Maneuvering the Spitfire around to fit where he intended it to, Davis swung the stock into the glass of the Gremlin's window, smashing it open and allowing a torrent of air to rush into the car as they continued to speed towards the compound. Flipping it around once more, he poked the barrel out of the newly made orifice and opened fire.
At this range, Gates was doubtful he'd hit anything, especially with the recoil of the LMG; but with how deep the ammo reserves were on that thing, there wasn't any harm in hoping a stray round or two caught something important.
Perez yelled out again, his voice rising as he kept the turret firing. Another wave of bullets peppered the outside of their car, Gates and Davis instinctively ducking down at the noise- but the Sergeant refused to yield, simply spraying and hoping he didn't run out of ammunition at this point. Especially this close-
She saw the sudden incoming missile far too late, and tried to turn. As the tires slid against the red grass of the fields they drove through, she cried out, "BRACE!"
A moment later, the projectile impacted against the ground on the side of the Gremlin. Lifting the car into the air, all three occupants felt the telltale sign of freefall in their gut as they were promptly sent rolling up … and then came crashing back down.
The sudden cessation of momentum snapped Gates' head forward onto the steering wheel, and she yelped in pain. For a few seconds, her vision was bleary- then, everything began to come back into focus.
The Gremlin was now upside down, and gravity was taking its toll- both she and Davis were now lying against the roof of the car, their shoulder blades bearing most of their weight. Pulling her legs out from the pedal area, she retracted them down to her and then adjusted herself so that she was upright once more. Davis mirrored her action, then turned to look at the backseat where the turret had been.
"Perez? You okay?"
"I've been better," grunted the rifleman, shifting his weight so that he too now laid against the ceiling-turned-floor of the Gremlin. Gates gave a sigh of relief, having feared that the grunt would have been far less fortunate with his position than he had been.
"C'mon," she ordered, crawling through the shards of broken glass and metal fragments that littered the interior. Davis' side of the car was nearly completely crushed, but hers had been more fortunate- the door's window frame had been relatively undamaged, and it didn't take much effort to shatter the weakened glass of it to create an escape opening.
Dragging herself out into the light, she kept herself crouched behind the cover of the car as she looked out to see the status of the compound and the other teams. She could see the many parked Gremlins and Samsons, the massive hole in the front gate as they'd blown it open, and she could hear the sounds of gunfire from here.
"This is Red-1, what's our status Red-Team?"
"Red-5 here, we've moved on the facility! Assaulting the control room now!"
"Copy that, we'll be there ASAP." Turning to look at the other two occupants of the Gremlin as they crawled out of the wreckage, she retrieved her R-201 from her back and flashed a wolf's grin that they couldn't see so much as feel it under her helmet.
"You wanted fun, Davis? Better hurry, or we'll miss it!"
…
Vale stared blankly at the many monitors around the hangar showcasing the battle as it progressed. Both the IMS Nautilus and the MCS Unforeseen had been destroyed, and the IMS Persephone and EOS Marcus Graves were on their way out if they didn't get more covering fire soon.
The feeling of being helpless, unable to do anything as you watched those you cared about be ripped away- it wasn't an unfamiliar experience for her.
"You look like you've had better days."
She chuckled weakly. "No, I'm just peachy- after all, I should be used to impossible odds at this point, right?"
Tobias ignored her somewhat macabre joke. "What's wrong?"
"Other than the hundreds who've died already and the billions that hang in the balance?" she tried again, though even she could hear the snippiness in her tone as she said it. "Nothing, in that case."
"Amelia."
He'd never used her first name before- though not for lack of knowing it, of course. If that didn't tell her outright that she'd crossed a line, she didn't know what would. But when she turned around to apologize, she didn't find him angry- just tired. He seemed to be splitting apart at the seams just as much as she was.
It was that expression which finally convinced her to cave in. "I just … I miss Tyra."
He nodded understandingly. "Yeah. I miss her too."
"I keep finding myself wanting to make remarks to her, to ask her how she thinks everything's going, to crack a joke- only to realize that she's not here, and I can't do any of those things anymore."
Tobias swallowed hard. "I know the feeling."
She sighed softly, and crossed her arms with a metallic clink. "She was only the first, and I'm still paying for it four years later. How many more are we going to lose today? Who are we going to keep remembering years down the road, wishing we could forget? You? Me? Gates? All of us? I just …"
"I'm having the same thoughts," he admitted, mirroring her stance with the crossed arms. "I don't expect to make it out of this one."
She couldn't help but feel amused at that. "You? But you're Tobias Four, the man who seems to survive everything- whether out of skill or extreme luck, I haven't the slightest."
He shook his head slowly. "Well, I think that luck's about to run out- maybe it already has. I don't know." He faced her. "What I do know is that I don't want to focus on what comes after- just what's happening now. If I die … I just want to make my memory worth something. Make it something to be proud of- like Tyra did."
Vale considered that. "Maybe that's all we really can do."
Together, they stood in silence until a loudspeaker suddenly came to life and began to bark orders.
"Green-Team, report to your stations! Prepare for deployment!"
She opened up her comlink to the rest of her squad. "Just got the call, I'll meet you guys down there in two."
"Sounds like a plan."
"Copy that."
She turned it back off and looked at Tobias. "Well … guess I'll see you down there."
He held his hand out to her, an offer which she accepted warmly. "Stay safe, okay?"
"You know me," she replied with a chortle as she turned and began to run. "No promises!"
Exiting the hangar, she raced to the flight of stairs which would take her to the lower decks. Other Pilots crowded around her, all trying to reach their stations in time. Like a group of lemmings, they poured out onto the deck and coordinated to find their assigned spots. She spied an easily recognizable squad of Pilots a ways away, and moved to greet them.
"Was wondering when you'd show up," Rose called to her jokingly.
"Needed a bit of a pep talk," she replied, not quite in as humorous of a mood. She turned to look at his Titan, a gray and orange Northstar. "Hey, Thorn."
"Hello, Pilot Vale," he greeted her in a low voice, "It is good to see you."
Buck took a few steps toward her, trying to get a read on her. "You okay, Amelia?"
She nodded. "I'll be a hell of a lot better once Spyglass is scrap- but yeah, I'm ready."
He gave a simple nod, and then turned to walk to his own Titan. The bright, white Prime Northstar awaited him with an open hatch, eager to get to work. He wasted no time in hopping in and checking her systems.
"How is Amelia doing?" she asked.
"She'll be fine, Eve," he assured her. "Are we online?"
"Affirmative," EV confirmed, "all systems are green- awaiting orders."
He'd have given a sigh to steady his nerves if he still had lungs- as it was, he opted to simply remain in the cockpit and try to still himself as best he could.
…
With one final burst of gunfire, the last stalker fell. Davis blew on the hot barrel of the Spitfire, dissipating the heat. Looking down, he saw something that caught his eye.
Gates stepped forward just in time to see him wrench the L-STAR from the dead stalker's hand, and heft it up comfortably while replacing the Spitfire on his back. He glanced at her and nodded happily.
Ignoring his exchange of weaponry, she walked through the control room as several other riflemen and two Pilots followed her.
"Someone get me access to the MAC defenses from here," she ordered. One of the grunts, apparently an engineer, quickly moved to obey. Pulling out a data-knife, he stuck it in a compatible port and began to search through the many systems tied to the compound.
"Whoa, I've got it," he called out unexpectedly.
"Already?"
"Yes ma'am," he confirmed, squinting to look at the screen more closely. "All orbital stations targeting OS's can be accessed from here."
"Seems awfully easy- not to mention convenient," Davis surmised, looking around the room suspiciously for an impending ambush.
"It's weird- there was so little security involved. Maybe Spyglass didn't think anyone would actually make it to the ground?"
"It'd certainly match his arrogance," Gates muttered. "We'll worry about it later. Can we shut them down from here?"
"Yes ma'am!"
"Do it."
He began to input lines of code into the computer, remaining completely silent as he did so. Davis kept an eye on their surroundings while the rifleman worked, still unsure of the situation's legitimacy.
"And … there! The MAC guns are inoperable!"
Gates wasted no time in opening up her comlink. "Embers Fleet, this is Red-Team! The objective is complete, the MAC stations are offline! I repeat, the MAC stations are offline!"
…
"… the MAC stations are offline!"
Barker heard the declaration even before the communications officer called it out to confirm it. He let out an involuntary sigh of relief before unclipping the flask at his hip and taking a quick celebratory swig.
He'd sacrificed a lot of people to get them this far- he hoped it had been worth it.
"Prepare Green-Team for deployment."
…
The comlink crackled to life from within EV, something which was apparently shared across the entire fall-deck; very quickly, everyone fell silent as they strained to hear their next orders.
"… Green-Team, standby for Titanfall."
A massive lurch in the ship's trajectory could be felt through the hull, and a raucous cheer sprang up from every corner of the room as the Pilots prepared for the next stage of the plan.
EV's hatch closed, and he felt his link with her stabilize as their separate nervous systems became one; he felt what she felt. The ocular systems engaged, allowing him to see what she saw. And their minds became connected, allowing them to know each other's thoughts.
A whirr of machinery behind them alerted him to the presence of the ceiling's safety clamps as it grabbed EV's arms and maneuvered her over to the correct drop chute. The door remained closed for now, but that was about to change.
"Man, it's been far too long since we've had one of these!"
Buck gave a small chuckle. "Save your excitement for the enemy, Rose- I'm sure they'll be pretty happy to see you."
"Copy that, sir."
One by one, rows of Titans were given the green light to drop. He watched intently as the one in front of him slowly ticked down the seconds.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
With a loud blaring hum, the light turned green and he disengaged the clamps.
The chute provided a bit of additional thrust power to launch them at their target- while the fleet was now far closer with relatively more confidence in their engagements with the enemy cruisers, they were still technically in vacuum- just outside Regis' atmosphere.
Looking around at the other Titans falling, he noted with shock that some of them were being targeted by the aforementioned enemy ships. Small pinpricks of light could be seen igniting and immediately extinguishing as the void swallowed them up. He couldn't do much except hold on tight and pray that it didn't happen to him or the others.
Finally, he heard the whistling of air as it was parted by EV's rapidly descending chassis. The other Titans had similar effects, their bodies practically screaming through the air as they approached the ground.
"Cedric, prepare for landing in five … four … three …"
He tuned out EV's voice as he watched the ground race up to meet them, a landscape full of red fields and plains as well as a thick forest of pink-leafed far ahead of them. If their mission wasn't so dire, he might have reflected on the stunning beauty of it.
Bending his legs to absorb the impact, Buck felt them finally transfer their momentum into the dirt with a booming WHAM. Using his right arm to brace EV's body as it pitched forward from the sudden stop, their movement finally came to a halt.
Standing up, he rotated around to look at the other Titans for signs of his squad; he spotted Thorn and Skids several meters away, similarly attempting to find each other in the crowd of mechanized warriors.
"Vale, Rose, report!" he called out.
"All good here."
"Same, I'm fine."
He thanked whatever forces above he could for sparing them from the grisly fate of being blown apart before landing like the unfortunate casualties they'd suffered on the way down-
"Green-7 to Green-1, we've got enemy forces inbound on our location!"
Buck quickly snapped his attention to the direction which Green-7 had indicated the movement was coming from- sure enough, he could spy several waves of riflemen and Titans approaching from the tree-line, each of them sporting the disturbing glow effect in either their eyes or their optics that signified their status as early victims of the Coalescence.
Reaching around with his arm to retrieve the railgun from EV's back, he shifted their weight forward and raised the massive cannon-like weapon up in preparation for the brawl ahead of them.
Next to him, Thorn performed the same sort of action while Skids pulled a much thinner sword than standard-issue Ronins out and held it pointed towards their foes.
"Think they know we're here?"
"… Yeah, Rose. I think they know we're here."