One moment, he had witnessed reality warp upon itself, the planet itself shaking as hypergravity created ruptures that stretched across its very core itself.
In the next, Jack Cooper was falling.
Had it not been for the long years spent with Captain Tai Lastimosa in the Pilot's Gauntlet and other simulated training packages, he would not have had the reflexes and skills needed to reorientate himself in mid-air, and react on pure instinct to the sight of debris being hurled toward him at velocities that would have pulverised every bone in his body.
Had it not been for the past few days where he had been linked as the acting pilot of BT-7274, and all the adrenaline-fuelled situations where he had narrowly avoided death through the skills taught to him by Lastimosa and honed in countless training sessions, he would not have known how to kick off a piece of falling debris, activate his Jump Kit to reposition and alter his momentum, and to navigate a sharp turn while being forced under the stress of several g-forces that would have forced an untrained person to black out.
He might have avoided the first errant piece of concrete that had to weigh several tons, but he would definitely have been grounded to dust by the flaming wreck that had once been an IMC Spectre. It was only practical experience in the field as he fought across Typhon and back alongside BT-7274 that allowed him to keep his wits about him, utilise every bit of skill and talent he had accrued with Lastimosa, and leap between projectiles travelling at high velocities while still dodging chunks of concrete, rock, and metal that looked determined to kill him where the Fold Weapon hadn't.
Luckily for him, he had done both just that – and that was why he was now sliding across the rooftop of a building, finally having the chance to arrest his movement and think, after a full minute spent kicking off walls and jumping off debris, before finally having the opportunity to toss a grapple line and slingshot around a billboard to safety.
When he turned around in the direction he had arrived from, all he saw was the ruins of what had once been part the Fold Weapon firing facility. Unlike the past test-tiring, where temporal anomalies had caused most of the damage, their disruption of the firing sequence evidently had effects more aligned with the spatial half of the Ark's power. From where he was right now, having travelled several hundred metres in his mad rush to avoid being pasted and after he finally brought himself to a halt, he could see bits of Spectres, Reapers, Stalkers, and Ticks mixed in among the rubble, along with some weaponry he couldn't discern from this far.
He was, however, alive.
And even though he had foolhardily thrown himself back toward the Ark alongside BT, he could honestly say that he hadn't thought this far ahead.
Where even was he? He knew that Typhon had been starting to collapse on itself – had felt the planet rumble in the final moments before the Fold Weapon truly turned dysfunctional.
Everything looked far too intact, though he was in what appeared to be an abandoned cityscape. Save for the last bits of debris being displaced – transported through spacetime itself – there was not a soul that stirred. It was safe to assume that this was no longer Typhon.
The neural link was still active, though. That was a good sign.
BT was alive. He attempted to contact him over the neural link, but –
CRITICAL ERROR: UNABLE TO SYNCHRONISE NEURAL CIRCUITRY WITH TITAN BT-7274.
REASON: Temporal reference frame error!
Troubleshooting…
Recommendation – recalibrate neural link.
That was annoying. The neural link had persisted even when BT-7274 and himself had been separated through time itself, back when he had been hopping between timestreams with the gauntlet he had recovered from Major Anderson, but it seemed that the Fold Weapon's abrupt destabilisation had broken even that.
Well, if the neural link isn't operational, then…
He activated radio communications on his pilot helmet, tuning into the frequencies used by the Frontier Militia to broadcast encrypted communications, but all he received for his troubles was a loud burst of static. He winced at the noise, shutting the radio module immediately.
Of course there would be jammers. Things just couldn't go easy for him.
He focused, remembering the lessons that Captain Lastimosa had taught him. Pilots placed themselves in the thick of action all the time, whether it was in navigating unknown territories in reconnaissance missions, or infiltrating and capturing military assets of tactical value – just as he had done with the IMS Malta just earlier that day – or in battling alongside their Titans in brutal battles that stretched the limits of human tenacity.
Being transported across spacetime itself, thrust into unknown lands without any relevant information, and with no known means of contacting his Titan?
That was just business as usual for a Pilot.
Lastimosa had drilled it into him from the very start of his informal training that he was never to rely solely on his Titan. It was why basic training for every prospective Pilot began with their skills in basic soldiering and navigation, then advancing to parkour, subterfuge, and tactics, before finally being allowed to practice with a Titan inside the sim pod.
He may have skipped that last step, since his training had never actually been completed – but he had been well-educated in the former two points.
And so, crouching low, reducing his visibility to any observer as much as possible, he began to catch his bearings and make observations.
Spent shells. Burn marks. Plenty of dust. These ruined urban districts had been in this state for quite some time.
In parallel, he began to formulate plans of attack and retreat, just in case they were needed. Pilots saw the world differently – barriers that would normally prove to be obstacles were ambush points; dead-ends were but ways to lose any would-be pursuers. Communications towers were grapple points, and sheer walls insurmountable even to a Titan were but flanking routes.
It was then that he saw the first signs of movement. There were a formation of shapes in the distance – activating the optical zoom of his helmet, he could see that they were strange spider-like vehicles, almost like a Tick in terms of their design, but scaled up to over twice their size, strapped with heavy weaponry of various forms. Cannons, machine guns, rocket launchers, even blades that seemed like a bizarre cross between mandibles and claws…
Their movements were mechanical. Each step of their multiple arthropod-like limbs fell at a continuous rhythm, the spacing between each individual unit maintained perfectly, cruising toward the site of where the rupture in space-time had deposited both him and the mass of debris that had once been part of the interior of the Fold Weapon firing facility.
It seemed likely, then, that these were controlled by forms of artificial intelligence, much like the Spectres, Stalkers, and Reapers that he was used to. Considering that these were the only things that stirred in this lifeless landscape, it was likely that they were the ones who had caused the damage in the first place, and wiped out the people who had once lived here.
He frowned. These were unknown models of drones, that even the database contained within his helmet could not identify. Were they created by the IMC, or by some other unknown organisation? Sure, they utilised Ticks for both anti-personnel and anti-Titan combat, but the IMC favoured equipping their Titans with more potent armaments if ever heavy weaponry was required.
They drew near the crash-site. Their formation broke apart, each unit raising two front limbs to manipulate debris around. From within their ranks, one vermiform model that seemed almost like a giant steel centipede inspected what its peers hauled, a pair of antenna poking and prodding at whatever it could find.
Jack stared at them from beneath his cover, keeping his breath steady, making sure not to give away his position. He had a few fragmentation and arc grenades left on him, but he didn't want to engage right away. Aside from the fact that he doubted the V-47 Flatline assault rifle he had on him could do any significant damage to their more heavily armoured units, even if he aimed for weak points by their joints, it was best that he only revealed his presence if first detected.
He was under no illusions – an unofficial pilot though he may be, he was as human as he had been as a rifleman. He could vault around corners, jetpack his way through obstacles, and leap and twist in ways he had never dreamed possible before experiencing them for himself, but a single lucky shot from the massive cannons that several of these drones wielded would undoubtedly kill him instantly.
How had he gone from regular disposable Militia rifleman to an acting pilot of a Vanguard-class Titan, to being put in a situation where forty million lives on the Militia stronghold of Harmony depended on him, and now, to being transported through what was likely space and time themselves deep into unknown territory?
Funny. Up until last week, he'd been a rifleman in the midst of a war fought with Titans and battleships, nothing more than a gnat on the battlefield. Yet, somehow, ever since he had inherited his mentor's Titan and equipment, things hadn't become the slightest bit simpler.
He spent a moment longer inspecting the unknown drones as they scavenged the debris, but more of their peers were yet approaching. He knew he had two choices here – wait things out, or take the chance to put some distance between himself and these potential enemies.
In the end, he made a snap judgment. There wasn't much that could be retrieved from the rubble – if any valuables hadn't been damaged when he and BT had stormed the facility, they would otherwise likely have been damaged by the chunks of debris impacting against each other at the landing site.
He did, however, need a weapon. Having just a Flatline and a handful of various grenades wasn't going to cut it.
He activated his Cloak ordnance, deftly leaping from wall to signpost, and signpost to partially toppled crane, taking special care to keep his impacts light and displace minimal amounts of dirt and dust. Ejected from the Fold Weapon's spatial rupture like himself, some weapons had managed to clatter a distance away from the main mound of rubble where more and more of these drones were crawling with each passing second.
His feet did not even touch the ground – in mid-air, after kicking off a wall, he allowed himself to descend slightly, before deploying a grapple line that saw him swinging dangerously close to ground level. In the middle of his arc of travel, moving at speeds exceeding forty kilometres an hour – the most he dared to go if he wanted to mask sounds he made – he grabbed a weapon he had been eyeing. Without so much as a pause, he followed through with his swing, disconnecting the grapple line to maintain his forward velocity, sliding into cover smoothly.
In the few seconds that he had allowed himself to be exposed, the drones hadn't even so much as stirred. He waited a moment longer, before de-activating his cloak, allowing it to vent the built-up energy and recharge.
He tossed the Flatline aside, inspecting his new weapon. The Anti-Titan Sidewinder Micro Rocket launcher – more commonly known by its acronym, the AT-SMR. It was no Charge Rifle or Archer Heavy Rocket that could deal significant damage to a Titan if even one shot landed on target, but the projectiles of the Sidewinder were still a force to be reckoned with.
Against the unknowns with thinner-looking armour plating, a few well-placed explosions should be enough to take them out. With the high fire rate of the light machine gun that fired swarms of missiles – 20mm mosquito rockets, they were called – a focussed barrage could punch through even those with thicker armour.
Not too many magazines, unfortunately. Discretion would have to be the better part of valour, for the time being, until he was certain that he could find some form of weaponry suitable for damaging these armoured autonomous drones.
Luckily for him, he had been a rifleman – and that meant scavenging whatever weapon he could find on the battlefields he had been a part of. Sure, he wasn't exactly facing IMC Grunts or Spectres, but at least in that aspect, his current situation was no different.
His priority now was to find BT. The Titan had undoubtedly already assessed what there was to know about their current situation, and was working his way through a plan. Between them both, it had always been BT who provided the directions in order to complete their mission on Tython.
Survival skills he had honed with Lastimosa were at the forefront of his mind, and here, he was thankful that there at least seemed to be sources of drinking water available, judging from the sounds of flowing water picked up by receivers in his helmet. In the Frontier worlds touched by the IMC, any form of non-polluted water was rare, and it wasn't uncommon for the Militia to have to drink their own processed and reclaimed piss in order to survive.
Ignoring the growing numbers of drones, the lone pilot strayed away from open spaces of trampled grasslands and plains, seeking forests, hills, and other similar terrain where he would be allowed to use his mobility as best as possible.
Travelling under the cover of shadows and night, seeking shelter where activity of these potential enemies was lowest, he began to have a rough lay of the land over the following days from the landmarks and signposts that still barely remained in place. He was within the Giadian Empire, but he suspected that the country was now defunct. Not a single living human stirred in its borders.
Before he knew it, days passed as he headed westward.
It was only then that he found his first sign that he had not been transported here alone.
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Jack Cooper wouldn't claim that he was getting used to eluding the many drones in the area, but he liked to think that he was getting better. His training in the sim-pod aboard the James MacAllan had focused on the theory and practice, and he had learnt a great deal from them, but it had been just that – a simulation.
There had been several close calls in the past days since he arrived in this still-unknown world, and he now had absolutely no doubt that the drones could be treated as hostiles. At one point, he musthave had left some sort of hint that he had been sneaking his way through the lands controlled by them, because over the next several hours he had spotted three separate patrol groups converging toward the location he had come from.
If he had been but a regular rifleman without a jump kit or a pilot's training, he would have been boxed inward by their converging routes. Luckily for him, he had the equipment and training necessary to cover far more ground than a regular person could, and had been able to cut a path between two patrol groups before the net they had cast had gotten too tight.
Now, however, lying flat on top of a hill while eyeing the landscape before him, he could honestly say that what he had experience so far had been the easy part. Two things had caught his attention from up on this vantage point.
In the distance were ruins of former cities. The enemy movements were far thicker in this direction of travel, and from the various signposts still standing that he had come across, he knew that what was termed as the 'Republic of San Magnolia' lay in this general direction. The enemies here were not just patrol groups, but full squadrons, mere indistinct shapes in the distance that the optics pilot's helmet had just been barely able to resolve.
It wasn't hard to make an educated guess as to why there were more of these enemies. One only deployed troops en masse to two locations – regions of critical strategic importance that could not afford to be lost, such as the Militia's stronghold of Harmony, or active battlefields, as it had been the case on Tython and Demeter.
If he continued westward, it was likely that he would soon be seeing just what these enemies were fighting against. Perhaps, if they turned out to be anything other than another force comprised entirely of hostile unmanned drones, they might be an amenable to an alliance, while he continued his search for BT.
As odd as it sounded, however, that was not what he was most interested in at the moment.
He turned his gaze north-east. Far closer to his current location than the lands of San Magnolia, it appeared that something else had survived the jump from Typhon to this planet somewhat intact.
"The IMS Malta," he muttered.
The IMS Battleship had been severed, and part of the ship had been sent here by the Fold Weapon's detonation. Of course, there was the possibility that there were other parts of the Malta that had also travelled here, but had been sent to other locations. Considering that he had yet to find even a hint of BT-7274 – which was saying something, since he was a Titan that weighed over fifty tons – and yet they had been but bare metres apart when the Ark had been destabilised, it stood to reason that the folding of spacetime meant that objects originally spatially close to one another might not end up being transported to the same location.
Just weeks ago, he had stormed the IMS Malta during the pursuit of the Draconis and the Ark transported within, and had disabled the gun systems in order to prevent the battleship from destroying more of the Militia's own gunships. He had then proceeded to fight his way down to the bridge, in order to capture the vessel and use it to catch up with the Draconis.
He recognised the battleship easily – the reinforced viewport dividing the bridge from the deck had been shattered by BT-7274, and plenty of damage had been done to the armour plating of the deck from the rockets of Viper's Northstar that he and BT had dodged during their battle.
He had not, however, seized control of the Malta alone.
From what remained of the Malta, destroyed enemy drones were scattered in the vicinity, taken out by what he assumed to be a mixture of Archer Rockets, Charge Rifle blasts, Sidewinder missiles, and magnetic grenades fired by a Mag Launcher. They were clean kills – there was not any errant sign of damage; each pull of the trigger an indeterminate time ago finding a target.
In other words, a Pilot's handiwork.
At least one of the Six-Four must have made it to this planet as well, since they had continued to pilot the IMS Malta to provide support during the push to the Fold Weapon firing facility. They had been one of the closest gunships to the facility, taking down Titans and other gunships alike to cover BT and himself as they raced to prevent the firing of the weapon.
Jack wouldn't profess to knowing much of the physics involved – BT was the expert on that between the two of them – but if the hypergravitational waves of the weapon functioned anything even remotely close to the blast waves of a regular explosive, objects closer to the epicentre of the detonation would be more severely affected. That must have been why part of the Malta had been brought here, while the planet itself had been fractured.
He'd only spent but a matter of minutes with the members of the Six-Four, but their reputation preceded them. Though they were freelance pilots, they were not mere mercenaries driven by profit – they fought for freedom of the Frontier in their own way, allying with the Militia on multiple fronts, even though they were not formerly affiliated with the Frontier Militia.
If the 6-4 are here as well…
They would be formidable allies. He'd been a pilot for a matter of days, but each of the four members of the Six-Four who had been on the Malta had acquired years of pilot experience. If even one of them was here, he needed to find them.
Decision made, he detoured away from the direction of the Republic, stealthily heading down the hill toward the rocky terrain where the Malta had crash-landed after the Fold Weapon imploded. The Six-Four's handiwork was not recent – there was no sign of Gates, Bear, Davis, or Droz, and more of the drones were sifting patrolling the vicinity of the gunship, a few of them recovering their fallen brethren.
Of course, someone had taken the time to scratch a little parting message onto the hull of the ship. Funnily enough, the drones were studying that inscription carefully, treating it with as much weight as the scattered and partially destroyed remains of the Malta.
THE 6-4 IS A FAMILY, AND WE'LL KICK YOUR ARSE!
SIX-FOUR, EVERMORE!
Knowing them, it was probably Davis. Hopefully, he hadn't come here alone.
Jack weighed his options. He probably couldn't get into the ship itself – there were drones patrolling about, and without backup, even if he managed to destroy those that were guarding the place, he would be severely crippled in ammunition when more of their allies arrived. With him being effectively alone, and with enemy reinforcements being able to come from both the direction of the Republic of San Magnolia and from deeper into the fallen lands of the Giadian Empire, trying to make it out in one piece without any support would be difficult.
Even if he did find information of value inside the wreckage of the ship, it would be pointless if he did not live to tell the tale. In its crippled state, lacking even the gun placements that had been focused toward the middle third of the ship, there wasn't much of value that the enemy drones could scavenge – if they even managed to repair the damage acquired to them in the first place.
It was then, however, that he spotted grounds for concern.
One scavenger was picking away at what had once been part of a Tone chassis. One of its arms had been blown cleanly off, and part of its cockpit and torso was entirely missing, but the overall structure of the Titan remained intact.
And, worse – the centipede was collecting stray bits of debris, trying to bring what would fit together like a million-piece jigsaw puzzle, in an attempt to reconstruct the frame of the Titan.
He had originally been thinking of retreating and heading into the Republic to see whether BT had somehow made it to the active battlefront, before returning here once he was reunited with his Titan, but this changed things.
From what he could gather, the drone models he had come across already had formidable weaponry, but they were highly specialised. A tank-variant with powerful cannons; a skirmisher-type with rockets and blades; a light assault model with anti-personnel machine guns and high-speed scouting capabilities; artillery-focused versions that were relatively immobile, but with far more powerful-looking armaments.
With a Titan, however…
Even with just a Tone, they could be surprisingly adaptable. That chassis was equipped with a Particle Wall for defence, tracker cannons for sustained firepower against weaker foes, and a Sonar Pulse round that allowed for scanning of hostiles around obstacles – but worse of all, the ability to deploy tracking rockets, that were difficult even for pilots to dodge if a lock was secured. In a pinch, the energy core of the Titan could even be overcharged, unloading a sizeable portion of the rocket reserves that were present in the chassis as a fast-cycling salvo of rockets that could decimate entire battlefields within instants.
If they somehow could piece together how a Tone worked, and God forbid fit that weaponry into a model as mobile as the arachnid-like crafts, they would become a terrifying force to behold, even if dramatically scaled down. Standard rifleman tactics against isolated Titans relied on outmanoeuvring and flanking them before pelting them with Anti-Titan weaponry, but that strategy would not be as effective against swarms of mobile drones.
He grimaced. This might turn out to be an exceedingly stupid decision, but he couldn't just let the scavenger continue reverse-engineering Titan technology, even if it was taking a remarkably long time to do so.
Of course, he wouldn't just jump head-first into it. He needed to plan an escape route. Simply deploying a grapple line wouldn't work here – there was no good anchorage around, and even if there was, a slingshot would lead to no follow-up in terrain like this. He would put some distance between them, but be cornered in no time.
If so…
He eyed the distribution of the enemy forces. Of the scavengers, the bulk of them were parsing through the ship itself, scurrying about fallen IMC grunts, Spectres, Stalkers, and Reapers. One was cradling the head of a fallen grunt, a sinuous limb drilling into his skull – but Jack could hardly intervene on that count right now. The models with actual combat capabilities were fewer in number, but the relatively open territory disfavoured pilot movements. If things went south, all he had were hills and rocky terrain to play with.
This would have been far easier if the IMS Malta had been sent into a city, just as he had been. At least there, he would have far more room to manoeuvre, deceive his enemies, and either pick them off one by one, or escape with none of them the wiser.
UNITED WE STAND. DIVIDED WE AMBUSH. Such was the motto of the Special Recon Squadron, and why they were still able to stand toe to toe against the IMC. Guerrilla warfare was their specialty.
A pilot's worth didn't solely revolve around his skill with parkour and firing on the go, contrary to what most riflemen and grunts thought. Equal weight had to be given to deception, deceit, and subterfuge.
The enemy didn't know just how valuable the destroyed Titan was. He'd freely allow them to inspect thousands of Spectres, if it meant preserving the know-how of Titan construction and function.
What he needed was to fool them as to what his real target was.
And for that…
He inched himself as close as he could to the wreckage without being spotted, staying low between short flares of his jump kit to traverse gaps that a regular person couldn't. He deliberately placed himself away from the fallen Tone, and closer to where a small group of them were picking apart a group of Spectres that Jack was pretty certain he had put down himself during the capture of the Malta.
With that, he turned away, double-checking that the angles were just right for what he planned to do. Finally, satisfied, he looked to his right – and deployed a single Holo Pilot.
He had seen Lastimosa use the tactical ordnance to great effect in many battles when Jack had been a rifleman. The holoprojection was not a highly advanced creation, simply giving an unreactive mimic of a pilot's movements in a single direction. If anyone stopped to consider for more than a few seconds, they would have realised the duplicity at work.
For a pilot, a few seconds was plenty.
He waited until the hologram was about to cross the threshold. In the instant before it could be spotted, Jack threw one of his fragmentation grenades directly in the middle of the group of drones.
Not waiting for even an instant to see their reaction, he turned and began to run, firing a thrust of his jetpack to build up momentum, staying behind the rocky crevices as much as possible.
From the thundering of cannon-fire and continuous staccato of machine guns, it was pretty clear that they had seen his holo pilot by now.
Fortunately for him, in the span of less than ten seconds, he had looped back to his intended location, forces in the vicinity rushing to investigate the location where the grenade had detonated. The Titan was left completely abandoned.
And with that, while sliding just past the hills to line a clear shot, he unloaded an entire magazine of his Sidewinder. It was probably overkill, having fought against Titans with that weapon before, but he was insistent on making sure that the enemies had as little of the chassis remaining to investigate.
Once that was done – still mid-way through the completion of his slide – he twisted, flaring his jump-kit to turn a sharp angle while still conserving his forward velocity, and hid back among the rocks. Even while behind cover, he didn't wait any longer – building on the momentum he had acquired, he continued in a series of hops and kicks, running along the side of angled outcroppings, leaping from crevice to crevice.
By the time the gunfire died down behind him, he was already well and long gone.
He could only hope that Titan was the only one still remaining on board this part of the Malta. If there were others still around, and if more of Typhon had been dragged along to this unknown planet…
They lacked aerial capabilities – his observations thus far told him that much. Beyond the radar jammers, and what seemed like aircraft focused solely on anti-air capabilities, there were no bombers or gunships around. Still, even if they couldn't manufacture aerial support for some reason, having access to IMC technology would be a gamechanger. Coupled with their level of artificial intelligence and manufacturing capability that allowed them to spawn as many drones as he had seen thus far, complete dominance over the ground with unmanned drones might just be achievable.
It would take time – it had taken years for the Militia to replicate Titan technology, and result in the creation of their very own Vanguard-class line of Titans. Still, this was a machine army that did not rest, and whose numbers seemed endless. If they managed to reverse-engineer what technology the IMC had, Jack reckoned that the tides of war would swiftly change. In terms of ballistics, they had similar levels of technology – but energy weaponry was a whole other field entirely that he hadn't seen among the drones he had come across.
And if they ever amassed an army of Titans, then – well, there would be little that he and BT could do to stop them, even if at least some of the 6-4 were around and resisting the enemy wherever they had retreated to.
He could only hope that whatever other powers were resisting this drone army had an ace up their sleeve, because things could quickly take a turn for the worse. Once that happened, it would take a victory on the scale of the Battle of Demeter to turn back the tides.
With those troubled thoughts, he entered into what had formerly been lands belonging to the Republic of San Magnolia, and restarted his search for his Titan friend with renewed motivation.
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