"Pilot log #15: It's been several hours since the ambush, I'm alone and behind enemy lines and I can't use my comms without running the risk of alerting the Militia. I wish I have Heart Breaker on my side, but it will only attract more attention, Bara out," the message recorded and saved itself to the helmet. Bara Norton, a female mercenary pilot working for the Apex Predators with high hopes of being the best pilot in the team, "I'm a fool for accepting this mission, but I cannot let Blisk down!" she said pushing herself further into Militia territory.
A couple Earth days prior to the ambush, Blisk came up to her with an offer, "Oi, Bara, we got ourselves an offering from the IMC to spy on a potential Militia base."
"Militia, huh? Those rebels can't even fight without stealing from the IMC, lay it on me,"
"They want one of us to go in and grab any if not all information you can find and bring it back for analysis, we want the upper hand on these terrorists."
"I'm ready for it, just set me up with a team and we're off."
"This is will be a Titan free mission, we don't want to take any risks," he said giving her the contract.
"I'll do my best, sir!" she saluted to him as he went about to other businesses to attend to.
"Good luck out there pilot, you're gonna need it."
Making sure she's not being followed, Bara climbed one of the many trees in the forest. At the top, a facility could be seen from a distance, covered by the foliage surrounding it, "Let's see what we have here..." flipping down the focal to zoom in on, "Pilot Logs #16: I see a bunch of Militia hanging around the outside but that's not enough to confirm, if I could hijack their comms, I might have the answers that I need, Bara out." lifting up the focal, a pair of grunts walked underneath the tree she's hiding in, giving her a chance she's been looking for, with the downside of possibly alerting her presence.
Choosing to act now, she jumped down the tree and waited for them at the base. The grunts themselves are having a soothing conversation, "So how's the Militia treating ya Barry?"
"It has its fair shares, but anything to get the IMC to leave us alone is more than enough to convince me," replied the grunt.
"You said it! Those monsters trespassed into our homes and drain the planet of its resources!-" Bara appeared behind them with a data knife in her hand, pulling one of them down and kicked the other's helmet off. Stumbling on his feet, she jammed the knife to the grunt lying on the ground through his face, killing him instantly. The grunt regained his balance but was confronted by the pilot, resorting to his pistol. Bara quickly disarmed the now frighten man and wrapped her arms around his head, "Just so you know," she whispered into his ear, "The IMC braved the Frontier for you people, talk about spoiled," she snapped his neck and watch him fall lifelessly to the ground. The helmet that flew off was a short distance away, walking to it and removed the comm link attached to his helmet. She attached it to her helmet giving it power and a wave of conversations surged through. Now that she has access to the network, what the IMC had suspected were realized, a secret Militia base disguised as an abandoned facility, the question is, what are they hiding inside?
Night fell and Bara grew weary and hungry, hiding in the trees to avoid being spotted, listening to the comms a little more. Most of them are patrol checks and others are conversations "... Patrol 5, check in."
"We're good here, nothing to report," she spaced out and remembered her previous battles when she still worked for the IMC, specifically from the IMC Airbase on the moon of Demeter.
Bara practiced with another pilot, jumping off walls with their jump packs, firing paintballs at each other to simulate a battle. Time felt slow, the adrenaline in their bodies maxed out constantly firing and dodging, it was only a matter of time before one of them fell defeated. In one swift move, Bara aimed and fired a paintball to the other's head ending the mock battle. She came to helped him up, taking off her helmet, her short dirty blonde dripped in sweat, "Not bad," she said out of breath, "But I still won," he laughed once he got up, "What's so funny?"
"Check your helmet Bara," curious as she is, she looked at her helmet only to have her head marked by the paint on his gloves, "Now you look ridiculous," she chuckled wiping the paint off her, "You just don't want to admit you lost Scot."
"That's a possibility," he swiftly pulled her into his arms and gazed deep into her eyes, "Come on and admit you like me."
"You know, the funny thing is, I know you're playing me, but you're right," she playfully shoved him off. Moments later, the alarm went off and a message echoed across the airbase, "All IMC pilots report to debriefing, I repeat, all IMC pilots report to debriefing!"
"This seems bad," said Scot.
"Yeah, something must be up," she replied putting on her helmet and changing her weapons to live ammo.
When they got there, every pilot stood in formation as a projection came up, "Attention. This is Vice Admiral Graves to all personnel. A Militia attack on this base is imminent. Prepare for hostile Titanfall," under the helmet, Bara was shocked that the Militia have the gall to attack an IMC airbase, "There are strong indications that they intend to destroy repulsor towers at the heart of this facility. The Militia will do anything to destroy these towers. If we lose, there's nothing to protect this place from the elements. Now let's go kick some ass. Graves out," everyone readied their weapons and moved out.
A battle on the base ensued. 3 minutes in the battle and the Militia just keeps coming, casualties on both sides are rising. Bara called in her Titan to maintain their defense on the battlefield, "Stand by for Titanfall, pilot," said Spyglass, a modified Spectre that handles the deployment of Titans. She looked up in the sky to see a pod fall from the sky, breaking apart to reveal her Atlas Titan as it hit the ground with tremendous force. Rushing in to get seated and go into battle, "Welcome back pilot, AI mode offline," closing the hatch and turning on the exterior cameras for a visual, "Let's show these terrorists what we're made of Heart Breaker!" exclaimed Bara, loading in a shell in her 40mm Cannon. She could hear Scot call in his Titan over the comms, "This battle will be over before we know it, Scot."
"You think you're gonna have all the fun?" seeing more Militia Titans falling into battle. The next 7 minutes felt like hours, Militia dropships picking up any surviving pilots and grunts for a full retreat.
"Pilot, we've sustained major damage."
"Yeah, but we drove those terrorists out," she caught her breath, "That's the most important part," Scot came up behind her with his Titan, she turned to look at him, shocked to see his condition. a superheated hole had penetrated through the cockpit and out the other side, "Scot!" his Stryder Titan kneeled in front of her as it opened the hatch and Scot fell out.
"One of those Militia scums got me with a plasma shot the moment we won..." he said in pain. Bara exited her titan as fast as she could and slid to his side, "Bara, I'm afraid I won't be able to make it..."
"No scot!" she removed her helmet and wrapping her arms around him, "Don't say such things! You're gonna make it!" she cried.
"You and I both know I'm not going to make it..." he coughed up blood.
"Scot! You're going to be fine!" she held him closer and tighter, "Please don't leave me!" clouds thunder above them, indicating incoming rain, lightning shot across the sky and rain began to fall. Scot's Titan had informed the gruesome news, "Pilot, I'm afraid pilot Scot Rosso is no longer with us," she pressed her face up to his, crying immensely. His body felt cold, the rain poured with her refusing to let go until IMC forces came by to handle the situation. She watched as they put Scot in a body bag and took him away. Mere moments the towers near the base exploded, causing the creatures such as Flyers swooping in and Leviathans stomping the airbase, "Attention all personell, get to an evac ship, the base will fall within 7 hours," anounced Spyglass."
"Even after that, the Militia still won?!" angered Bara.
"Attention, the Militia are preparing to attack the reactor on Demeter. If they succeed, it will cause a chain reaction of explosions. These fueling stations are key to the Core Systems and the Frontier."
"These terrorist are getting out of hand!" Bara proclaimed as she boarded, taken straight from the base to the IMC Colossus, where further debriefing is needed, "We will win this fight."
"Patrol 15, check in..." followed by dead air, snapping Bara back to reality, "Patrol 15?" she stayed silent, "Patrol 15 do you copy?!" dead air continued. She looked below to see a flashing red dot on the grunts' uniform. Moments later, the comm attached to her helmet exploded, breaking the components and impaired her hearing. The helmet flickered on and off, leaving no choice but to remove her helmet, "Damn that stupid comm! Destroyed my helmet, I better get a move on, I can't let Blisk down," leaving it wedged in-between two branches.
Approaching the facility carefully without alerting the other patrols, waiting for a perfect opportunity to slip in unnoticed but with the fiasco that happened earlier, it seems a little slim. Grunts are nothing special, but only in numbers can they take down a pilot. She picked up a pebble and threw it in one direction grabbing the attention of the surrounding grunts, rushing in to hide by the vents. Taking out her data knife and unscrewed the vent covers, hoping no one spotted her. Closing the vent carefully without attracting attention, she heads off to follow where it leads and uncover what they could be hiding. Crawling slowly, it conjured the rest of her memory of the airfield, the sound of cheering and guns firing to celebrate a successful defense against the Militia at the cost of many casualties. The sound of Militia chatter echoed across the vents snapping Bara back to reality. Looking through one of the grates, she saw two grunts by a computer, a good place to start looking for Intel, "This has been a long day today," he paused for a yawn, "I really hope this project would put those Titans in their place."
"Keep your mouth shut!" the grunt covered the other's mouth, "Are you too tired to remember what our CO told us?"
"Yeah yeah, I know, we lost Patrol 15 and is suspected that a spy is somewhere here and all that," he said using his hand to mock the conversation.
"This is a serious situation, you don't know if somebody is here listening, so shut up and don't ever talk about the new Titan!" Bara's ears twitched on this 'new titan', questioning under her breath, "New Titan? What is the purpose of this Titan? I need a closer look but I can't risk being spotted," she peered around the room through the grate for any cameras, choosing to come out when the grunts have finished chatting.
It felt like hours but the grunts had finally left, using her knife again to unscrew the grate and made sure to make as little noise as possible. Once inside, she peeked around the corner for any grunts and possible pilots patrolling, heading towards the computer in the room and finding a slot big enough for a knife to fit through, "Let's see here..." she clicked the button to eject the chip from the hilt to the tip and jabbed it in the slot, overriding the computer to unlock itself.
Surfing through the data, she found a folder that interested her the most, "Project Vanguard? What are you hiding?" she muttered under her breath, opening to find two files; Test Results and Blueprints, "It took us a while and a lot of resources," it played, "but Project Vanguard is coming along quite nicely. We've successfully acquired the new IMC Titans thanks to the SRS, so far we have Scorch, Ronin, and Tone and begun to hook them up to our Vanguard prototype to download their coding. At the time of this report, a Ronin code has been fully copied with Scorch proving much more difficult. I will update this when something new comes up, this is Dan Covy signing off," before he could turn off the recording, a small electrical charge had visibly shown behind him with another researcher running towards him before it went blank.
"Interesting, so the Militia wanted to copy our titans but why? Only way to find out..." she opened the blueprints for this Titan, design wise looks angular but it's supposed function is to copy and wield other Titan weapons system for a more adaptable setup, "I hit the gold here!" she exclaimed, copying the files into her knife, the report was the first to copy before the blueprint.
Before it could finish, the power went out due to the testing, "Sorry for the outage, testing on Ronin's code had short-circuited the power," one glance at the knife and the progress showed 80% completed with the same two grunts to burst in and spotted her. With quick thinking, she threw her knife at one of them, the blood distracted the other long enough to come up to him and snapped his neck in quick succession, but it was too late. The one on the left whose neck is snapped had already opened comms and alerted the entire base, "Red Alert! An enemy in the base!" sounded the alarm, prompting her no choice but to finish her mission and leave.
Running throughout the complex, killing any armed personnel until she stumbled upon a warehouse of Titans with the corner being the prototype Titan. As tempting as it is, Bara chose not to hijack it due to it being a work in progress build, which could kill her. Choosing the next best thing, she chose the Tone right beside it. Jumping to the hull, she forced the hatch at the top to open and climbed in. Feeling around in the dark, Bara found the switch to activate the Titan and watched as the buttons and display powered up, "Hello pilot," the AI greeted, "I'm Tone..."
"Yes hi, can we skip this? We need to get out of here and fast!"
"I don't seem to understand..."
"We're in a secret Militia base and they're going to use you as a source of data for a new Titan."
"Militia?" the AI questioned.
"Yes, we need to get out of here! I'll explain later."
"Please insert authorization code or provide a neural link,"
"15309021996-EBK," she said as she input on the keypad.
"Switching to pilot mode," she tested the movements in the arms prior to pulling out the 40mm Cannon located on the lower back of the Titan, watching all the abilities light up and charging. To her luck, the cannon still has it's ammunition, probably to test it later. Getting off the crane, she turned to the Vanguard slumped over contemplated whether or not she wants to take it with, "What am I thinking?! It's just going to slow me down!" running towards the hangar door, opening it with ease. Militia grunts and Spectres have deployed archer rockets and Sidewinders to attack the Titan in Crow dropships, "Pilot we have sustained major damage."
"I noticed!" she turned to fire a couple rounds, just enough to down the ships, "Tone open a channel to Sector 531!" a face cam opened up with a familiar voice, "This is Commander Kuben Blisk, state your business."
"Commander! I have acquired information about the base and its involvement," she saluted.
"Oi! Excellent work Bara. We will await your arrival, don't take too long."
"Is it possible to send an extraction team?"
"Unless you can get a spot not regulated by Militia forces, you're all on your own."
"Understood, be there as soon as I can," she shut off the comms and wondered what her Titan can do, "Tone, what are your abilities?"
"My abilities consist of tracking rockets, sonar pulse, a particle wall, and my 40mm Cannon," Tone explained.
"I see..." she fired at the downed ships acquiring a full lock on, a red ring locked on, "Deploying Tracking Rockets," Tone said firing a string of missiles, causing the ship to explode, doing it again to the other one, "Tone, scan for any Militia that could interfere."
"Scans show that we are surrounded by Militia forces miles away, I suggest we move Northeast for a more successful approach."
"If that's our best bet, it better not be more trouble than it's worth," she replied heading in the desired direction.
