Inferno - Turncoat

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Being able to feel every inch of his bruised and battered body again was not the best way to wake up. Then again, the very fact that he could even feel anything was a good indicator that he was alive, so he'd stow his complaints for now.

Tobias slowly glanced around the interior of the crashed ship, trying to get his bearings. This wasn't his first crash landing—but for the pilot and rifleman beside him whose bodies were bent at crooked angles, this had definitely been their last.

He stared at the rifleman in particular, remembering the last few heart-stopping moments before the crash as he'd tried to help them escape—only to see them lying dead before him in a shockingly brutal reality. It was almost surreal—and he couldn't help but make a comparison to the fate of Jospert and the other survivors of Nedar.

What good was he as a protector if he couldn't save anyone?

Suppressing his disturbing memories and thoughts for the time being, he analyzed the situation to look for an escape route. He was stuck in the front half of the ship. The floor had been bent upwards enough from the impact to where it had reconnected with the roof and snuffed out any chance of escape that way. He supposed that the others must have been more fortunate when jumping out, though he was certainly lucky to have not ended up like the other two that had been trapped in here as well.

He swapped his gaze to the viewport, its glass cracked and ready to break from the crash. Through it, he could see that the ship was resting near the side of a large butte, and a rocky clearing surrounded it before giving way to woodland.

Standing up from the ground, he could feel the newly-formed cuts and bruises on his legs crying out from the strain. Ignoring the pain for now, he walked over to the window. He tried slamming it a few times to see how weak it was. It was definitely strong enough to keep him in here if he only used his fists, but a bit more force might shatter it...

Taking a few steps backwards, he gave himself a moment to align his trajectory. When he was sure he had the path right, he ran at the viewport and ignited his thrusters.

WHAM.

It propelled him into the glass with a painful slam—but his efforts weren't in vain, as he heard it give a bit. He gingerly stepped back and rubbed his shoulder, now aching from the impact. It didn't matter—he'd have to keep doing that if he wanted to escape.

He gave it another try. It began to bend outwards a bit, but not enough to budge entirely. He grunted in exertion as the right side of his torso continued to take a beating.

"... Help ..."

He immediately was on alert as he heard the voice through one of the many cracks in the dropship. It definitely hadn't come from inside, so he looked out to see if he could spot the source. There on the ground several meters from the ship was the other rifleman who'd been sucked out when the ship ripped in half. They were resting against a large rock and holding their right leg tightly. From a quick once-over, it appeared to be broken.

"Hey!"

The man looked around for whoever was talking, and Tobias rapped on the glass to get his attention. He watched as the soldier's attention zeroed in on him. "P-Pilot?"

"That's right," he said in relief. "Listen—once I get out of here, I can help you. Just hang tight."

He watched the rifleman relax. "Oh, thank god."

Tobias gave it another slam with the thrusters. Not broken yet. "Ugg ... where are the others?"

"I heard them on the comms, they landed a few clicks east of here. I got caught last second, and my chute opened late... landed badly here. One of the Pilots and my squad-mate are coming back for us while the other three find somewhere to rendezvous."

Tobias nodded. That made sense. "Alright, well give me a few more tries here—"

Boom.

Boom.

He froze, making sure he wasn't hearing things. "Did you feel that?"

"Yeah—what was that?"

Shit.

"Just hang on!" He sped up, trying to accelerate the process. He thrusted.

WHAM.

A little bit more.

He thrusted.

WHAM.

A little bit—

Boom.

Finally, the source of the noise was revealed. A Titan entered into view from out of the woodland, a Stryder class—one of the original three classes. He knew that the IMC was using every last resource at their disposal, including the older models; soon though, they'd likely be phased out entirely for the six newer variants that had become standard.

The Stryder made its way over to the soldier on the ground who looked up in fear. Tobias continued desperately in his attempt to smash through the viewport—to no avail.

"Well, what do we have here?"

He heard the Pilot inside the Stryder talking through the external speakers to the rifleman. The man began to drag himself along the ground, hopelessly trying to put distance between himself and the enemy Titan.

God damn it, break already—

"N-no, please!"

With one final thrust, he forced the glass to shatter and flew through the opening. Tumbling onto the ground, he looked up just in time to see the Titan raise its foot over the man in preparation to bring it down.

"Wait!"

The Titan turned towards him in surprise, its foot still hovering over the soldier. "Where'd you come from? I didn't know we had other Pilots in this sector."

The Pilot in the Titan thought Tobias was IMC due to his armor. He still had the element of surprise, but not for long. Had to think fast. "Some of us were relocated to help combat the enemy dropships, like this one. I took this grunt as a prisoner and was searching through his ship for any useful data."

Time to see if they took the bait. Hesitantly lowering its foot back to the ground, the Titan gestured to the crash. "Find anything?"

"Nothing in that ship is salvageable," he replied, waving his hand dismissively. "That's why I need him—to see if he knows anything useful. But I can't exactly do that if you crush him."

"Finish what you need to, and get rid of them," the Titan growled. "Security's getting a bit thin a few klicks north of here—they want us to move back and protect the data-center."

Data-center. Filing that information for later, Tobias nodded. If he didn't keep stalling for time, there wouldn't be a later. "Understood."

He walked over to the rifleman as the Titan looked around for signs of opposition. Kneeling beside the soldier, he drew his data-knife from its sheath and held it up to the man's face while speaking loudly, "Look, pal—you're not coming out of this one alive. But you can make your last moments far less painful if you give me some meaningful info to take back to command. Otherwise ..." He softly dragged the blade up the man's chest plate. "This conversation could be ... unpleasant."

The soldier turned pale in fear, confused at Tobias' sudden change in allegiance—but then he saw the Pilot raise a finger to the mouthpiece of his helmet in the universal sign for, Be quiet. Sure that the Titan's attention was no longer on him, Tobias began to reach towards his belt.

"When shit hits the fan, start crawling away and hide," he whispered as his fingers found what he'd been looking for. Now understanding the plan, the rifleman nodded.

"This is a waste of time. Let's get it over with already—"

In one quick movement, Tobias threw the arc grenade at the Titan's feet. It exploded in a crackle of blue electricity, stunning its victim's ocular systems momentarily.

"Agh—what the hell?!"

Risking it, he took the chance to run forward and leap onto the hull of the Stryder. Reaching for his sidearm, he only had enough time to tear off the battery casing's panel and let a few shots off into the hull before the Titan extended its arm and wrapped its hand around him, pulling him off. It held him in front of the main body of the chassis as he kicked and struggled, its optics staring almost angrily into him.

"I thought something about this seemed off. What are you, a spy?" He examined Tobias a bit closer. "Nah, you don't seem like a spy ... you're just a deserter, aren't you?"

Boom.

Tobias said nothing, simply opting to writhe as he desperately tried to wriggle free in a vain effort to escape. The Stryder tilted its chassis slightly, as though amused.

"Why don't I show you how we treat traitors out here on the frontier?"

Boom.

Just as the Titan's grip began to squeeze, another Titan emerged from behind and slammed into the Stryder. Tobias fell to the ground as it let go of him and turned to face the new threat. Clutching his chest, he used his thrusters to boost himself out of harm's way from the legs of each before looking at the new arrival.

"Come on!" the newcomer taunted, the unmistakable voice of McFarlane egging the Stryder on. He piloted an Atlas, and one that had been upgraded to match modern build-standards at that—it was a dark grey in color with yellow-green accents of brushed metal over its chassis. Beside him was the rifleman Tobias had shoved out of the Crow before it crashed.

As the two Titans engaged one another, the soldier ran to Tobias. "You alright, Pilot? We didn't think that anyone could have survived that crash—"

Tobias watched the fight behind him carefully and saw the Stryder deflect a blast from McFarlane's 40mm cannon. Pushing the man aside, he yelled, "Look out—!"

The shell landed just a meter in front of them, the concussive force blowing him backwards and into the hull of the ship, where he slumped to the ground against the metal. He couldn't see the rifleman through his bleary vision, but he could see McFarlane and the Stryder forgoing weapons to clash against each other in an all-out brawl.

"That all you got?" He heard McFarlane snarling at the Stryder as they continued to dish out blows to one another. The Atlas certainly had the technological advantage, and should come out ahead—

As though he had jinxed it, the Stryder suddenly boosted forward and knocked McFarlane back. Now he was on the defensive as the Stryder kept pressing forward and the Atlas kept losing ground. Tobias reached out a hand to help, but his vision was swimming—he couldn't do anything but watch as the Stryder rained blow after blow into the other Titan's hull.

An idea came to him; he had one last ace up his sleeve. Raising his wrist, he navigated through the interface hooked up to his armor and opened a direct line to the frigate's Pilot ordnance. Mentally keeping track of McFarlane and the Stryder's position, he pinpointed a location with his HUD and began counting down from ten.

The Stryder threw a right cross into the Atlas, watching with satisfaction as it staggered backwards.

Seven.

McFarlane raised his arms to protect himself from the next blow, but the Stryder Pilot had expected that—an unseen fist from below connected with the Titan's optics.

Five.

The Stryder snorted at the now weakened McFarlane. "And here I was, expecting a real fight. I hate being disappointed."

Three.

"McFarlane, get back!" Tobias shouted as loudly as he could manage.

The Atlas looked over at him for one pure second of confusion before it heard the telltale signs of imminent death approaching. Diving out of the way, the Stryder was left standing alone as a streak of orange light descended upon it from the sky.

One.

Titanfalls were a multistage process—first, a Titan was loaded into a orbital drop-pod for initial entry into the atmosphere. Once launched, the pod would begin to separate and allow the Titan a direct approach to the ground. The purpose of this was to help protect the mech as it descended and transitioned into using state-of-the-art technology to instantly reverse thrust upon arrival, preventing damage to the mech as well as keeping it from leaving a crater wherever it landed. It was the same technology used for Pilot jump-kits, but on a much larger scale.

That said, anything between the Titan and the ground during a titanfall was fair game, hence why the Stryder looked up and didn't even bother to raise its arms in defense as 15 tons of metal traveling with a force of 1,429 G's came down and obliterated it with a resounding boom that echoed through the woods.

As the smoke cleared, Tobias looked over to see a familiar Ion standing in the Stryder's place. She scanned the area until her optics caught sight of him.

"Where is the fight, Pilot?"

He laughed weakly. "You're standing on top of it."

Confusedly, she glanced down at her feet to see the remains of the Stryder, and it clicked. "Oh. I see."

"Yeah, we all did." She turned to see the Atlas approaching from behind and walking over to Tobias. The downed Pilot tilted his head in confusion at McFarlane's meaning.

"I saw you risk yourself for that rifleman," the latter explained, his voice sounding oddly apologetic through his Titan's speakers. "Not to mention that I heard about how you stayed behind to help in the crash on the way over here."

"That's twice you've saved us now," the rifleman from earlier called out, presumably the one who'd told McFarlane. He had the soldier with the broken leg's arm draped over his shoulder as he helped him to walk.

Tobias shook his head slowly. "I couldn't save everyone," he muttered, nodding his head towards the wreckage of the Crow. "So, who's counting?"

"I am," McFarlane said, his voice unusually soft. "Look—I thought you were just another deserter trying to save his own skin in the only way he knew how, but ... I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and say I might have been wrong."

The hatch of the Atlas popped open, and he watched as McFarlane hopped down to the ground and held out his hand. "We're still a ways from being friends, but ... it's a start. No hard feelings?"

Tobias stared at the outstretched hand for a moment or two before extending his own and clasping it with a nod of his head.

"No hard feelings."

McFarlane helped Tobias up to his feet, and then climbed back up into his Titan's open cockpit. Tobias looked back at the two riflemen as they stood waiting for orders.

"No offense, but you guys don't really seem to be in the best shape for travel," he remarked, noting the broken leg. "Might be a better idea for you two to hold position here, hide, and wait for evac."

He could have sworn that the wounded one looked relieved. "Understood, sir. Give 'em hell from us."

Raising his hand up to the top of his helmet in a two-finger salute, Tobias waved them off. Turning around, he found KT kneeling and waiting for him with an open palm. Stepping into her hand, she lifted him up and into her chassis whereupon the hatch closed and the interior was engulfed in shadow. It was a moment or two before the ocular systems came online, and he saw the Atlas giving him a mystified shrug.

"What do you mean by 'travel'?"

"The Stryder mentioned something about a data-center up north, no more than a few kilometers from here," he explained. "I know Operation: Broadsword is more or less about torching IMC research facilities—but what if we could get our hands on some of that data ourselves?"

"Sounds like a dangerous undertaking—far more dangerous than just blowing it up from afar," McFarlane said hesitantly.

"Gates showed me stolen files of theirs, stuff that would be more than enough to smear their reputation," he argued. "But it's not enough—what if we could get our hands on more? Not just to expose the IMC for what they are, but to gain a real advantage? We're talking troop deployments, financial records, secret projects—anything that could get us a leg up in this war."

McFarlane seemed conflicted. On the one hand, orders were simply to wipe out the station. Infiltrating without authorization could land them in trouble—anything from being killed or captured to a disciplinary warning from Gates about following orders, and he was certainly more afraid of the latter.

But on the other hand ...

With a sigh, Tobias heard him open a comm channel to the others. "Vale, Tyra—I found the survivors. Four has an idea that you might find ... intriguing."


—X—


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