The butt of the machine gun feverishly struck my shoulder. It felt as if under the endless series of shots, my armor was slowly starting to give way... Fortunately, these were just figments of the mind.
Heavy-caliber bullets drummed a lullaby in my head. The familiar roar of the heavy gun soothed and calmed me, forcing me to distract myself from all problems for at least a minute.
How I would have liked to just keep shooting like this for longer.
Picking out a couple of particularly bold Hutt fighters, I sharply release the trigger and move the barrel in their direction, after which the stream of bullets sweeps away a corner, the base of some statue, and the mercenaries themselves are simply atomized into a bloody mess.
From the side, one of my guys screams. A pig-overgrowth had cut off his arm and now, ignoring the blaster shots—the huge hog was advancing on the Helldiver, swinging his vibro-axe again.
The barrel moves to the side. Green splashes strike in all directions from the carcass. With pieces of organs, streams of blood, and scraps of clothing... The huge xeno's body falls apart. His lower half practically disappears in a stream of flashes, while the upper half looks at me in bewilderment as the dying body falls into a pile of its own offal.
But I have no time to enjoy this picture.
I had only to turn the fire aside for a moment, and the hordes of mercenaries again began to hose us with blasters.
Our armor had melted in many places. Red-hot pieces of metal scorched the body, and several bacta patches decorated my torso. Less than forty minutes had passed since we burst into Jabba's Palace... And we were stuck in this shitty corridor leading deep underground.
Somewhere there, the dung worm calling himself the head of the Cartel was hidden. Helldivers scurried around me, trying to break through further with fire and sword. Time was pressing. With every second, more enemies arrived, and they began to squeeze us from two sides, and in orbit, there was a total shitshow where the remains of our surviving forces had arranged a race for survival in clouds of debris.
Somnia was stalling for time as best she could, but during the last communication session, I ordered the girl to leave if our business was lost. And everything was heading straight toward that... Although, on the other hand—one only has to send a holophoto of a dead Hutt to the planet's general channel, and all the mercenaries will leave with a clear conscience, leaving us here to deal with the consequences.
Checking my watch, I realize there are less than ten minutes left until the next communication session. I had to act...
"Get the cannon from the Z-95 Headhunter over here! We're going with Plan B."
"Oh, the boss has a Plan B," these degenerates whispered around me, glancing in my direction with respect... My Helldivers are good for everything. Strong, loyal, a bit fucked in the head... but Holy Democracy, they are so stupid.
Though anyone else wouldn't have signed up for our brave team.
"What are you standing around for!? Move it!"
A few minutes ago, one of our Fighters crashed through the ceiling a hundred meters behind us. The cursing pilot crawled out on his own, even though a piece of rebar and some wires from the instrument panel were sticking out of his gut.
Overall, the machine looked decent, and after the report from the wounded flyer—who was itching to get back to the front line—it was decided to return for the starfighter once we finished off the Hutt...
But plans changed.
Four fine lads, with seven arms between them... one was missing his left... dragged the Blaster cannon to our passage. Slightly scorched, it looked quite respectable, and most importantly, it could fire—that was all we needed from it.
"Topple the statue, we'll mount it on that," I said. Without the starfighter's generator, the residual charge was only enough for one shot, so we had to aim as carefully as possible. "Faster, boys! You don't want to be stuck here forever, do you?!"
With a crash and a total disregard for any minimum operating requirements, the cannons were hauled up and dumped onto the fragments of the statue. One of Jabba's many ancestors would also make his contribution to the murder of his heir...
The Assassins saw what we were doing and tried to delay the moment of the shot somehow. Lasers hissed all around; a couple of times, the death screams of Helldivers dying under the hurricane of fire rang out near me.
"Hit it right in the center so it catches everyone, and then we charge."
Slapping the gunner on the shoulder, I met the gaze of his helmet lenses and, even through them, felt his spreading delight.
Damn, where did Einz and Zwei find these glorious psychos?
"Ready, Commander, awaiting your..." Feverishly and impatiently tapping his fingers on the barrel, the Helldiver glanced nervously my way, clearly eager to execute the crazy idea as soon as possible.
"Fire at those bastards!"
The cannon was malfunctioning. Just as I pressed the button, I even managed to see the body of a cursing Helldiver fly off to the side, after which I realized that I was being carried away rather quickly myself. The image abruptly zoomed out, and I slammed into the backs of my soldiers with a crash.
A Blaster bolt the size of my leg flew out of the muzzle, but the muzzle itself, along with the base, was blown to hell, scattering us into the corners. Fortunately, the explosion was more decorative and only scratched the armor. But the bang hit my ears, and I shook my head disorientedly, slowly rising toward the Assassins.
"Sir, what do we do?"
"Attack, damn you... Kill them all..."
Leaning my hand against the wall, I swallow the rising vomit—wouldn't want to foul up a brand-new helmet! My head was spinning, and everything was a blur, but gradually I came to my senses.
Lifting my gaze toward our enemies, I saw that my dear freedom fighters were almost finished.
"Take that, xenos!"
"Death to the slavers!"
"Here's a taste of liberty."
Swarming over the stunned Assassins in droves, my boys and girls were shredding their ranks like a meat grinder. With blasters, knives, bare hands—they beat our enemies down, carving a path forward to the very last door, where Jabba himself awaited us. Passing my cutthroats, I watched the battle out of the corner of my eye... or rather, the slaughter they had staged for the Hutt's concussed soldiers.
There, a pair of Helldivers grabbed the arms of a Dug—a small, aggressive-looking alien that uses its upper limbs as legs. With a sickening crunch, they tore him in half, after which the soldier who got the larger half started using it to beat a nearby human. A curly-haired, dim-witted kid with a sugary smile who had barely turned twenty...
Probably a Corellian.
Not far from him, one of my thugs pinned a Trandoshan to the wall. Screaming right in his face, the Helldiver used the outer side of his forearm to crush the lizard's Adam's apple, while his other hand emptied an entire Blaster battery into the enemy's gut. Laser flashes and blood splatters illuminated the soldier's helmet. Through the cacophony of screams and the series of erratic shots, I easily imagined the insane grin on his face.
Right by the door, a huge, hairy Wookiee, completely engulfed in flames, tried to ward off my advancing guys, who were gleefully dousing him with a flamethrower, forcing this mad ball of fur to run around the area more than protect his employer's hideout.
The Wookiee roared and swung his massive paws, each of which could easily break bones if a sluggish soldier got hit.
But the fire did not spare this shaggy beast from the planet Kashyyyk.
Kicking up dust, the charred body of the Wookiee fell at my feet with a thud. The beast was dead and no longer moving, and even through my helmet, I could smell the foul stench coming from his burnt fur.
The things you run into in the vastness of the galaxy... a Wookiee Assassin, together with a Trandoshan... and serving Jabba to boot. I definitely remember seeing a Wookiee fur rug on the wall.
Not dwelling on it, I was the first to approach the door, firmly bracing both hands against it and hoping to fling it open...
But seconds passed, and nothing happened. Even the Helldivers who came to my aid didn't change the situation.
"You swamp bitch... Don't want to chat before you die?" Finding the camera above my head with my eyes, I poked a finger at it. "Alright, you overgrown maggot, I'll skin you personally and turn your hide into a flag for Super Earth... for Tatooine."
Faltering at the end of my speech, I turn to my guys, many of whom clearly heard my slip-up.
Damn, I need to watch my tongue, or they'll start asking questions, and I don't just lack answers—I don't even have the brains to lie.
"What are you standing around for?! Bring everything we have here! We'll blow this door to dog shit, and then we'll show this leech the real taste of liberty, delivered by a jackboot to the balls!"
"YES!"
"Um, sir..." One of the Helldivers raised his hand, asking permission to ask a question. Receiving my disgruntled nod, the soldier looked timidly at his comrades, who turned to him with burning, interested gazes. "Hutts are genderless... Oh, I mean, the opposite. They're both guys and girls at once... I don't remember exactly what it's called."
"Wait, so... they have the bits and the hole?" someone from the crowd asked in response.
This highly intellectual discussion began to develop, and if we had more time, I would have joined in too...
"Helldivers! Have you completely lost it?! What the hell does it matter what he's got hanging down there?"
Many shrugged in response, while others just chuckled, enjoying the informality of our situation.
"Alright, just to make it easier for you. We'll find his balls and kick them so hard they'll roll into his little hole and plug it forever, so creatures like Jabba never see the light of day again. Is that clear?"
"Sir, yes sir!"
Pressing their fists to their chests, this mob of adult idiot-killing machines scattered through the corridors, bringing me all the explosives they could find from the bodies of our brothers or the Assassins.
Soon, a small pile of various crap accumulated at my feet, the kind of stuff you'd sell at some terrorist bazaar, firing into the air to advertise the goods.
"Why the hell did you bring all the weapons, you idiots?"
Once again, one of the Helldivers timidly raised his hand. Already anticipating another stream of choice logical garbage, I just wave my hand.
"Ah, to hell with you... Alright. Disconnect the batteries from the blasters. All detonators in one pile, and contact grenades and mines in the other... Um... a demolition charge? Where did you get a demolition charge?"
"Carlos brought it," my eyes... of course... met the very Helldiver who constantly found answers to my questions. "Indeed, who else could it have been. Then it's even simpler: connect all this crap to the demolition charge, bring the wires..."
***
"Um, boss. This looks... a certain way."
I generally agreed. The amount of explosives we had hung on the door or piled near it was clearly excessive. But at that moment, I was already losing my mind with anger and impatience. The cursed slug just wouldn't come out and face democracy so it could stomp all over his fat face...
"It'll do," what else could I tell my subordinates? I couldn't just say that our handiwork was a piece of crap that might collapse the whole corridor. And if the wires were connected wrong, first all the detonators would scatter toward us, and then they'd blow... "Actually, you know... a living Helldiver is a smart Helldiver, and we're smart, right? Fall back behind the second turn..."
We had to go back almost two hundred meters, roughly to the area where our second squad's positions were, currently fending off the encroaching Assassins who were constantly landing on the planet.
Well, "encroaching"... they were more like imitating an attack, because unlike those locked in the fortress, they still had the option to bail.
"Fire in the ho-o-o-ole..."
On the last syllable, the soldier had already pressed the detonator, and a massive blast wave burst from the corridor. I remember watching a movie in my youth about dwarves and a dragon in Middle-earth... well, there was a similar wall of flame there.
How good it is that Somnia convinced me not to put capes on the boys.
Seeing how some had charred armor or smoldering decorative badges on their shoulders or chests, I could just imagine fifty torches running around here right now, lighting up the area with flaming flags of liberty on their backs.
"Let's go, boys! Forward!"
Running back into the corridor, we ran into a wall of advancing smoke. Nothing could be seen, and underfoot, only the glowing red stone floor shone. All the corpses and weapon remnants abandoned in haste had melted or burned away, and now skeletons and Blaster fragments crunched under the soles of our boots.
"That's the smell of liberty..."
Someone whispered on our live comms channel.
Figures in similar armor flashed before my eyes, marching with me after the destruction of one of the largest Tyranid nests. The foul stench, the crunch underfoot, the collapsing pieces of ceiling and walls...
Coming out to the gates that separated us from the hidden Hutt, I froze in my tracks... and the others were right behind me. The gates were blown to dog shit, as were part of the walls and a huge chunk of the ceiling. The latter had simply been torn out by the roots and thrown inside.
There was less smoke here now, and you could properly see the corridor. And it seemed exactly what I feared had happened.
The explosion had thrown some of the sturdiest and best thermal detonators a few meters from the door, where they still detonated. And two shockwaves collided in front of the entrance to Jabba's hangar, blowing everything here to splinters. Apparently, most of the blast went at an angle into the ceiling, which was torn out and, breaking the walls, fell into the Hutt's hideout.
"Everyone stay sharp..."
Cautiously, in full combat readiness, we entered, surveying the destruction that had befallen the slug's bunker.
"Damn... that's... a bit too democratic..."
One of the guys behind me mangled the words. Well, in some ways, I agreed with him.
Right in front of the door, fifty combat droids lay like broken dolls, still clutching weapons in their hands. Most were killed at the moment of the explosion, and the rest were shredded by shrapnel... with such force that in some places, pieces were torn off the combat robots or they were pierced through.
Behind the droids lay the remains of Jabba's most loyal and devoted fighters. Compared to the charred and broken droids, these guys looked many times worse, for their deaths were clearly not as easy as the machines'.
Some of them were stuck together, and a couple were even still alive, looking our way with tears in their eyes.
Waving my hand, I allow a couple of the guys to perform coup de grâce shots to end the bandits' suffering.
In the finale of this scene of absurdity and the triumph of liberty was a dead rancor on a chain, crushed by a piece of the ceiling.
The terrible beast, capable of tearing apart a squad of armed specialists on its own, had fallen on its back, arms spread wide. Its elongated snout was crushed inward by a piece of rock, and its small paws were tucked in fearfully—apparently, at the last moment, even this mighty monster realized what fate awaited it.
The funniest part was that the dead rancor had fallen back onto the pedestal where Jabba apparently presided. The flickering power shield projector had tried to save its master until the end, but the weight of the rancor and the rock, plus the explosion with a heap of shrapnel, simply left it no chance.
Now the shield had recharged and begun to spread again around the body of the crushed Jabba, but each time its walls hissed as they hit the rancor's flesh, leaving even charred lines from which a faint smoke rose into the air.
"Well, look at that..."
Approaching closer, I survey the whole scene again with some disappointment. Slinging my machine gun over my shoulder, I crouch by the head of the dead slug. The hideous fat face was spread out right before me. Apparently, at the last second, Jabba tried to jump out from under the collapse, but... he didn't make it.
His eyes had bulged out slightly, and his tongue hung from his maw. The body of the former head of the Hutt Cartel was completely hidden under the carcass of the rancor and the rock.
Standing up to my full height, I poke the Hutt's face with my foot in disbelief, finally confirming that the hated enemy was dead...
Turning to the soldiers surrounding me, I spread my arms slightly, tilting my head to the side.
"Um... victory?"
***
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