The IMC outpost wasn't particularly impressive to look at, but it was definitely something of interest.
Something to help them figure out this mystery.
Tobias tossed a ratio bar over to Tyra. She caught it easily, and gave a small nod of thanks. He looked over to where KT and the other Titans were standing guard on this hilltop they'd decided to settle on. It was roughly a klick away from the outpost, but due to its elevation, it would be hard to see them here. So they had the advantage of both distance and visibility.
The outpost itself was fairly average size; a dockyard for ships, a military facility, and what looked to be a vehicle bay connected to it. Nothing of real value, if it weren't for their current situation. Its location was out of the way and on the edge of a cliff, so they wouldn't be here if they had other options.
It had been four days since they'd discovered the ruins. In that time, they had discovered that there were several other dig sites as well, all of them abandoned like the first. What exactly the IMC were looking for, they didn't have any ideas yet. But with the information they DID have, they could put another plan into action. Try to piece together the puzzle.
They just had to get back to the Militia.
Unfortunately, an extraction from Erebus was not an option. Their own dropship had been shot down almost immediately upon entering IMC space, and the same would happen for any kind of rescue team. Which left plan B, one that involved the IMC outpost... and the dropships parked in its dockyard.
"How much longer until we want to make a move?" asked Vale, glancing over at him while he sat against a mound of snow. He checked the time on his wrist pad.
"Give it another twenty minutes. It'll be getting dark out then, and it'll be harder to detect us. Might as well start getting ready, though." The Stim nodded, and turned back to look out towards the base. He stood up, ready to carry out the first part of the plan.
He walked over to the Titans. "Alright, it's time."
Skids turned and nodded, then bent down to his level. Presenting his main optic, Tobias reached forward and removed the unique rectangular casing of a Ronin's eye, and watched as the main data core of the Titan was revealed. Circular and blue in appearance, data cores were universally accepted by all Titan chassises, and were interchangeable. Feeling for a release mechanism, he found it and slid the now removable eye of Skids out. He held it in his hand, and looked at the side of it where SKD-3812 was engraved. He placed it in a pouch, and moved on as the Ronin chassis remained where it was.
Cee also knelt, and presented his eye for removal. The main spider-like eye with so many lights was just the outer case for the main eye inside, which was just one large blue light. Removing that revealed the data core hidden behind it. Taking it and looking at the side showed that CH-1134 was written there much like Skids' core.
He walked over to Tyra and handed her the pouch, now full with both Titans' data cores. "Keep that safe." She didn't really need to be told that, but it never hurt to be safe. She gave him a nod, and walked over to where Vale stood, psyching themselves up for what they were about to do.
Without a data core, the Ronin and Scorch chassis would be relatively easy to destroy, no more than a distraction. But that was all they needed; a distraction.
He glanced over at KT to see her staring right back at him. She was the only Titan whose data core wouldn't be stored with Tyra, and also had the most dangerous job as such. They stayed like that for a few seconds, understanding how risky the plan they were about to attempt was. She gave a small bow, and he gave her a thumbs up. That was all they needed to do to know how the other felt. He looked up at the sky to see it beginning to darken as the faint sun on the horizon began to disappear from sight.
"Alright everyone-"
"Let's do this?" interrupted Tyra, her voice betraying the smile she was likely hiding. He nodded.
"Let's do this."
...
The IMC riflemen in the dockyard never really expected anyone to actually infiltrate the base. After having been stationed on this god-forsaken planet for so long, with nothing but dig-sites and no results, they were bound to lapse in proper security. Which was why they didn't notice the silhouette of a single pilot darting through the airfield, using the shadows and size of the ships to her advantage as she found what she was looking for.
Having selected a ship far enough away to remain undetected, but close enough to provide safe extraction for Four and Vale, Tyra opened the bay door, and walked up the ramp. She sat down in the pilot's chair, and held a hand up to her helmet while flipping switches and priming the ship's engines.
"I am in position, and the ship is ready for takeoff. Vale, Four? What's your progress?"
...
"...Vale, Four? What's your progress?"
He held up a hand to his helmet, and whispered, "We're ready to initiate the distraction."
He and Vale were crouching next to the vehicle bay, a massive warehouse with ground vehicles and excavation equipment a plenty. At the far end of it was a door that would lead deeper into the facility, and where they wanted to go. But to get through the soldiers ambling about, they would need to occupy them with something else.
"KT, send the signal."
"Affirmative."
He and Vale waited for another minute or so as KT, who was hidden a decent distance away, emitted an encoded signal bearing instructions to two particular mechs.
Rumble.
Some of the soldiers looked around in confusion.
Rumble.
One of them turned and pointed outside. He was about to yell at the new threat before a wall of lead pellets tore right through him and created many a new office in his body.
Rumble.
The next soldier who indicated the two newcomers was luckier, and shouted, "TITANS!"
The Ronin and Scorch chassis began to open fire on the riflemen within the base, and the IMC soldiers reciprocated in excess. They began to charge out with guns and MGL's alike, seeking to destroy them as fast as possible. While they were occupied with the two Titans, Tobias and Vale darted through the bay to the door, and quickly gained entry.
"We're inside, we'll update you when we reach the target."
Without any further information, they didn't have much to tell the Militia about what the IMC were doing here, only that they were digging up old ruins. He was hoping that if they poked around in the logs of this outposts archives, then it might provide a better clue as to what exactly they were looking for inside all these ancient structures, and why they wanted it.
He and Vale dashed through the base, sticking to walls when necessary, but attempting to make it to their target as fast as possible. Those chassises outside wouldn't last long without a proper AI or a pilot; they were running off of the most basic programming right now.
"Looks like it's working; the soldiers in the dockyard have all left to go fight the Titans. It's clear here."
He didn't respond, but flashed his green acknowledgement light on the HUD to show that he heard her.
The halls were easy to get lost in if you weren't careful; just sterile white walls and lights adorning every corridor. Not much in the way of style out here, just pure efficiency.
Eventually, they came to what appeared to be the control room of the base. With one on each side of the doorframe, both of them peered around the edge to scan the room.
It was empty, save for three riflemen. Monitors and consoles lined the walls of the room, with the far wall having been converted into a massive reinforced window, almost like the bridge of a frigate would have, upon which one could look outside at the landscape of white.
After a short burst of gunfire, the threat of the riflemen had been neutralized. Stepping over their bodies, they rushed to one of the consoles, and pried open the hard casing with Tobias' data knife. Wasting no time, he stuck it into the compatible slot for a transfer of all the base's stored files; logs, mission records, findings, everything. He expanded the transfer to include anything that had been shared on a network between this facility and other outposts as well.
"Downloading the data now," he quickly spoke under his breath.
"Understood. I'll be waiting."
The holographic rings of the knife continued to slowly cycle from orange to blue, signifying its progress. Vale stood at the door anxiously, watching the entrance hallway. "How much longer is it gonna take?"
"I don't know, but there's a lot more information in here than we thought. Just give me a little more-"
"Pilot, the two chassises have been disposed of, you're running out of time."
He growled in frustration. "I'm working on it, KT!"
The suspension only grew as silence fell, and there was nothing left to do but watch the digits on the knife continue to flash as the rings encircled themselves.
Blip.
The knife stopped lighting up as all of the data had finally been transferred, and he gave a sigh of relief. He pulled it out as he said, "I got it! Let's-"
BANG.
Reeling from the shock of the noise, he quickly spun around to see Vale's body teetering on those blade-like feet of hers, trying to retain its balance. Her head had been completely blown apart, circuits and wiring fizzing and crackling in their exposed state. As he watched, it ever so slightly was nudged forward, and fell face-first to the ground.
A slight waviness in the air stood behind her, and it began to materialize into the more visible form of a female IMC pilot holding a Mozambique right at Tobias' face. A cloak. Not a widely used technology, but damn useful as evidenced by the fact hat neither Vale nor he had noticed until it was too late.
"I've been compromised," he whispered.
"Hands behind your head, and get on your knees," she ordered. He quickly complied, as to not receive a face full of lead. Vale was a Simulacrum; she could be reuploaded, he couldn't.
"What do you mean? Four? Respond!"
"Pilot?! Hold on Four, I'm on my-"
The pilot quickly stepped forward, and yanked his radio transmitter out from the side of his helmet. She held it in her hands, like she'd just confiscated a toy from a misbehaving child.
"Good work, Veronica," came a voice from the corridor outside. Both he and she turned to watch the doorway as a man entered, followed by several riflemen. He spoke with a south african accent, and was heavily built. If there was a part of him that wasn't toned with muscle definition, Tobias couldn't see it. He had short spiked hair that bent back as though he was constantly facing a strong wind.
He said nothing as the man stared right at him, or rather his visor. Unexpectedly, the newcomer gave a small chuckle.
"So, this is the one that's been giving us so much trouble lately, eh?" He knelt down to Tobias' level, and glared at him with the grin of a wolf plastered across his features. "Not so impressive now, are you?"
"Took this off before he gave anything away," came Veronica's voice, and the cloak pilot tossed the transmitter to the man. He looked at it for a moment before he crushed it in a fist, and tossed it away before looking back at his prisoner.
He noticed the object in Tobias' grip behind his head, and made a tsk sound. "I'm afraid you can't have that." Reaching forward, he pulled the data knife from Tobias' hands, and twirled it around in his own. Sighing, he stood back up.
"PFC Tobias Four, I presume. Or, last I heard, a Lieutenant now, eh? Not a bad promotion." He smirked as Tobias twitched from shock that the man recognized him.
"That's right, I know who you are. I suppose it's only fair you get the same generosity." He gave a mock salute with two fingers. "Kuben Blisk."
Tobias furrowed his brow. "I know you... you were at the battle of Demeter."
"Right you are. Tried to stop MacAllan before the scum blew himself and the rest of the planet up. Made it off in time, fortunately."
He shook his head confusedly. "What are you doing way out here?"
Blink crossed his arms. "I'm a mercenary, I fight for whoever has money. Once Spyglass decided the the Remnant fleet was better off as an army of robots, I decided it was time to find a new line of work. Luckily, the Ares division of the IMC was hiring."
He twirled the data knife in his hands again. "I never really hold a grudge against any man. I've got a creed I live by, a fair one to determine who is better than who. But there is a special exception for deserters, and as I once told one; I'll fight any of you for free." He clapped his hands together. "You see, loyalty- even if it only extends to the last day of a contract- is still a promise. And when you break that promise, when you break your word... what else do you have as a person, when you've tossed your very dignity away?"
Tobias growled. "I didn't toss away my dignity, I found it."
Blink whistled. "A bit aggressive for someone in your position, eh? I wouldn't expect any different from what I've heard about you; you don't have any idea how long I've been waiting to get a chance at you. Fighting you for free is definitely something I'm willing to do, but when someone puts a bounty on your head too? It's irresistible."
"How did you know I'd be here? The chance of that happening-"
"We were told."
Tobias' blood froze. "What?"
"Bit of a shock to hear that, eh?" Blink grinned. "Yes, our man on the inside has been shadowing you quite closely. When they told us of a deserter that joined the Militia, we were disappointed. But when that same deserter finds out about Erebus, raids an IMS vessel, and discovers what we've been doing here? Marder was furious!" He threw back his head and gave a loud guffaw. "I must say, I am impressed nonetheless."
His whole world seemed to be crashing down around him. The people he'd grown closer to, the one's he'd been fighting for; one of them wasn't who they appeared to be.
The one person who had always been close to him, asking him about his every thought and idea, who worked with him on everything. The one who had tried several times to keep him from pursuing action, tried to keep him in the medical wing, tried to stop him from carrying out this mission...
"Gates," he whispered.
Blisk made a mocking sympathetic face. "I know it must be hard to hear that your friend turned out to be a traitor." He chuckled. "If it's any consolation, I'm sure they feel the same way about you, considering your own story."
Rumble.
He walked around Tobias in a circle. "Now, this has been fun, but to get my money I need to present proof of your death." He paused right in front of him, and held out the data knife with the blade towards Tobias neck. "I figure if you were willing to die for this data... then we should make it so you actually die from the data. A bit poetic, I'd say."
Rumble.
Tobias spotted movement out of the corner of his eye as the soldiers in the room looked around to find the source of the vibration. Blisk and Veronica were too focused on Tobias to notice.
"You wanted to be a hero, now you can die like one-"
The sound of glass shattering was the first thing that Tobias made note of before the hum of a superheated laser filled the air, and a beam of energy entered from outside the now broken observation window, and incinerated Veronica. Blisk ducked, and turned to see the source of the disturbance as an Ion class Titan.
"What the bloody-"
Acting quickly, Tobias brought a fist forward and felt it connect with Blisk's jaw. The mercenary staggered back as Tobias yanked the knife out of his hands, and ran towards the window.
"STOP THAT PILOT!" Blisk yelled, but the riflemen were kept at bay by KT's splitter rifle, and held their hands over their head as though that would shield them from the Titan's fire. Tobias leapt out of the Titan-fist sized hole in the window, and onto the snowy ground.
"COME ON!" he shouted, and both he and KT began to run towards the dockyard on the other end of the base. She scooped him up with one arm as they ran, and placed him inside her hull. He quickly performed the neural transition, and continued to run without a break in either of their strides.
"Four, are you alright?!" KT demanded.
He shook his head. "I don't have time to explain! We need to get to Tyra!"
On cue, the voice of the other pilot came through KT's radio. "Four, KT! Get your asses over here!"
"Working on it!" Piloting KT, he swung their leg into the fence that walled off the airfield and crushed it. Wasting no time, he began to run through the rows of dropships and Widows. Gunfire erupted from behind them as the IMC soldiers were finally catching onto their plan, and more than once he had to evade a missile that tore into a dropship next to him.
A black square appeared on his HUD, indicating which dropship Tyra was commandeering. "Hurry! You're going to have to take out KT's data core fast!"
"Just take off!" he yelled. "Get ready to warp out of here, and stick low to the ground! Fly close to the cliff, we'll cover you!"
Tyra swore over the comms, but obeyed. He knew that if they stayed too close to the airfield, the IMC would catch up and shoot it down. They needed time-
"There is no time, Four."
"For what, KT?"
"For you to disembark, grab my data core, and then board the dropship. The IMC will surely reach us by that point, you have to get on without me."
He shook his head. "Not happening."
"Protocol two; uphold the mission. You must-"
"I've got an idea, we'll work it out!"
He refused to leave her behind, he wouldn't.
More gunfire appeared side him, and he turned to use the vortex shield and catch the bullets. He saw an armored car with a mounted turret driving alongside the airfield, and released the shield in its direction. As they struck the engine and gas reserve, the car blossomed into a fiery explosion, and flipped over.
He turned and continued to run, almost to the cliff now. The dropship was hovering right next to the ledge, the side doors of it open. "Come on!" Tyra practically screamed over the radio.
Disembarking, he quickly hopped onto the dropship, and turned around to the still open door where KT was now eye level with him, standing right on the precipice.
"Lean forward!" he commanded, trying to get her optics close enough to where he could retrieve her data core. Just as she was close enough, they both froze as they heard the scream of a missile through the air.
"Incoming!" yelled Tyra. "Brace for-"
It hit the broad side of the dropship as Tyra tried to pull up and away from the threat. The impact caused the ship to lurch, and Tobias felt himself fall into open air, just barely reaching around in time to grip the lip of the dropship with his hands. Now, he was dangling precariously over the edge, and twenty feet above the ground where KT stood.
"Four!" cried KT, and she spun to face the threat of the IMC soldiers as they continued to shoot at the ship, hoping she could at least save them.
"We've got to go!" Tyra yelled, trying to pull further away.
He shouted back, "We're not leaving her! Get us back-"
Another missile came straight for the ship, and Tyra had to swing it around in order to avoid it. Unfortunately, his grip was already debatable to begin with, and as thought time froze for a moment, he watched as his fingers slid off the dropship, and dropped him into open air.
"Four!"
"Tobias!"
He didn't so much hear the anguish in his Titan's voice as he felt it. He also felt the sensation of freefall as time picked up again, and he saw that he was going to miss the ground and fall right off the edge-
He felt a large metal presence suddenly snatch him from the air, and bring him closer to safety. KT's paint was scratched, her chassis was dented, but at least she wast still standing. "I've got you! I've got-"
The same missile that had tried to blow up the dropship decided to make its presence known as it suddenly slammed into KT's torso, and exploded. He was held far enough away to where it didn't burn him, but he held his hands up to shield himself from the heat all the same.
When the smoke cleared, he looked to see KT staring right back at him. Her right arm was blown off, various panels had been ripped away and exposed the endoskeleton underneath. Fire sprang up on several parts of her body.
They both looked in disbelief at each other, as he refused to accept what was right in front of him; the damage was irreparable.
Slowly, KT began to fall forward towards the edge of the cliff. With a voice that sounded broken and sad, she spoke two final words.
"Trust me."
Holding him in her only remaining hand, she quickly placed him inside her hull as they both toppled over the edge.
"KT!"
His cry of pain was unanswered, and he couldn't do anything in the cockpit except wait to hit the ground.
He began to black out as the spinning continued relentlessly until everything finally went dark.