Militia planet Harmony
The next day
Briggs stormed down the hall towards the conference room, a few other people in tow and a pilot begging Riggs to give him back his Kraber.
"No! You made a stupid decision risking your life for that car. You won't get it back until you prove you can make better choices." Briggs scolded. Max didn't say anything but relented, slinking back to the rest of the group before taking a longing look at his Kraber. Once they reached the room, they all filed in, Briggs sitting down at the head of the table and the other captains and generals in side seats. Max waited for them to all sit down before realizing he had no place to sit. Stifling a groan he wearily stood off to the side.
Looking around the room he recognized a few faces out f the ten or so people sitting down; Ivan, the head of the heavy titan support unit(the ones called in when things went to hell), Barker, Bish, and that one M.C.O.R. crackshot pilot named Jack or something that stopped the fold weapon (Max would have to thank him later both for the prevention of harmony's destruction and the scan of the ark).
"Okay." Briggs started,"I'm sure most of you have seen the report I sent you and the footage captured by Max here. I also have a new mission for us. Intercepted comms show that our new enemies have been busy, conversing with the IMC about some new weapon. We have to infiltrate and steal any and all data we can about it. Standard procedure right? Problem is it's not that simple. Bish."
"Right," Bish continued." The data is held in a IMC stronghold near the city Chattan on the IMC controlled planet: PlanetN." Bish finished. An intake of breath was audible in the room. Even Max knew where that was. That was the 15th planet humanity had found, and it was relatively close to the core planets. True it wasn't even in the same solar system, but it was closer to the core planets than they'd ever be comfortable with.
"Now before you shy away,-"
"Ivan never shy away." Ivan interrupted. Briggs continued anyways, shooting him a glare.
"We have a lucky break in two days. An annual solar event is going to block the IMC's radar equipment on the planets near our path, giving us the chance to slip in undetected and surprise them. They will expect us to try something during that time though so we need to mount a big assault. Once we infiltrate the compound, a team will head into the data vaults and extract all the data they can. Max and cooper, you'll be part of that team."
Max froze. He hadn't really seen combat on that scale yet and was afraid of messing up. Especially in front of a skilled pilot like Jack. Looking over to the aforementioned pilot, he noticed him looking back at him with curiosity. Standing a little straighter, he couldn't help but think of how to prevent screwing up in front of people he needed to impress.
The rest of the meeting Max was distracted, answering questions about the previous mission but not paying much attention to the rest of the conversations. Anxious, he started mentally planning sessions in the VR pods. He wanted to be as prepared as possible for this.
Max made his way to the regular training rooms, the VR systems and other exercises there for pilot's use. As a known regular, the person running the VR pods nodded his way and motioned to an open pod. Max nodded back and clambered down into the seat of the pod, sitting back against the seat before flicking a few switches and closing the doors. The familiar pinch in his neck happened before he became immobilized and his view filled with white. Once it faded, he found himself inside a familiar roofless room. In front of him was a round chunk of ground that had a ronnin sword stuck in it with water floating upwards.
All around the room guns were mounted on the wall and on spikes that fell down from the sky around the sword. Max went ahead and grabbed a DMR, a few arc grenades, and by his occasional request, a recreation of his dual berettas off an extra section of the wall. Taking a second to admire the black and orange steel, he hefted them for a second, feeling the padding on the sides of the grips, and the rough metal on the hammers. He spun them once around his fingers before shoving them into their holsters.
"Alright. I'm ready." Max said to the sky.
"Where would you like to fight today?" Came the reply.
"Throw me into an assault. And don't make anything easy on me." Max asked. The area around him transformed. Walls fell out, the floors changed into a rough terrain, buildings rose from the ground, and the sounds of battle started. The floor he was on rose up until it turned into the bottom of a dropship. Soon he found himself in a standard dropship filled with pilots. A Marvin unit stood smiling at attention before giving a thumbs up as the doors opened. Max turned on his music as everyone rushed out and into a proper war zone. Artillery fired upon city buildings in front of him, grunts rushed forwards through streets, and pilots ran along billboards. Once Max hit the ground he took off running, quickly scaling a nearby building, grapple kicking a nearby IMC pilot that had just climbed up as well, and looking for targets.
Outside of the sim pod however, another certain pilot came into the training room and noticed the monitor above the sim pod Max was in, showing his view as he fought. Walking over, he started to watch before the attendant noticed him.
"Oh, hey Jack. Saw you watching Max, you wanna join him?" He asked. Jack though about it. So this was the person who was suppose to be in the strike team.
"Sure. Usual load out, but put me someplace I wan watch him fight. I'm curious about his skill." Cooper said as he climbed into a nearby pod.
Meanwhile, Max had found a new vantage point on top of a water tower and was popping anything and everything IMC within his sight. At one point Max even shot the satchel charge out of the air in front of a group of IMC grunts, making a lovely explosion. He reloaded and looked to his right where he had been monitoring a titan fight. A militia legion had decided to fight a IMC tone, and they had been going at it for a while. The legion was facing the opposite way and the tone was shooting facing his direction.
Getting a bad feeling, he was proven right as an unguided rocket cluster screamed pats the legion and slammed into the base of the tower, shrieking and groaning metal folding like paper as it started to tilt. Yelling, Max jumped off the collapsing structure and grappled onto the fixture of a nearby billboard, slingshotting off it and taking a nice aerial view of the area. Spotting a nice partially destroyed office building with a few IMC on top, Max shifted himself in the air before grappling onto it's ledge and traveling straight up in an arc.
He retracted up until he had about twenty feet left and stopped retracting, letting the momentum carry him the rest of the way up. Firing his jump kit, he swung out from the building wall and the grapple line caught, swinging him in a partial circle over the edge. While he was still in the air and just before the top of the circle, he let the grapple go and sailed over the IMC's heads on top of the roof, landing behind them and shooting them all in the back. He started to get the feeling of being watched, but after a quick survey and finding no snipers, he brushed it off.
Taking a proper look at the battlefield, it was chaos. IMC had dug in deep along one side of the city, and masses of Militia were flocking in on dropship, setting up artillery that fired upon the IMC installations and assaulting IMC controlled buildings. Marking potential targets for himself, he set up shop and had his spotter system running, sniping anybody and everybody that he could find. He sniped a few more grunts mortaring a platoon of Militia before his scope came across a wierd sight along the higher end of the city . A vanguard class titan draped in normal Militia green and orange was taking on a group of two tones, a ronnin, and a legion. He hadn't heard a player join announcement, so he was confused as to why there was a vanguard here. Never the less though, it seemed to be having trouble so Max tried to figure out a way to help.
"Titan ready." Droned the automated system. Max grinned. Now he could help. Calling Sitara down, she didn't end up dropping straight to the ground like normal, she ended up swooping in and landing beside him on the roof.
"Doing training again?" Sitara asked. Once she had been called in her automated A.I. had connected from her hangar.
"Yeah. Spotted a friendly in trouble. Let's assist them, shall we?" Max chimed, grinning. Max jumped into Sitara's cockpit and put his rifle to the side before the pinch happened yet again. Max moved a hand in front of the optic, clenching it to get reorientated and jumping off the roof, flying towards the vanguard. Coming in from the side where the enemy titans were nice and lined up behind cover, Max readied both acolyte pods before releasing them all in a bombing run directly on top of them, disorientating and damaging.
Spinning in the air, Max flew backwards to face them and released a few lasers while he grabbed the Ion rifle from the back of the chassi. Max readied the rifle before reversing the thrust and flying back towards them, unloading the clip in the nearest titan, shredding their shields. Max swooped right before backfliping down onto the ground next to the vanguard, who he could now see was labeled BT-7274. Paying no heed though, Max continued to advance on the enemies, firing upon the one without shields while shooting rockets to the right to suppress the others.
Once the rockets had to restock the enemies came from behind cover and started to fire, but Max had been prepared, already holstering the rifle and activating a vortex shield, catching the incoming projectiles as he advanced. Throwing the caught ammo back at the group, he switched the right vortex shield on as his other hand drew back to grab the sword off the back of the chassi. Once he had it in his hand, he threw the caught bullets in his right shield back before grabbing the sword in both hands and charging. He shot two lasers to finish off the first titan he had damaged before activating his core.
A powerful laser shot from Sitara's optic, shredding through the enemy titans shields and superheating the steel blade Max held in the middle of the blast. Once the core finished, he shot both pods at separate enemies, followed up with two more charged lasers that shredded through both of the enemy cockpits and the superheated blade that Max stabbed straight through the middle one. And just like that, all four enemy titans were defeated. Turning, Max faced the vanguard behind him.
"And I thought I was going easy on them." Crackled the vanguards speakers. Max recognized the voice and nearly melted. Jack was the one watching him fight. "You're good kid, but tomorrow will be the true proving ground. Impress me." Jack finished. And just like that the simulation vanished and Max found himself in the simpod. Getting out, he looked for Jack but he was already gone.
Max rummaged around his quarters, grabbing his spare DMR off his gun rack and putting his wingman back. Needing all the firepower he could get, he holstered his berettas on either side of his waist and stored some spare clips along the belt line as he strapped on the rest of his combat rig. He also went into his room and grabbed his AK from atop his dresser and its mags sitting in a pile next to it. Since the gun wasn't magnetic he grabbed a gun sling and automatically strung it around his neck. He grabbed three fire stars and clipped them into his harness next to his mags and dataknife. Taking a look around his quarters, he checked if he was missing noticing anything, he walked towards his door, running a gloved hand over the glossy black Mustang he put as the centerpiece of his quarters.
He removed his hand and reached his door, taking one last took at the place before sighing and exiting, walking down to the main hangar. The P.A. system rang throughout the halls as he walked.
"Special units A through M please report to any and all transports to escort the F.M. WarPig. Special units N through S report to the F.M. Macallan2. Prep for takeoff."
Max automatically got into a nearby dropship full of pilots headed to escort WarPig, random units that were there at the time. He climbed the ramp next to the rest of them, no need for conversation. Everyone knew what to do. They all mechanically sat down in available spots, Max ending up next to a pilot with a custom painted helmet of a Phoenix or something. Taking a slight look around at the pilots in the dropship with him, he noticed a few looking at the AK against his shoulder, others just looking straight ahead or out of the pilot next to him looked over and noticed his gun.
"Old gun ain't it? Why you bringing it along?" The pilot asked. Max gave a small laugh.
"It may be old but it still fires better than a flatline." Max said, chambering a round and turning the fire selector on full auto. He put it back up against his shoulder and set his head back to try to nap. As the dropship closed up and launched, Max put on a classical playlist and closed his eyes. The biggest fight of his life was about to go down in a few hours, he wanted to savor the time he had now.
A/N. Soooooo. Very big fight coming up. Lots of things going to go down. Be prepared for the new chapters next week. If I did make any mistakes this chapter or any chapter feel free to point it out. Also, to Big Pizza, ;)