Gjorne the Creekcrawler

The artist's original artwork that inspired this story

Part 1

It was 27 February 2184 — a day Super Earth lost countless sons.

Our Super Destroyers had been bled dry of reinforcements. Many were flanked and torn apart by relentless Automaton fleet raids, forcing the remainder of Super Earth’s navy to retreat so they might live to fight another day.

Enitre platoons were wiped out. Countless squads and individual Helldivers were left behind in various sectors of Malevelon Creek, for the bots to finish off, and turn their remains into macabre decorations: corpses used as scare crows and dismembered body parts as bot armor decorations for Huks and Berserkers.

Gjorne's squad was one of them, hunted through the jungles of the Creek by the tireless terminators.

"It was my third dive in less than a week. My squad had been sent to rescue a group of civilian engineers.

The mission was simple, extract the citizens, then extract yourselves.

We were the last squad to go in before our Destroyer depleted the whole cryo chamber reinforcements. The Major Order deadline was soon dues, with the chances looking grim for Super Earth.

The mission objective was successful, with me pressing the button for the last survivor to be evacuated and extracted by the large cargo ship.

We were quickly overwhelmed and overrun. Our route to the main extraction point was cut off. We ran — through hails of gunfire, rocket barrages, and burning jungle.

Suffice it to say that Super Destroyer had already departed, and our last and only chance was the emergency extraction Pelican.

The clock was ticking...

I was running last, covering the squad’s six, throwing my remaining smoke grenades to shield their retreat.

One barrage shattered the whole squad.

I came to amidst the smoke and shattered trees, ears ringing, shell-shocked.

Everyone was dead.

I was the last one still heading for the extraction zone.

While eyeing the extraction zone, I saw the Pelican climbing desperately through heavy anti-air fire, trailing smoke as rounds tore into its hull.

All communication is cut off, only distant gunfire and the fading engine roar of Super Destroyers disappearing into orbit remained.

I am left behind, without any chance of rescuing mission coming any time soon as the whole fleet of Super Earth has retreated.

I had been left behind. With the entire fleet in full retreat, no rescue mission would return anytime soon.

To survive, I had to think outside the box.

There was no time for grief — only a few silent tears as I buried what remained of my comrades, then stood at attention and saluted the last two Super Destroyers vanishing over the horizon, their silhouettes framed by the rising sun."

Part 2

Ever look at the Galactic War map and wonder about those tiny, solitary green dots that somehow still flicker on planets long marked red? The lone souls who never got extracted? This is the answer to that question.

Gjorne wandered Malevelon Creek for days that turned into weeks, then months. Looking for survivors, whispering into dead comms from dead comrades' bodies, praying for a single Super Earth frequency to answer.

The bots were always close; patrols sweeping, drop-ships howling overhead, scanner drones slicing the canopy with red grids. He learned their patterns, their blind spots. He spoofed their sensors with decoy heat signatures, salted IFF scramblers across jungle trails, and turned their own mines against them.

Each cluster of supposed survivors he reached was the same: cold bodies in shredded capes, helmets cracked open, limbs impaled on sticks resembling grotesque scarecrows.

Surviving under total bot control is almost impossible, and Gjorne knew his days were counted...

A plan to activate a communications relay with Super Earth would be futile, even if he succeeded nobody would come for him in the near future, not for years, maybe never.

The most viable solution could be to enter a bunker of some sort and lock himself inside, but still at some point he would run out of supplies..

At last he came across a Super Earth scientist and engineering bay facility where he would have it as his secret base, his workshop and fortress, until the Automatons sniff it out and try to clear it of any survivors.

Over the months he became better and better commencing raids and sabotage on them, stealing weapons, breaking down their parts and trying to utilize their chips using engineer and scientist manuals. He started building makeshift armor upgrades and even testing augmented parts in case he loses a limb or something like that.

He eventually did lose a whole limb due to infection and a hand to an explosion, which he managed to replace from the engineers' lab medical prosthetics stock. But those were finite, and after many firefights he exhausted them.

Over time he learned to harvest the enemy, used their limbs for upgrades and replacements for when his get blown away again.

His weapons almost all broken, he mastered wielding a burning power-machete forged from the burning blades of fallen Troopers. He unscrewed his prosthetic hand and replaced it with an Automaton cannon-arm. Formatted the firmware with a cracked Super Earth OS.

Hearing augmetics next, then eyes.

In the end from all the augmentations he would become unrecognizable and what previous generations would call a cyborg abomination.

If you fight monsters long enough, you become one.

"That's what I am now, a Cyberdiver" he cried in despair.

Would Super Earth accept this Frankenstein back to its ranks if he were finally rescued?

Special thanks to and credit given to the Artist: @Gjorne_

Back story inspiration: Random Reddit commenter