Welcome Home

Behind Enemy Lines

—-Meanwhile, Third Person POV—-

"Standby for titanfall," Epsilon ordered before he cut the comm. The floor of the dropship folded away and the Titans fell down to the battlefield. The hordes of IMC forces poured out from drop pods and drop ships orbiting the battlefield. "Get to cover, pilots," Briggs ordered. "Cut off their supply of troops."

"On it," Viper said. "Ilia, with me. Wingman formation." He and Ilia took off, heading to the other side of the battlefield. "Setting trackers. Do not leave my wing," he ordered.

"Didn't even think of it," Ilia replied.

"Bandits spotted. Visual clear. I've got good tone." Viper smirked under his helmet. Northstar's missile pods opened, as did Thundercracker's. "Bring the rain." Viper allowed the salvos of missiles to fall out of the pods and onto the dropships. Letting gravity do the work for the explosives, he and Ilia got clear of their blast radius. The missiles exploded on contact, leaving many infantry dropships smoldering wrecks as they hit the ground.

Just after Viper and Ilia got back to their cover with the rest of the Militia pilots, the Titans began to fall. Modded and upgraded Titans covered the battlefield, along with normal ones that belonged to more inexperienced pilots. Viper noticed some more basic Atlases, Stryders, and Ogres fall to the battlefield. "Briggs," he said over the comm. "Despite What I heard from IMC radio chatter, this attack is not a test. This is an all-out assault, and a desperate one at that. The IMC is throwing every available resource they have at this attack. My advice: exploit their desperation. Show them that we won't go down without a fight."

"Understood," Briggs responded. "Let the rest of the squad know."

"Will do, commander. Viper: out." Before comming the rest of the team, he spoke out loud to himself: "I hope Epsilon and Rumble are having better luck than we are."

—-(Wreckage POV)—-

"Do you have a plan to get us out of this?" Rumble and I stood back-to-back.

"Don't die," I said.

"That's it?"

"You want a better plan? Fine. Hey!" I yelled to the soldiers. "We surrender." I raised my hands. Some of the soldiers lowered their weapons. I lowered my hands and discretely grabbed a frag grenade. "Phase shift now," I said quietly to Rumble. I pulled the pin and grappled the vent.

"Grenade!" A soldier shouted. The vent gave me a view to watch the fireworks.

"You're good now, Rumble," I said over the comms.

He reappeared. "What did you do?"

"I detonated a grenade in a confined space. Now let's get going. We've got a lot more ground to cover."

After what felt like an eternity of crawling through the vents, I pulled up the holomap. "According to the map, we're right on top of the Fold Weapon."

"Let's fuck some shit up." Rumble phase shifted out of the vent and I punched the hinges on an exit and dropped down. I noticed Marder speaking with a technician.

He turned to face us and his expression turned to anger. "Guards, deal with the intruders."

I looked around, not noticing any guards. Then, eight robots uncloaked and surrounded Rumble and I. They were like spectres, but stronger, faster, and more agile. Each had small cylindrical tanks on their right shoulders with a hose that connected the tank with the weapon that was where a right hand should be. The flame symbol on their left shoulders confirmed my suspicions.

The leader stood in front of us. He had distinguishable red markings on his face, chest, and flamethrower, and he had a sword sheathed on his back. He unsheathed his sword and pointed it at us, the long, broad blade shimmering in the light. "Surrender now," he said in a low, monotone voice. Rumble and I stayed silent. "Flame Spectre 1197 and Flame Spectre 1198, take their weapons," he ordered to his subordinates.

Before the spectre could react, I shot one of them with fire dust, rupturing his fuel tank and causing his chassis to be engulfed in flames. I cloaked and said to Rumble over the comms, "Distract them while I set the charges." I cloaked and sprinted to the Fold Weapon. I covered it with satchel charges and got back to where Rumble was and punched one of the flame spectres in the back of the head, offlining it instantly.

"Rumble, retreat. The mission is over," I said.

"Finally. How do you plan to get us out?" Rumble asked.

"Run."

"Run?"

"Run!" I turned to spring for the door, but the Flame Spectre Leader has other ideas. He tried to bring his sword down on me, but I blocked it. After getting the sword away from me, I unsheathed both data knives as he came in for another strike. "Rumble! Take the detonator! I'll catch up!"

"No way!" Rumble shot two spectres. "We're in this together. Run for it on my count!"

"Got it." I blocked another strike.

"One... two... now!" Rumble phase shifted and I cloaked, running for the door.

Marder slammed a button and an alarm started blaring. His voice came over the PA. "Do not the let the intruders escape! We are going into lockdown."

Doors slammed shut in front of us, but I blew them up with frag grenades and Rumble set firestars to prevent anyone from following us. I stayed cloaked and Rumble only exited the phase dimension to place the firestars. When we finally reached the hangar, we made a beeline for our ship and hastily boarded. There was no exit, so we made our own by shooting through a wall with the ship's artillery.

As we headed back towards Remnant's surface, I noticed the IMC fleet evacuating. The Draconis stayed. An escape pod was fired from her and picked up by a larger ship, the pod probably containing Marder and other high-ranking officers. All ships that had a jump drive were out of sight in seconds.

"Captain, we're through the atmosphere," the ship's pilot said.

"Then get ready for some fireworks." I grabbed the satchel detonator and prepared to squeeze the trigger. "You know what, wait till we land."

We landed in a clearing near the Militia outpost. Before we left, I gave Viper rendezvous coordinates to meet at the Militia base when our ship returned. He was standing at the coordinates with Northstar when we landed.

I exited the ship with Rumble and Viper approached us. "This had better be worth it. The fighting is brutal out there, the squad needs me."

"I know, Viper. We needed cover fire to get back into the battle. Two Titans just wouldn't be enough and we were not going to land in the middle of a battlefield. Besides, I thought you might enjoy the fireworks." I revealed the satchel detonator. I stared at the sky, the Draconis was unmoving. The IMC knew what was happening. She was the only ship left in the sky from the original fleet; the rest either evacuated or were destroyed. I pulled the trigger on the detonator, and after a few moments, the Fold Weapon imploded, releasing a massive surge of energy and taking the Draconis with it. All that was left to do was destroy the rest of the ground forces.

Hey guys, Thunder here.

It has been a while, hasn't it? I am so sorry it took me this long to update Welcome Home. School has been almost too much to handle but I'm trying to do what I can. I hate when people just abandon their stories, and I can promise that I have not abandoned Welcome Home. There will be more to come in the future, and I still have more planned. While I cannot promise consistent updates, I can promise more frequent updates. I'm very sorry this took so long and I hope that you're all still with me. I hope you're looking forward to where this story goes in the future and I can wait to write it. Thanks for staying with me.

-Thunder