PSA: I've realised it's not obvious, so let me make it clear: Snake's name is a reference to a member of the Australian Titanfall community, not to Metal Gear Solid. My references aren't that bad.

"Zophia? Dawntreader, come in!" called Jenni desperately from the cockpit of her Titan. "Anyone?!"

No answer.

Why is nobody answering?!

"Ma'am, can you hear me?"

"Affirmative! Who's there?!"
"This is Seeley, Ma'am. I'm just above you."

With a flick of her eyes Jenni rotated her Titan's cameras upward and caught a glimpse of a man floating 20 metres away. They were both slowly drifting toward each other, and in a few seconds he'd be touching her hull.

"Seeley, I'm going to burn my boosters for a few seconds. Ven you reach me, grab on to ze hand-holds on my back, okay?"
"Gotcha."

Jenni tapped her foot pedals, letting dull flames burst from her Titan's dash thrusters and she began to turn.

Nice and slow.

"Ma'am, my radio array is down," reported Seeley. "Only my laser's working."

"Same with everyone. The reactor explosions even managed to take out my radio array."

She heard a clang on the back of her hull.

"Zat you, Seeley?"

"Affirmative. Ma'am, did you hear that?"
"The clang? Yes."

"No, I heard a broadcast. Laser comms. I think it came from over that way," he said, pointing.

"You sure?"
"No. But, it's worth a shot."

"Okay. Hang on."

Jenni the Titan dashed gently to the side and activated the magnets within its feet, sticking itself to a large metal beam. A moment later she deactivated the magnets and leaped, pushing the beam backwards, shooting herself forward.

"Still there?"
"Affirmative. Ma'am, I'm going to hook myself on."

Somewhere on her back, the soldier was unhooking a carabiner and clipping it to one the handholds wielded to her hull.

"-ade's comms are down and he's drifting!" came another voice. "I can-top the drif-"

"Soldier, identify yourself!"
"Sounded like Brownlee, Ma'am!" commed Seeley. "I saw him, too. Dead ahead!"

Jenni the Titan let herself slowly rotate in a circle, raised her cannon to her eye. When she was facing directly behind where she wanted to go, she fired, letting the recoil push her forward.

"-o space! Seriously, anyone! Please!"

"Soldier, ve're here!" replied Jenni. She saw a man on her rear cameras 100 metres away, flailing like a fish out of water.

"Oh, shit! Ma'am, is that you?"

"Affirmative. Who are you?"
"Brownlee, Ma'am! Wade's drif-"

"...Brownlee? Brownlee!"

"-isconnected. Damnit!"

"Ve're back, Brownlee. Say it again. Slowly."

"Wade's drifting, Ma'am. He's alive, but his laser comm got hit by something. I've been trying to get his attention for the last five minutes!"

"Okay, vere is he?"
"25 metres away. That direction." Browlee pointed.

She looked through her cameras again. Brownlee might be able to see Wade from where he was floating, but from her position Wade was behind a plate of composites.

"I'm going to fire a guided missile at him to get his attention," decided Jenni. "It should curve around the plate that's in my way and cruise past him. I have disabled the warhead, so it shouldn't hurt him. Okay?"

"Sounds good!" replied Brownlee, and Jenni squeezed a trigger.

Waited a few seconds.

"Vat about now?"

"He's still floating!"

And then, it dawned on her.

"Browlee… you said that something hit Wade's laser comms array, right?"
"Yeah. Fire another, he hasn't-"

"Did it hit his head as vell?" asked Jenni, heart dropping.

"Umm-"

"He's dead, Brownlee. Leave him."

"No he's not! He's still fine! I've been following him for the last-"

"Five minutes. Has he moved at all in the last five minutes?"

Silence.

"Answer me, Brownlee."

"Well…"

"And he hasn't spoken? He didn't even see your laser dart past his head?"

"Ha… no. He's fine! He's just… just knocked his head, that's all! Yeah! Something hit his laser comms array and hit his head along the way. I'm sure he's fine."

"He's not. Come on, Brownlee. Come to us."

"But-"

"Listen to me! Return to my Titan immediately, zat's an order!

"NO! I WON'T LEAVE HIM!" screamed Brownlee, flailing in space. He scrambled for his rifle, fired it and shot backwards, propelling him away from Jenni and towards Wade's corpse. "HE'S MY COMER-"

And then the rubble and station around Brownlee exploded as a railgun projectile from one of Carlyle's orbital defence railguns tore through the surrounding rubble and remains of the station.

Silence.

"Je suis désolé, Comerade," she whispered. Swore.

Then,

"-urvivors, come in! Repeat, any survivors, come in! This is Sophia from the HMD Dawntreader! Repeat, this is Sophia from the HMD Dawntreader! Come in!"

"Sophia! This is Jenni!"
"Jenni! I've got the Dawntreader under my command! Where are you all? And what happened?!"

"I pushed a bulldozer off the side of the station and it hit something along the way down. Two nuclear reactors exploded. All our radio comms arrays are shorted, so we're stuck with laser comms for now. Everyone's either dead or drifting. We need evac, and more importantly, the Austraeus needs fuel."

"I've got the fuel, and I can try to evac you guys."

"Can you do it safely?"

"Can I do it safely?" Sophia repeated, aiming the question at the Dawntreader's AI.

"Hold on, you wanna get close to that?!" exclaimed the Dawntreader's AI. "I mean, I guess we could do it. I'd have to do a lot of dodging, though. Not just with the fusion rockets; I'd be using the legacy drive as well. Those railguns will hurt if they hit. They're firing at the station 'cos the station doesn't look much like a station anymore, and it is the closest threat. But if we get close…"

"Then we'll be the closest threat."

"Exactly. I can try-"

"Then lets do it," decided Sophia. "Hit it, Dawntreader."

"Alright then! Rockets online! Legacy drive flywheels online! Increasing pressure to fusion thrusters…"

"Jenni, we think we can pull this off. Where do you want us to pick you up from?"

"Wherever it's safest for you. You're more important than us."

"Then it's your call," announced Sophia to the Dawntreader. "They'll come to us."
"I've got a spot. There, on the end of that beam." The AI brought a picture of a single steel beam on one of the Bridge displays. "I can make it there in 3.8 minutes' time, at which point most of the Railguns' will be behind the station."

"Right. Jenni, there's a steel beam on the underside of the station. By underside, I mean, the side currently facing-"

"Send me a picture over the lasercomm."

"Here you go."

Inside her Titan cockpit, Jenni nodded.

"I can see that from here."

"Be there soon," said Sophia, gritting her teeth as the Dawntreader's fusion rockets went critical.

Jets of hydrogen, helium, lithium and beryllium erupted from the enormous starship's thrusters. Space twisted around the Dawntreader, twisting and contracting.

Sophia and her escorts were pushed into her seat as the the Dawntreader leapt toward the ruined space station.

"Alright, Seeley," growled Jenni the Human from inside her Titan. "Hold on tight."

"Yes, Ma'a-"

Jenni the Titan's dash thrusters pulsed, pushing it sideways and onto a nearby cluster of debris. A split second later its magnets activated and Jenni the Titan began sprinting her way along the debris toward the edge of the station.

"Warning. Ballistic trajectory reached," announced Overwatch's display. "Warning. Ballistic trajectory reached. Warning. Incoming high velocity round detected."

"Brace for acceleration," spat Roberts. "Here comes another. Overwatch, what's the pressure like in reactors Charlie and Delta?"

"Full pressure in both reactors," displayed Overwatch. "Projectile impact in 5 seconds."

"I want a map of the Austraeus's pressure vents. And get me - DAMNIT!" - the starship lurched to the side - "get me our head engineer!"
"Connecting," displayed Overwatch.

"Captain? What can I 'elp-"

"You the head engineer?" interrupted Roberts.
"Nay, Sahr. Head engie's… gone, Sahr."

"Wha- very well. Consider yourself promoted. What do you know about reactors Charlie and Delta's pressure vents?"

"With ones, Sahr? 'Ere's 32 of 'em."

"I want to open the valves to kick us back into orbit. Those railgun rounds have pushed us into an elliptical orbit with the atmosphere in our way."

"Right, I get 'cha, Sahr. Well, C9 through C12 an' D9 through D12'd do the trick. But you'd 'ave to be careful, Sahr. Those valves are delicate-"

"You think that if I open those valves, the pressure in the reactors would push us back upwards?"
"More or less, Sahr."

"Warning. Incoming high velocity round detected," displayed Overwatch.

Roberts disconnected his communicator. "Overwatch. Reactor Delta, valves 41 to 48. Open them on my command."

Then;

"Graves," Roberts asked, "you there?"
"We're here. We've had a fuel tank explosion, though. We've think we can salvage the ship; we've got a logistics cruiser coming in three minutes to push us back to orbital speed. Unfortunately, it won't be strong enough to save your ship."

"Three minutes, you say?" mused Roberts. "And then you're gone."

"It's the best I can do for my enemy," apologised Graves.

Roberts was slammed into the side of his chair as another railgun round punched through the hull.

"Captain!" exclaimed a communications technician. "We've just received word from the Kodai team!"

"And?" asked Roberts, muting his call with Graves.
"They've done it. The fleet's ours. They'll have the fleet here in 9 hours."

A smile formed at the corner of Roberts' mouth.

"Mr. Engineer? You still there?"
"Aye, Sahr. What chu needin?"
"I've changed my mind. I want to down this ship, and I want to hit the Retaliator along the way."
"But- but why? Sahr, we'd-"

"I know. Just tell me the valves I'd need to open to shove this ship into the atmosphere."

"Wehl… valves C1 through C4 an' D1 through D4 open up on that side o' us… Open em up no more than 23% or they could blow up bad."

"Thanks. Overwatch, I've changed my mind. Valves C1 to C4 and D1 to D4. Open them up on my mark, 45%."

"Macro defined and readied. Warning. Opening of valves C1, C2, C3, C4, D1, D2, D3 and D4 will drain reactors Charlie and Delta. Warning. Drain of reactor Charlie and Delta would result in permanent power loss. Warning. Thrust produced by reactor drain would result in atmospheric entry. Warning. Atmospheric entry would result in catastrophic structural failure. Captain Roberts, are you sure about this?"

"Absolutely. Open up the shipwide communications channel."
"Comms channel open."

"Everyone, this is Captain Roberts. We have hit the atmosphere as a result of Venice 3's railgun barrage destroying our fusion reactors. This starship is doomed.

With that, I've decided to make the most of what we've got. I'm going to vent the pressure inside our last two reactors and shunt us downwards. With any luck, we'll take the Retaliator with us. Here are your orders.

All Pilots will make their way to the Titan hanger. All engineers involved in launching Titans will also make their way to the Titan hangar and assist in the launching of Titans on my mark. All other personnel will make their way to their nearest lifeboat immediately and launch on my mark. We vent in two minutes and thirty seconds."

"Members of the bridge," he continued, "Get to the lifeboats and evacuate on my mark. This starship no longer needs a crew."

And finally,

"Overwatch. We'll survive an atmospheric re-entry, right?" he asked, as the other bridge members left the bridge in a hurry.

"The bridge, the Titan hangar and the lifeboats are made to survive re-entry. The hull will survive the heat of re-entry for a few minutes. Afterwards, all personnel not within a life boat, the bridge or the Titan hangar will be incinerated. Atmospheric entry will ensure impact with the planet's surface."

"I understand. Now, we wait. Two minutes and 10 seconds."

Zeta hauled the garage door open, heaving from the effort of lifting the nuclear iron panel. A moment later Bruce rolled past on the motorcycle. A relic of a bygone age, the cycle ran on oil, rumbled like an unbalanced electric generator and left a sooty gas in its wake.

The Kawasaki logo glinted in the sunlight as Bruce brought Snake's motorcycle to a halt.

"I'll take the buggy," Zeta declared. "I'm probably better at piloting it than you. No offence."

"None taken." The six were wearing hoodies over their armour, and Bruce pulled his hood over his pilot's helmet, dragged his scarf up to just underneath his visor.

"Plus, you there?" asked Zeta.

"Affirmative."

"Get me the buggy."

"It is on its way, Ma'am."

A moment later, the buggy drifted around a corner and came to a halt in front of her.

"Alright then. Everyone in."

She slid into the hoverbuggy's pilot seat, let the propellers underneath the buggy continue spinning.

The four IMC soldiers leapt aboard.

"Next stop," Zeta announced, "cloud square."

She slipped her arms into the control gauntlets, tilted them upwards. The thrusters on the back fired and the buggy leaned forward. A press of her pedals and the buggy shot off along Alpha's roads.

"What is it again... Hilt? Is Bruce behind us?" she asked.

"Yes, Ma'am." The soldier flipped his hood up over his head, pulled his own scarf up to cover as much of his helmet as possible. Beside him, Cornerstone was absent-mindedly tapping the side of the R-101C he'd selected from Snake's armory through the fabric of his hoodie.

"Good." She adjusted the speed of her buggy's blades to hover a little higher, before throwing her arms to the side to bank the buggy around a corner.

"Plus, time to Cloud Square?" she asked, eyes fixed on the road.

"Ten minutes, Ma'am."
"Alright. Hilt, how many IMC personnel are we expecting to be at Cloud Square?"

"Let me think… there's a team of 10 soldiers lead by the pilot Misha that should be floating around… another 25 soldiers that were supposed to be trying to resupply us, lead by the pilot George… and they've got two civilians with them, too... then there's some 10 civilians that we sent down after the first few squads that were supposed to find some way for us to evac… and a couple of soldiers babysitting them… overall, we're looking at around 51? Give or take a few, there may be some I've forgotten about."

"51? Fantastic," muttered Zeta, as buildings and roads and cars shot past out the window. "Of which 12 are civilians."

"Once again, there may be more."

"There better not be," she growled, throwing the buggy into another corner and pumping the afterburners. Another hoverbuggy honked at her in fright and shock. "ETA?"
"Six minutes, Ma'am."

"Good," she muttered.

A military truck rolled past.

A bad omen..? Or mere coincidence?

She snuck a glance behind her. Bruce was still there on the old Kawasaki motorcycle.

"ETA?" asked Zeta nervously, as as second and third military truck rolled past. "And try get me a comm to Bruce."

"Four minutes, Ma'am. Comms line open."

"Thanks. Bruce, those trucks-"

"I know, I know. It's worrying. And there's nothing we can do about it. Lets keep going."

She turned a corner. Saw the traffic backed up to a soldier waving vehicles by a detour sign.

"They've closed off Cloud Square," muttered Zeta, biting her lip under her helmet. "That's not good."

"We can take a left up here," suggested Bruce. "And sneak in on foot. Find out what's going on."

Zeta pulled her left trigger - indicating her intentions to turn left - before banking and slipping into an alley just wide enough for the hoverbuggy. Pulled her arms backwards, pulled the nose of the buggy upwards, slid to a halt. Unbuckled her seatbelt, stepped out.

"What's the plan?"

"You've got a cloak module in your overarmor?"

"Yeah. Made in New Tokyo. Why?"

"I reckon we leave these four here and go over the roofs. We go in past the blockade, snoop around a bit. Find out what's going on."

"Alright, then. Plus, switch to autopilot mode and take orders from the four men inside the hoverbuggy."

"Understood, Ma'am."

"Alright." She pulled her hoodie off, tossed it back into the hoverbuggy. It had kept her conspicuous for now. It wouldn't help her cloak.

"Ready?" asked Bruce.

She nodded, looked both ways down the alley to confirm that the coast was clear.

And then she jumped. Once with her feet, and once again with her jump kit. Her feet connected with the nuclear iron alley wall and she somersaulted backward to connect with the opposite wall. Another boost, another jet of flame, and she was flying upwards between the two alley walls, flipping off one and into the other. Her left boot caught on a foothold and she sprang upward. Her right heel connected with a wall mounted air conditioning unit with a clang. One roll, and she was atop the unit. Another leap, and she was clutching onto the edge of a roof.

She hauled herself up to emerge above the alley on the roof of a three-story building one block away from Cloud Square, a split second behind Bruce.

"This way to the Square," she called through their helmets' radio, before breaking into a run, then a leap, then a tumble onto the roof of the next building across.

No sign of any guards posted on the roofs yet. That's a little promising.

Her legs flew underneath her as her training from New Tokyo kicked in. She continued an effortless run across an art gallery's tile roof. Reached the edge and leapt across the gap to the next building's corrugated nuclear iron roof, soaring through the morning air, like a shadow darting across the skyline, across roof and building and gap and alley and - there was Cloud Square.

She stopped, crouched, Bruce beside her on the edge of a restaurant's roof. Peered into the square three stories below.

A small fountain in the middle of the Square spurted water high into the hot air, forming the centrepiece of one of Alpha city's most popular places for relaxation. The water that didn't evaporate splashed into the pool around the fountain and trickled along thin ducts in the ground to nourish the plants that grew in the Square. A line of red flowers bloomed in the dirt that lined the Square's edges; a bee - engineered specifically for Venice 3's climate - tended to the roses one at a time. The scene would have been romantically gorgeous if not for the men and women lying on the ground with their hands behind their heads. Or the Venice 3 armed defenders patrolling them.

"Shit," swore Bruce under his breath. "They found out. That Menelaus really hates the IMC, doesn't he?"

"Yeah," mused Zeta. She gazed downward, eyeing Venice 3's police. "I count 25 Soldiers. And… damn, there's a sniper in that corner over there."

"Well. It could be worse. They could have Titans." Zeta and Bruce backed away from the edge of the roof, and Bruce tapped the side of his helmet.

"Austraeus, this is the Pilot Bruce. The Venice 3 police seem to be out to capture IMC personnel. They've got everyone except my team rounded up at Cloud Square. We count 25 Soldiers. No Titans."

And then,

"Austraeus? Come in, Austraeus. Damn!"

He turned to Zeta. "The Austraeus isn't picking up. We're on our own."

"That's not all," groaned the New Tokyo ex-Pilot, eyeing the steel behemoth that had just strode into the square. "They've got Titans. And at least one Pilot."

"Overwatch, vent the pressure from Reactors Charlie and Delta through valves 10 to 20," ordered Captain Roberts, eyeing the MCOR Retaliator on the console in front of him. The Militia starship was dead in its orbit and awaiting evacuation from a friendly Logistics cruiser.

Not for long.

"Venting pressure. Brace for acceleration in three, two, one, mark."

Roberts closed his eyes, gripped his seat rests, took a deep breath, and prayed to every god he'd heard of.

Plumes of hydrogen and helium erupted from the Austraeus's railgun-marred side.

These gases were the life of the starship's last fusion reactors. Before, they'd provided electrical power to the entire ship. Now, they provided thrust.

Three valves melted instantly, the hull that housed them collapsing and crumbling into space.

The Austraeus lurched silently toward the Retaliator.

Struck.

The larger starship pushed down on the smaller, its life draining from its side.

And then, the two hit the atmosphere.

The Retaliator's shields crackled and died as a torrent of particles began to hit it all at once.

Her captain screamed obscenities in a, for him, unusual outburst of anger and rage at the enemy who had betrayed his trust and mercy.

Hulls glowed orange as the starships began to slow, friction decelerating them from orbital velocity to terminal velocity, Borium armour be damned.

The captain of the Austraeus gripped his armrests with white knuckles as his starship went where it was never designed to go.

The AI of the Austraeus thought its last as its last power supply was drained.

Metal buckled and scraped and screamed as it expanded in the heat of re-entry.

A collective scream arose from each of the three cities on Venice 3 as their inhabitants heard the sonic booms and saw the calamity unfolding.

For the Titans in heaven above were falling.