Adrenaline turned seconds into minutes. Wind whipped around me as I hurtled towards the ground. The reassuring rushing noise of ionic pulse jets sounds off half way through my descent: my jump kit. The only thing preventing me from being turned into an ugly red stain and a sack of broken bones. Admittedly, it took quite some time to fully trust the device, especially leaping from rather extreme heights. Eventually, moving with it became as natural as breathing. When I hit the ground, it feels like I had jumped down from a ten foot ladder rather than from a drop ship a hundred or so feet in the air. Technology is a wonderful thing.
As soon as my feet touch the solid earth, I was off like a bat out of hell. I sprinted towards the nearest structure: a rundown building, one of many in this all but abandoned colony. A quick leap and burst from my jump kit got me high enough up the wall for me to pull myself through the building's second story window. I kept my momentum going, quickly moving toward another open window, leading out to another building. I was easily able to scale the wall outside, climbing up onto the roof. From there I could see much of the small town, left barren by whoever once lived there. I wondered for a moment what had happened for the inhabitants to abandon it. Then I thought that it was fortunate that there would be no civilian casualties.
A few buildings away, I spotted the sniper, Brody, climbing a radio tower. It took a keen eye to spot him. Not only was he quick, but his tactical cloak and Stealth Jump Kit made him very difficult to spot. A good quality to have when you're a sniper. Although from what I observed from him, he seemed to have a bit of an ego. Not a particularly good trait to have in this line of work.
Adjusting my goggles' zoom, I looked down towards the ground, catching a glimpse of Morrison entering a building with Donnelly, the assault rifle toting soldier. A block away, Jackson was making his way towards an old turret, presumably to hack into it. As he stabbed his data knife into turret's console, he kept a hand on his Smart Pistol, ready to drop what he was doing to defend himself. Professional. I would expect nothing less from a Titan Pilot. Having some heavy fire power on our side would come in handy when the fighting inevitably started.
Another question at the back of my head was why the IMC was even here. There didn't seem to be anything that important. It was just an old abandoned colony town with nothing that really stood out. Then again, looks can be deceiving. There was not a lot of activity, and that worried me. From all indications, it seemed that the IMC had made it there ahead of us. The town was a fairly decent size, spanning a few dozen acres. Doesn't sound very big, but it was big enough for a few small squads to hide quite well. The situation felt wrong, like we were walking right into a trap.
Furthermore, I had lost track of Corman. I quickly scanned the area, trying to spot the Titan Killer in the decrepit husk of a city. It seemed strange that someone with such a heavy loadout could be so stealthy. She was a distraction I couldn't afford, not with a pack of wolves lurking in the woodwork. It didn't take long before I was able to figure out where she was. The sound of 8.19mm light machine-gun fire was a dead giveaway.
"Merde…" My reaction was nearly instantaneous. I sprinted towards the gunfire as fast as my feet could carry me over the low rooftops. In hindsight, I really should have figured it would be Corman who would end up kicking the hornet's nest. She certainly seemed the type to attract trouble.
It didn't take long before IMC forces began to come out of their concealment to close in on Corman. Two squads of grunts rushed her position, or what I assumed was her position. I had yet to actually get eyes on her. Fortunately, the soldiers below had not noticed me. Before they could even have the chance to look up, I took aim at the closest soldier and squeezed the trigger, sending a hunk of lead screaming through the back of his head. By the time the others began to look my direction, I was in the air, and two more fell to my rifle.
When I hit the ground, several of them had managed to turn around and take aim. Just as they began to fire at me, I dove through a window and into a building, leaving behind one of my Arc Grenades, bringing down the three remaining grunts in the group. The second was still making its way to Corman's position, the first having slowed me down enough for them to get ahead.
In my haste, I had initially forgotten that there were four other Pilots in my squad. A loud but distant bang rang through the air, and the head of one the soldiers in the group ahead of me disappeared in a cloud of red mist. Several more fell to a volley of Smart Pistol fire from Jackson, and the last few were gunned down by Morrison and Donnelly.
"Where the hell is Corman?" Morrison sound quite cross. It also sounded like this was a rather common scenario with the Titan Killer.
Gunfire kept us from speculating on Corman's current whereabouts. Spectres. A lot of them. The IMC certainly loved their drones. Superior armor and more efficient than standard IMC troops. However they were normally no more a threat to a Pilot than a grunt. Of course, in this instance, the quantity slightly outweighed quality. The volume of fire the drones leveled at us forced us into cover. They kept us pinned down and unable to make a counter attack. Brody was able to snipe a few of them, but his weapon's low rate of fire didn't do much to help our situation. Seeing no other option, I was about to toss out my remaining arc grenade. That was before a familiar voice from behind us.
"Let's do this! LEEEERROOOOOOOOOY, JENKIIIIINNNSS!" I took a moment to wonder who Leroy Jenkins was and why she screamed his name at the top of her lungs.
What came next was a volley of fire that began to rip apart the hoard of Spectres, which turned nearly all of its attention toward the machine gun toting crazy person that was screaming a string of profanity as she mowed down the small metal army.
"Fuck you! And Fuck you too! And you, and you, and you! Go suck a fuck, you fuck sticks!" Eloquent. But I couldn't really argue with the results. She didn't take out the entire hoard, but she broke their lines enough for the rest of us to finish them off. When it was done, Corman was left looking rather proud of herself. Morrison, on the other hand, looked quite miffed.
"What the hell were you doing?"
"Found some IMC goons hacking a terminal. They spotted me and opened fire. I fired back. Pulled the drive from the terminal." She tosses the unscathed hard drive to Jackson.
"Well, you managed not to shoot it to hell." He quickly examined the drive before stowing it.
I have to admit, she did manage to at least partially complete our goal here, which was to find out what the IMC were doing here. The answers to that may very well be on that drive. Personally, I was rather interested in what they could possibly want with this burnt out husk of a colony.
I would wait to find out. A transmission from our ship put a damper on our small victory.
"We have enemy Titanfall!"
Up until then, I found it odd that we had not encountered any enemy Pilots. A noise like falling flames, crackling a popping through the atmosphere, heralded the things for which Pilots were so named. Titans.
Corman wasted no time in calling in her own. The enemy Titans of course touched down first, forcing us to abandon our position, falling back to give us enough space for us to call down our Titans. Corman, however, rushed off toward the fray, boarding her Ogre class build, armed with a Quad Rocket launcher. A big robot, with a very large gun.
"Time to go to work." Corman's Titan, lurched forward, lumbering toward its targets. Rather reckless, considering there were four enemy Titans against her. I didn't hesitate. As soon as my own Titan was finished, I called it in. Fortunately, I had a Warpfall Transmitter equipped, bringing in my Titan rather quickly with a short range space jump. As soon as it was down, I mounted up.
In comparison, the Stryder was much lighter and quicker than the Ogre, at the cost of armor. I had chosen to equip it with a 40mm Cannon, the closest analogue to my own rifle. The Stryder's higher speed would come in handy for catching up to Corman.
The Titan Killer was engaged with a standard Atlas wielding a chain gun. Her launcher was set up for rapid fire, bombarding her opponent with powerful rockets. However, the Atlas was a bit quicker than her Ogre, able to dodge some of her fire. She was not able to critically damage it before her weapon ran dry, forcing her into a seconds long reloading process that the IMC Titan took advantage of, pelting her with the comparatively small rounds of its chain gun. I quickly moved in behind, taking a few shots at the Atlas. Before it could turn around and counter, I was already out of view, and Corman was able to reload and finish it off.
"Damn, you sure you're new at this?"
"We've still got three more to deal with." I kept focused on the task at hand. There was little time for banter.
"Yeah yeah. Let's take 'em down." At least her priorities were straight.
Two more IMC Titans closed in on us, another Atlas and a Stryder. The latter charged in with a huge, triple-barreled grenade launcher. It fired several volleys, but I was able to catch the grenades with my Titan's Vortex Shield. I held them long enough for Corman to whittle down the IMC Stryder's shields, and once they were gone, I sent the grenades back to it, bringing it down. We pressed forward, double teaming the Atlas, which fell quite quickly from our combined fire.
That just left one more. As we went to hunt it down, my vision was filled with static, my shields depleted. I'd been hit by a shot from an Arc Cannon. Given Corman's close proximity, the blast no doubt arced to her Titan as well. I dashed away from that position, trying to avoid a second blast long enough for my shields to regenerate. For good measure, I fired a cluster missile dissuade pursuit. When my vision cleared, I could see what hit me. An Ogre.
Corman was able to take cover. The Arc Cannon requires a charge time to be effective against Titans, so it meant a slow rate of fire on our opponent's side. But those shots have the added effect of temporarily disorienting us. We needed to smart about going after it. Precise and quick.
Of course the Titan Killer had other ideas. Using her Titan's single dash charge, she rushed the other Ogre, leveling a mighty punch to its optics. While it was stunned, Corman disembarked from her Titan and quickly leaped up onto her opponent, ripping off a piece of armor to get at the internal mechanisms inside. The IMC Titan was too preoccupied with Corman's Ogre to deal with the Titan Killer herself. Her Spitfire tore apart the Ogre's insides, quickly bringing down the Titan's structural integrity. After a few seconds of sustained fire, she jumped off, leaving behind an explosive present. With two taps of a detonator, the damaged mech was engulfed in a rather large and violent explosion.
"Tiiimmbeerrrrr!" At least she wasn't cursing at it. Although, she did give a rather rude gesture.
Her small celebration was cut short, however. With a flash of light, another Titan dropped down right behind her. Sent down via Warpfall. Corman wheeled around, bringing up her machine gun at it. As effective as the weapon was against a Titan's internals, it was not as effective against a Titan's shields.
I didn't hesitate. I fired a few shots at it to gain its attention, but it seemed fixed on Corman, dashing away to give chase to her as she darted off to get a better position. I charged after it, trying to keep a bead on it. But the semi-automatic nature of my cannon kept me from leveling sustained fire on the enemy. Seeing no other options, I decided to take a page from the Alex Corman book of warfare tactics.
I opened up my Titan's hatch and jumped out into its open hand. As per my command, it hurled me through the air toward the enemy Titan. I threw my remaining arc grenade down at it, disorienting it enough for me to land on top of it. Wasting no time, I tore off a bit of armor and shoved my rifle into the hole, firing as fast as I could pull the trigger. When my clip ran dry, I quickly swapped to my auto pistol, unleashing a torrent of bullets into the Titan's internals. Corman was on the ground, diverting the Titan's attention. I emptied two clips into the Titan before it finally fell. I jumped off before the whole thing exploded, sending the pilot inside hurtling into the air as he ejected. Corman and I decided to not let him reach the ground. A quick reload of my rifle, and the two of us fired up at him. He was dead before he hit the ground. I felt a rough slap across my back: a sign of Corman's respect, I suppose.
"Hot damn. You're crazy, girl." High praise coming from the Titan Killer.
"You probably could have taken it. After all, you apparently took down a dozen Titans on your own." It was a bit of backhanded sarcasm. I was rather incredulous about the claim. But seeing her in action, I could almost believe it. Looking back, it was easier to believe than what she said next.
"It was nine."
"What?"
"It was nine Titans. Four them on foot, and I had backup." Modesty. It wasn't something I had expected to hear from her.
"Welp, guess we should get back to the others. Let's go, Deveaux. Heh, I just rhymed."
"Mistral." I spoke, almost without thinking.
"Huh?"
"My first name. It's Mistral."
"Mistral... That's a nice name."
I'm not sure why I volunteered that information. It seemed rather unnecessary. I didn't feel I needed to make any friends in this squad. I wanted to remain professional. But Corman threw me for a loop. Her reputation was misleading, and if I had to be entirely honest, I was mildly fascinated with the Titan Killer, for the sole reason that she was not entirely what she appeared to be. I wasn't about to tell her my life story, but I had decided then that I wasn't completely adverse to the idea of working with her.
It seemed my life was about to get more interesting. And I pilot giant robots for a living.