Entrance to Akkad

Silver approached the dropship carefully with the carbine pointed at the cockpit, noting how different it was from the IMC or Militia dropships in the fact that it was coloured a dark black with a contrasting silver. Beside him was Thirteen, watching their back and scanning the wasteland for anything that might be hiding amongst the crevices and skeletons. Amd even further back were the two Titans that belonged them, standing tall and guarding.

The dropship sat a mile away from the canyon in which Akkad sat, the destroyed city that once contained people within it’s walls before the planet fell to ruin. Silver had already been in there for some time, and they had plans to return.

“We’ll open the back door, check for combatants or those creatures.” Silver ordered, lining up beside said door after looking into the windows of the cockpit.

Thirteen gave one last visual sweep of the wasteland before stacking up on the other side of the door. “Roger,” she said, holding the Paralyzer ready.

Silver reached across and activated the controls to bring the door down, the now weathered gears clanked and screeched, before the door dropped down the ground with a slam. Thirteen poked her pistol inside and followed it into the back, looking for anyone or anything that could cause issues. “Clear,” she reported as she stepped into the dropship.

Silver clambered into the back behind her and let the carbine hang as they made their way into the cockpit itself, looking over the systems. They stood in silence for a moment before turning back to Thirteen. “New systems, newer than ours.”

Ignoring the two scavenged corpses, Thirteen stepped in between the seats and up to the control console. Her eyes wandered over the setup, noting various differences in hardware configuration. “Nothing we can’t replicate, though.” Reaching out with her left hand, she tried to initialize the systems, and after a few moments, the cockpit flickered to life.

“It works. Wonderful. I’ll fix up the back door and see if I can find anything on our new friends. Lets hope this thing can still fly.” Silver states, moving to the corpses and looking them over. Dogtags and patches were all that remained of interest so he moved onto the cargo.

The top of the crate found itself flying out the door and into the sand and dirt as it was torn off, Silver rooting around for anything interesting apart from ammo and weapons. A map struck out first and they brought it up to the wall.

“They’ve mapped out the entirety of Prometheus. The surface of it at least.”

Thirteen looked over her shoulder as she unceremoniously dumped one of the corpses out of the dropship. “How does that even happen?”

“Spies, scouts and satellites. I would not be surprised if it was all three. But then we’d have picked up any satellites.” Silver replies, tossing the map at her and carrying on inside, pulling out bits of scrap and a map of the local system.

“We good to fly?”

Pocketing the map, Thirteen made her way back to the cockpit, sitting down in the now-free seat. “Not sure, gimme a few seconds,” she said as she worked the somewhat unfamiliar controls. The engine of the dropship roared to life, but she was still apprehensive. “Engine’s good. No idea about stabilizers or anything else. The systems status screen isn’t loading properly,” she said as she pointed to a dead screen on her left.

“Wonderful. Can we send the feed to another screen?” Silver asked, looking over the system of the back door, panels scattered around them. They reached a hand inside of the gears and pulled hard, the gears coming to life and almost amputating them.

She played around with the interface for a bit, shaking her head after a few moments. “Negative. I’m sure that’s normal functionality but some of the systems seem to have been damaged in the crash. Guess we’re just gonna have to find out the old fashioned way…”

“Wonderful. I’ve got the door working, we’ll go when you’re ready. I’ll arrange for my Titan to walk back, unless you would prefer I stay with them?” Silver closes the back door up to test that it does in fact now work, and glances over their shoulder.

“That’s entirely up to you. Varia will follow me, so if this thing actually does manage to get off the ground and stay off the ground, we’ll at least have that. Either way, decide quick because you’re probably gonna want to strap in,” she said as she clipped herself into the five-point harness.

“They’ll walk back then. Take off, Pilot.” Silver strapped themselves into the seats in the back and looked into the crate once more, finding little of interest this time around.

Thirteen pushed the throttle forward with her left hand, slamming it all the way for full thrust while simultaneously pulling back on the flight stick to pull the nose of the dropship up. The ship reluctantly rose off the ground, responding rather sluggishly to the controls. “Well, the good news is that we’re in the air. Bad news is that we’ve got about 50% thrust capacity and maybe less responsiveness in the controls,” she said calmly as she focused on keeping the craft stable.

“I see. Is there anything we can do to repair it from here?” Silver asks, unclipping and coming up into the cockpit. “I might be able to fix the screen at least.”

“Screen is a moot point now. It’s just gonna tell me what I’ve already figured out just from taking off, and any number of things can be fucking with the engine. Best to get it back to HQ and get it into a bay,” she said as she put in the coordinates for the base. “I can get us there, but it won’t be pretty.”

“Sounds good pilot. I’ll leave it in your hands.” Silver made their way back into the bay and brought up the visual feed from their Titan in the helmet, deciding to take remote control of it and glance around the wastes a little bit. An interesting sight caught their eye and they called over to Thirteen. “We have bogeys at 5, Thirteen.”

As unsettling as this news was, Thirteen keeps calm. “Huh. What’s incoming? I think weapons are…” she squeezes the trigger on the flight stick with no response, “offline…”

Silver unhooked the carbine from their shoulders and lowered the back door, looping into a rope and aiming at the monsters following them. Their large wings beat heavily and they soared behind them with no problem. Silver fired a barrage of bullets into the flock, which only enraged them as they pulled up close. “I’m not doing much with the carbine and they’re too close for the Titans to shoot. Put some distance between us and the birds.”

Unsure if that was a thing she could actually do, she once again pushed the throttle all the way down. The drop ship lurched forward just a little bit faster as they soared over the wasteland towards the Prometheus base. She pressed a button which brought up a feed of the rear-facing cameras. Thankfully those were still working, and she watched as the birds began to pursue.

Silver changed into the Titans systems and ordered to spring after them, aiming up at the stragglers and firing into them. A projectile clipped through a wing and the owner spiralled out of control and into the ground below, a few more shots and another one was brought down hard, vanishing into a crevice and most likely to it’s death. Silver themselves fired straight into the face of one that had gotten far too close for comfort, the bullets peppering it’s brain and killing it cold.

“How far out are we?” He calls back, firing into another one as his Stryder below send a dozen more tearing bullets through the torso of another straggler.

“2,640 feet and closing,” was the reply.

“Got it.” Silver growls and fires again, completely missing as the bird lurches downwards, flying directly under the dropship. The Titan takes out another one behind them and carries on running, grappling one as it falls from the sky and ripping the wing off. Silver leans over the back door and looks under the ship, firing into the beast below.

Being essentially a sitting duck for these creatures, Thirteen maneuvers the dropship so Silver can get better shots on the birds, as well as keeping clear from the Titan’s field of engagement. It’s an arduous task, given that the ship is crippled, but she makes do with what she’s got. The hull of the dropship rattles and groans as she pushes it to its absolute limit.

“Three left. We’re gaining distance.” Silver tells her, firing into another one and taking it down to the floor. The second one flies straight at the back of the ship, opening it’s maw wide and attempting to pluck SIlver from it, razor sharp teeth grinning at the commander. Silver empties the clip into it and it screams out, promptly silenced as a hole is punched in it’s back. The final one screeches out and attempts to come up the side to the cockpit, only to be removed as the side door is opened up and SIlver slices it’s neck open.

“We’re all good now. You can ease the throttle.” Silver called out as the dropship flew over the jungle of prometheus, coming to an abrupt halt inside the hangar and tossing Silver out of the back of it. They satup carefully and grabbed whatever they needed to fix it up whilst Thirteen landed.

It was going to be a long week.