allegory for the occasion. “We will make it! Right, sir?”
Bagmouth gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to answer; he’d been taking these past few minutes second-by-second. But… even when he was rushing, he’d never returned in under three minutes. So…
“Hotshot.”
Eagle-Eyes’ hand fell on his shoulder. “Let me take the controls.”
“What?” He was so concentrated on putting the ship to full speed that he took a few seconds to process her words. “You want control over the Pelican?”
“You saved me,” she said. A confident smile was spread across her face, despite the blood splashed over her forehead and running down her cheeks. “Now, it’s my turn to save you.”
He blinked slowly, and though his shades covered the world in tinted shadows, the glittering gold in her eyes somehow shined brighter than any star in the sky he’d ever seen in his life. “Eagle-Eyes…”
“So move your ass, for Liberty’s sake!” And then, she grabbed him by the shoulders, before practically throwing him out of the seat. “I’m taking this ship into overdrive! Hang on, everybody!”
The Pelican’s engines suddenly screamed into action, far more loudly than he’d ever remembered them being. It was accompanied by a burst of momentum, sending him hurtling onto his arse and tumbling backwards, stopped only by the Helldivers grabbing his flight jacket. “Whoa--! I didn’t even know the Pelican could go this fast! How did you--?!”
“I told you, didn’t I?” She winked back at him. “We could make a totally different kind of ‘magic’ happen here. Now, sit back… and watch!”
The lights outside the windshield began to blur into a flurry of passing sparks. The countdown dropped to two minutes, and then one-- right before a familiar set of yellow-painted words showed themselves, blurry but readable.
“It’s our ship!” D2 jumped for joy. “The SES Founding Father of Family Values! We’re back!”
“Not yet!” Eagle-Eyes huffed in exertion as she continued to push forward. “Gotta get docked! Come on, girl, don’t die on me now…”
And she was right to be concerned: the engines were sputtering angrily, sending black smoke into the empty space around them. The poor Pelican was nearly at its limit. “Thirty seconds left,” T1 read out in baited breath. “Twenty-nine… twenty-eight…”
“Ugh!” She swung around the back of the Destroyer, aiming for the docking bay. “Come on, come on…!”
“Let me do it!” This time, it was Bagmouth pushing her out of the way, though he was still rather gentle about it despite the urgency. “You got her here fast, but tender handling is my expertise.”
“Twenty-one, twenty…”
The back of the Destroyer opened up automatically as they approached. “Up,” he said aloud, but the engines didn’t obey; the rudders were non-responsive. “Alright, let’s try… eject supplies!”
Supplies were ejected with a clunk below them. The propulsive motion shifted them upwards, just enough to fit to the landing bay. “Perfect!”
“Fifteen…” T1’s teeth began chattering. “Fourteen…”
“Come in easy, easy, eeeaaasyyy--” Grunting, he pulled back on the yoke and switched on the reverse thrust, trying to get the plane to slow down. But the engines were well and truly dead, now, and in space, there wasn’t exactly any gravity they could rely on to descend with…
…except for the artificial gravity inside the ship. As the tip of the Pelican’s nose entered, the whole plane tipped downwards, lifelessly sucked forward by the artificial gravity. “Easy! Easy!”
“Ten…” T1 was now nervously chowing down popcorn Y4 somehow provided. “Nine…!”
Eagle-Eyes watched as the Pelican aimed itself into the bottom of the landing bay, rather than gliding smoothly on top of it. “Hotshot…”
“I got it!”
With a flick of a switch, his secret weapon emerged:
Emergency landing gears, left behind on the plane through an earlier stage of development. A wasteful redundancy in design-- until today.
The landing gears fell, including one under the Pelican’s nose. It touched the landing bay first, rolling along smoothly instead of impacting the ground-- then, the latter two wheels at the back slid onto the ground.
“Five-- four--!”
“I’m here, Mission Control!” Bagmouth slapped the docking button, locking the Pelican into place. “We’re back!”
“--three-- two…” T1 gasped. “It stopped!”
“This is Mission Control,” the comms rang out. The man on the other end seemed almost disappointed that he couldn’t rain hell on a few traitors today. “Countdown cancelled and safe return acknowledged. Welcome back, Helldivers.”
“YEEEAH!” With as much vigour as when he slips into despair, D2 has now erupted into cheers. “WE MADE IT!”
“We made it,” Bagmouth sighed, slumping tiredly against his chair. “Phew.”
“Good job, hotshot.” Eagle-Eyes sat down too, letting the blood drip down her forehead. “We made it. We…”
Then, she collapsed straight onto the Pelican’s floor, blacked out.
“Shit!” Bagmouth grabbed her by the arms, slinging her over his back. “MEDIIIC!”
-----
As the crew were forced to wait for a new Eagle fighter jet to be delivered, they were granted the longest break they’ve ever gotten since signing on: two weeks of shore leave.
“Whew!” Eagle-Eyes popped open another cold can of Libeerty™ as she leaned back in her lawn chair. Her leg cast, adorned with signatures from everyone in the crew, was partly concealed by her yellow sundress. “Hellooo, Seyshel Beach! Man, I wouldn’t mind some missions on this planet!”
Bagmouth laid down on the lawn chair next to hers. “That would be bad,” he remarked bluntly, staring right at the sun through his tinted shades. He was dressed in a traditional shirt long-revered by the colonies on Seyshel Beach, called ‘Hawaiian’. Apparently, that was the name of a beloved island on Super Earth. “That would mean an enemy incursion is encroaching dangerously close to Super Earth, and that’s not--”
“Oh, lighten up!” She jabbed him in the side with her umbrella. He yelped. “Enjoy your shore leave without moping about our duties for just a few minutes, why won’t you?”
“...I’ll try.” With a sigh, he tried to focus on the rippling of the waves. In the water, the Helldivers were playing volleyball with the decapitated head of a Warrior terminid. “At least they’re having fun…”
“You say that like you’re not having fun at all, hotshot.” With a laugh, she rolled over to her side, reaching out to press a can of cold Libeerty against his neck. He yelped, again. “Come on, drink up!”
With mild reluctance, he took the drink and slowly sipped away. He wasn’t exactly the type to get drunk-- dulls the senses. So instead, he lit up another cigarette, pressing it to his lips and taking a long puff. “You know, Eagle-Eyes…”
She looked up from her drink. “Yes?”
“You never did get around to telling me what you were all mad about.” He sat up, straightening his back. It turned out that alcohol tasted pretty nice with some cigarette smoke to go along with it. “You know, when we were on break over Tien Kwan.”
“Oh! Right.” She took another swig from her drink, before casually blurting: “I wanted to have sex with you.”
He proceeded to spit out his cigarette and a mouthful of his drink. “What?”
“I wanted to bang you? To jump your bones? Do the fuck-nasty? Horizontal tango?” She shrugged, completely relaxed about the whole thing while Bagmouth was having an internal mental breakdown. “Well, that was before, anyway.”
He slowly picked up his cigarette and brought it back to his lips with trembling hands. “B-b-before…?”
“Before you went and rescued me, duh.” She flashed him another toothy grin. “Since you had to be a hero and all, I can’t possibly just fuck you silly once and be done with it. So it’s different now.”
“…Di… what do you mean, different?” Frankly, he was hardly processing this. His mind was more scrambled now than the time he was extracting from Fenrir III and had to avoid thirteen Bile Titans along with a meteor shower. The tingling buzz from the Patriot cigarette’s filtered nicotine was all that was keeping him from falling apart.
“I wanna date you,” she sighed. That confession seemed to come out of her with much more difficulty than when she was bluntly asking for sex. “As in, seriously. Not just a fun one-night stand after filling a hasty C-01 permit. Which, I know, probably isn’t going to work out with our jobs and how we’re probably gonna die in combat one day, but, hey. You only live once. So…”
She brushed her fingers through her sunburnt hair, and, under her golden eyes, he could see the redness of her blushing cheeks. “I guess I’m… asking you out now. Yeah. You wanna go on a date, or not? It’s chill if you don’t. I’ll just forget about all this--”
“No!” The answer came out of his lips before he processed it. By the time he’d realised he said something wrong, he’d already whipped himself into a frenzy, shades handing only by one ear and cigarette smoke puffing wildly from his gaping mouth. “Wait, I mean, yes! I was saying ‘no’ to you forgetting about everything… and ‘yes’ to…”
“I gotcha,” she chuckled, smiling from ear to ear. It wasn’t like her usual shit-eating grin; this one was genuine. “Yeah. I’m happy to hear that. So… maybe we should hit the bar next to this beach after this? Around 5pm SSET?”
“Sure,” he nodded along, not sure what to suggest but knowing pretty well what he wanted. After all-- even if he looked past her obvious physical attractiveness-- what kind of pilot wouldn’t be into a woman who could paint him across the extraction zone? “Bar is good.”
“And you should fill out the rest of that C-01 permit,” she remarked blithely. “Best to be prepared before passion gets the better of you and you start airstriking my insides.”
This time, he nearly swallowed and choked on his own cigarette. “That’s--!”
“I’ll get changed to something nicer. Seeya later,” she waved, rolling onto her one good leg and grabbing her crutch to hobble away. “And make sure you show up, hotshot!”
“Of course I’ll show up,” he promised, and she giggled to herself before walking away. Besides her, the Helldivers have paused their game of volleyball to stare at them, before erupting into whoops and cheers as realisation hit them. Even Y4 gave him a spirited thumbs-up.
Mister Bagmouth, the pilot of Pelican 1 and the man who can survive anything the galaxy throws at him, turned away from everyone in embarrassment. He bowed his head down, but on his phone, he hastily typed:
Help! How do I fill in a C-01 permit? URGENT ANSWER NEEDED BY 5PM STANDARD SUPER EARTH TIME
…It looked like he was about to enter a brand-new battlefield that he was wholly unprepared for.