Echoes

by THEPHANTOM50

The IMC think they have found the key to winning in the frontier and put a plan into action but the Militia have other ideas and take some specal cargo from them and that launches a set of old events that reemerge to cause trouble for both sides who will come out on top this time. The IMC? The Militia? Or maybe their game changer just wants to chose for himself.

1. Chapter 1 The Beginning

A/N Sorry for the huge break and sorry this is a rewrite but some things have changed and I think my skill has improved so I will be redoing all of this adding things here and there and then finneshing it so here gose nothing

Weird Beginnings

The constant clicking and unclicking of the pen was starting to drive Gates crazy, but Barker was as usual unaware that he was doing it and she wasn't going to interrupt Sarah about Barkers subconscious tick. They were doing what they usually do, a bimonthly check in with all the commanders of the militia to keep all things organized, todays just happen to be over vid-call since Gates was out system chasing down a lead on some new IMC plan. "That raps up all the info I have from M-COR and the SRS" Sarah said closing down her data pad and looking into her camera, then asked "Barker do you have anything new since last time?" Taking his feet off of his desk and sitting up he said "No, nothing has changed since my last report about ACES we are still refitting all our equipment with the new anti-hack protection, we are now at eighty five percent complete and our expected reactivation date has not changed. That is all for me." Finished with his report Barker kicked his feet back up on his desk and started spinning his pen between his fingers. Grateful that he stopped clicking it Gates reached for her own data pad just to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything before starting her report. "Not much has changed on my end either as I have pulled most of the 64's forces for this op to secure this unknown shipment from the core. The only note I have is that this shipment will be jumping in to the Haltarey system, so wile we are handling it no communications will be possible because of local star and nebula interference." As she finneshed talking she placed the data pad back down and leaned forward on the desk. Barker stopped twirling the pen and sat straighter asking "Most of the 64, isn't that a bit much for one op on one ship?" Gates shifted her weight before replying "For you or Sara yes but for me, well I'm not as lucky. I've pulled seventy percent of the 64 and even then that's only fifty pilots and supporting staff with two divisions of line troopers at minimum gear." As she finneshed Bear walked in and whispered in her ear before leaving. "It appears my time is up as we are ready to make our jump to Haltarey to set the ambush." Gates said standing and stepping back. Sara nodded with a simple "Ok" and disconnected wile Barker chuckled softly and shook his head as he two disconnected. Gates shutdown her own terminal and left the coms room heading for the bridge, she knew that once they arived in system it would be anywhere from eighteen to thirty-six hours till the target arived as the all jumps it had made before were sporadic and nonstandard up to this point. When the door to the bridge opened Gates could see out the front armor glass onto the stars and Captain Andros at his twin terminal command podium issuing orders to finish preparations for the jump. "Over here" Bear called from her right, he stood at the secondary tactical holo table wich had been reserved for the 64's ground command team when the ship had been assigned to them. The ship, the Monitor had originally been a Isaac class light cruiser designed for escort duty and rapid interdiction work, but the I.M.C. had refitted it as a heavy troop transport to deploy auto titans and specter teams after the battle at Demeter. But times change and Captain Andros and his crew decided they had had enough and defected to the militia ship and all two years ago and the militia refitted it again to be somewhere in between the two as a rapid interdiction and boarding vessel that could launch spec op strikes and tier one kill teams behind enemy lines. After all that it had ended up under 64's command as next to the SRS the 64 ran more spec ops than any other group in the militia since Gates's standards are high and very few make it in. "Hey Bear, all set?" Gates said walking up to the table. Bear nodded saying "Andros says all thigs green starside, and all boarding teams are doing final checks on gear and assault ships now." He slid a series of reports from his data pad display onto the holo table for her to see, she reviewed the data before nodding "These are good thank you Bear and pass my thanks onto the teams their times improve daily and are setting new standards" Gates said closing the file "With pleasure" Bear replied with a quick salute and then returned to his work with the rest of the command staff. Gates turned and walked to a postion behind Captain Andros to wait for the jump, he turned as she approached "Commander, we will be leaving shortly and be in system in one hour." He said addressing her. His voice was a smooth refined thing with an accent a little thicker then her own, a commanding voice that spoke with a confidence earned from years at his post and not arrogance. "Thank you, Captain." Gates replied clasping her hands behind her back as the warping in her vision began the telltale sign of a jump.

26 hours later

Thaught was fuzzy and slow he couldn't make sence of anything for a few seconds, then his nural link came online and every thing snapped back. He snapped his hands up and they slammed into glass, opening his eyes more and more he could see slowly that his cryo containment was ending and he didn't recognize where he was.

Gates had taken the bridge with her assault teams and Bear was securing the cargo storage and engine room with his. "Clear" the final check came as she walked up to the Captains counsel and pulled the dead specter off of it and started looking for a data port to slot into, the whole crew had been drones of some type or another but auto or not there isn't much that can match a pilot let alone a team of pilots. Gates found the port she was looking for and inserted her data knife in and started cracking the encryption on the shipboard server "Commander" it was Bear over coms "Status?" Gates asked as she opened the terminal and started checking files "Cargo room secure and McMasters is finneshing up in engineering. I've got three storage devices down here two on the larger side one smaller, one of the larger ones has a glass front but we can't see inside it's all frosted up." Came Bear's reply a little broken and choppy thanks to the system interference. "Understood Bear I've found the manifest and cargo codes and I'm on my way down now" Gates said as she linked a data pad to the terminal and began transferring the information, looking up she called out to two pilots "Murphy, Jenkins, you two with me the rest stay here do the usal data checks then standby" a chorus of "Yes ma'am" rang out and the two she called followed her down to cargo. The ship side door for the cargo bay wasn't much in the of size but it didn't need to be as no cargo passed threw it. "Ma'am this is the last bulkhead." Murphy said as he pressed the activation counsel and the door slide open with a soft woosh, as it opened Gates could see Bear inside the hold standing next to a cryo storage pod discussing something with one of his pilots. She stepped over the raised seal of the bulkhead and into the hold taking out her data pad as she drew closer and said "One set of keys to your mystery box." Bear turned and gave a quick salute "Thanks, we've been racking our brains on what is in all of these. Now that we have the manifest and open codes lets end the questions." Bear said as he motioned teams to ready positions and stepped up to the largest crate and punched in the code from Gates's data pad. Gates stood ready Longbow raised as the crates double doors opened and revealed a bent over titan that looked like a vanguard or monarch style motionless with its forward computer port standing by for core insertion. "Well, I'll be honest I wasn't expecting a titan in there" Bear said almost to himself as he moved to the cryo pod and entered the code and began the thawing process. At first nothing noticeable happened but after a few seconds the frost began to fade and they could see what was in the pod, there was a man lying in the pod he was wearing what looked like the standard under suit for pilots and nothing else. After a few more seconds of the wake up process he began to move, slowly at first but then he slammed his hands against the glass of the pod and Gates swore she saw the lid move slightly. After the sudden burst of movement he seemed to compose himself laying back in the pod and watching every move they made as the sequence finneshed. Three more minutes passed before the pod opened and the man inside stepped out hands raised "Stop there!" Bear said Devotion aimed center mass. The man stopped and stood stock still waiting for Bear to continue "Turn around. Now walk backwards towards my voice, good, keep coming, keep coming, Stop. On your knees hands behind your head and interlace your fingers." Bear walked the stranger to within ten feet of the line of pilots before motioning two pilots from his squad for to bind his hands. Gates lowered her Longbow and turned to Bear and started to say some thing but before she could there was a wet crack of a bone on bone hit followed with one of the pilots saying "Fuck he's L-" before getting an elbow in the gut and then being used as a shield from Gates and Bear as the man finneshed the other pilot witch he had hit first with a head but and now just swept his legs out from under him leaving him prone on the floor stunned. Bear began moving to get a clear shot but before he could the stranger threw the other pilot and hit Bear knocking them both down, at this point Gates had her shot but the Longbow was a little to unwieldly in this close and fast of a situation and the man had closed the gap between them and disarmed her switching his aim towards a rifleman. Gates shoulder barged him and quickly dropped the mag and rack the slide emptying the weapon before he could fire, the man seemed shocked at what she did not moving for half a second and that was all the time she needed. Grabbing the rifle sideways and forcing the upper receiver into his face and loosening his grip she wrenched it free of his grip and now grabbed the barrel housing with two hands hit him in the head with the stock laying him flat. Gates took sevral steps back as she loaded a new mag and racked the first round aim level waiting for Bear to finnesh standing and join her, the man on the floor only rolled on his side holding his nose as it had started bleeding "Bear…..Watch him" Gates said a little out of breath. Bear aimed his weapon again and waited as Gates walked up to the man on the ground and placing one knee on him and leaning onto it to keep him from moving wile she cuffed him. Standing when she finneshed she looked at him one more time and said "Secure him to the cryo pod just to be sure and Bears follow me to the bridge." The usual sounds of acknowledgment came and Bear followed her out, that was not how Gates thaught any of this was going to go and it was only the beginning.