Titanfall Winter Soldier Sequel Deus ex Machina

The ship rattled with a nervous tick just before the intermediate jump into the atmosphere. New grunt recruits leaned over their knees and vomited on the floor. An experienced IMC pilot who may be dead in the next few moments simply wiped the vomit on his boot onto the pant leg of some very sick grunt. The nauseous sting of the regurgitated Militia food pierced my nose and I felt my eyes gently water. Somebody was also complaining down the hull of the ship that the grunt next to him had pissed his pants. We were a big boatful of humanity coming down on the planet to fight for our very survival against an onslaught of rampant machines.

An ancient earthborn author named Hemingway said that "Man is not made for defeat." The terrible smell of biology in this troop transport may have proved those words ironic. But that same author wrote that "in modern war . . . you will die like a dog for no good reason." Why this literature came into my mind at this time I could not explain. Something about this new engagement made war look back at itself for the first time in a long time. People have fought for as long as we could remember. We fought back home, we fought after we crossed into a new frontier of space. But this time around, in this modern war, the whole of humanity might die like a dog for no good reason at the hands of their own creation—machines.

In one of the greatest disasters of human history, the artificial intelligence of the IMC, Vice Admiral Spyglass, turned on its operators and obliterated them and as many as it could of human pieces of the IMC. Spyglass dissolved the IMC and then declared war on the entire human race. Spectres and Automated Titans equipped with the advanced combat synthesizer called the Andromeda Relay, began attacking Militia and civilian outposts all across the frontier. They replicated what they did to their IMC compounds and smothered them with human blood before committing those bases to the production of yet more Spectres and titans. Spyglass was growing his army like a virus across the galaxy. It was up to me and this band of new recruits to sedate the mechanical disease and bring it to heel. If we lost, if we failed our mission—it unnerved me to think of the consequences.

Despite all this grim terror gripping me, I looked next to me at the most beautiful woman on the Frontier: 2nd Lieutenant Alice Reins of the former IMC. She had faked her death to escape the fury of the second titan wars and I was vexed as well. She came back for me though and pulled me from the brink of a catastrophic battle on Sandtrap, where a majority of human IMC military forces were attacked by IMC Spectres and auto-titans. We had decided at a pub in Smuggler's Cove to never to be separated again and enlisted with the Militia. I abhorred the green and orange colors they made us wear but I had no choice. I was in their army now.

The ship continued to shutter and shift the vomit on the floor. Finally, the grunt sergeant yelled for the pilots to exit in ten seconds. The landing zone would be hot. The robots had already made it clear they were not going to relinquish this ground easily. I reached to take Alice's hand in mine. Her familiar fingers slid into my gloves and squeezed tightly. She leaned close and whispered to me through her helmet.

"What was that saying you said you learned when you were in the Crows?"

"videmus mortuis. It means 'we see the dead."

Alice then looked up at me, "I don't see a dead man. Be brave out there Kax."

"Be bold, Alice. I love you."

The green light switched on and the ramp dropped to reveal the gates of hells gaping wide for us. Bullet tracers and rockets screamed through the air. The smoke of war billowed into the ashen sky. The pilots never looked back and they ran and jumped out of the Militia transport. Alice and I followed them. The blood thundered through my veins as the wind whipped at my gear. I held tight to my G2A4 rifle. Ten notches marked ten head shots on Militia pilots. I wasn't going to discriminate for these worthless Spectres either. The ground rushed to my feet but before all the bones in my legs and pelvis were shattered from a high altitude jump, I fired my stealth jump kit to land as soft as a kitten: a bloodied, profanity spewing kitten. But this place was not safe for a kitten. Right as we hit the ground, the Spectres had us zeroed and opened up their automatic weapons on us. One pilot took several bullets to the chest and fell like a sack of potatoes. Another man injected stim and ran for cover with his elbow dangling in the wind.

Alice and I activated our cloaks before we landed and ran to hit the flanks. The other pilots did the same and it was not long before the Spectres that had us in the kill zone were a jumbled line of scrap metal. A dot highlighted on our HUDs in our helmets and we rushed to the rendezvous point. On the way to receive our orders in the combat zone I finally realized what kind of battle we landed in. We were on a grassy knoll where the tree line ended and a coastal city lay besieged. Large roads were cloaked with smoke and burnt vehicles. Industrial warehouses burned next to small shops. This city on the side of a mountain must have made large exports in a seemingly boom-town. Any other grunt would never have concluded that with the chaos engulfing it in flames and titans.

The dot suddenly disappeared from our HUD as an explosion lit up the morning. I feared our commanding officer had been eliminated from the equation but his desperate voice came on the comm.

"Rally point ambushed—get into the city pilots. Command wants a sweep and clean of robots. Don't give them another inch. Queens, out."

Like the unleashing of a hundred hunting hounds, pilot weapons erupted on the advancing Spectre units. Alice's Spitfire LMG had an especially menacing bark. She held down the trigger as the aim steadied into a deadly stream of death. I spotted a couple of Spectres on top of one of the building. They were lining up a bead on a couple of advancing pilots who heedless of their demise. I shouldered my G2A4 rifle and snapped the triangle of the HCOG sight onto the pie-slice shaped skull of the first Spectre. Three snap shots and the machine buckled behind the ledge. The next Spectre fired only one burst before a pilot scaled the ledge and delivered a fierce kick into its side. Thus, humanity pushed back with a counter attack for the first time against the machines this day.

But the achievements were to be short lived. A dropship spun out of the sky and collided into a building. I saw a titan dash behind a building only to be flanked by a robotic Stryder. The pilot was ripped from the hull and crushed in merciless claws. Alice saw the same event and activated her jumpkit to run along the damaged buildings until she could land on top of the Stryder titan. With her cloak activated, she landed and promptly ripped off the top panel leading to the main circuitry of the titan. I kept watch on her six as she dipped her LMG down into the sprinting metal beast. She activated the poison in fire and shell casings. It tried to buck and swerve but her strong arms and legs held tight as the LMG continued to administer justice. Finally the Stryder dropped its weapon and fell face down. Alice used the momentum to shoot forward and landed into a roll just as the machine burst into flames.

"Good God," I thought, "I have one fiene freundin." I could not stare for long, a Spectre stepped out of a building and aimed at her. She turned with her pistol but did not get a shot off. I had already landed four hits into the metal soldier and it fell back into the doorway. We gave each other a nod and as she reloaded her LMG I took off to try and keep the pressure on the machines. I fired the jumpkit and got to a six story building and leaned against an electronic billboard that advertised a soda with a family drinking unaware of the death around them. I leaned out and my stomach dropped into my shoes.

A black wave of robots marched down the street. Titans waded in the shimmering black and steel water. The Spectres were pulling civilians from their homes and vehicles and gunning them down, or worse, ripping limbs or organs from their screaming bodies. Rage detonated my heart and demanded I go down there and end the insanity. Luckily, my brain took back the reins and I began to formulate a plan. A glance at my wrist map showed the other pilots were working along the left flank of the mountain face while the grunts were trying to hold their own in the center. A snap shattered my ears and instincts made me dive behind the billboard. Another singular shot sent sparks all around me. With the ringing still in my ears, I jumped and ran along the billboard and leapt into the sky away from the sniper. Another arrow cloud hissed my shoulder but I landed into a circular courtyard. I didn't know if the sniper had elevation to still fire down upon me so I charged with my shoulder through the door. It burst open and Spectres were firing at grunts out the window. I fired what was left in the magazine in my rifle to drop one of the robots but as its fellows turned to kill me I had out my Hammond pistol and pulled the trigger as fast as it would let me. Two more hit the floor but the bullets came back at me. I ducked back into the doorway to slide another clip into the pistol. An explosion blew pieces of furniture and drywall all around me. I came out of cover with my Hammond ready but there were no more Spectres.

A couple of grunts came in another door and cleared the room. One turned to her buddy, "nice going Kim, that was a slick throw."

The other grunt blushed, "thanks, I'm just glad I didn't drop it."

"Wait—did you hear that?" They turned their guns at where I used to be standing. I passed in between them and they never saw me.

"God, feels like there are ghosts in this room." Kim whispered. I gave an evil laugh as I slipped out the window. Before I ignited the jumpkit to get back into the fray I heard the two women jump.

I had to find that sniper before he ended any pilots who were unaware. Titans dropped into the war zone from the grey horizon. Their tremendous clashes shook the buildings as I ran on the walls. My cloak ended and I had to get back to cover. I dove through a window just as a burst of enemy chaingun fire rapped the wall. I kept my head down and waited until the ringing in my ears dissipated.

An angel spoke into my head. "Kax, we need help here down by the docks. Corbin is down and Maddy is wounded." Corbin and Maddy, I remembered they were the brand new Militia pilots. Kids almost.

"Alright, just keep your head down, Alice. A Spectre has a Longbow Rifle in between us." "Roger that. Get here soon because we might need another titan soon."

A few seconds passed as I ran through the building and checked the windows. "Kax, make that really fast. Yeah, we need another titan now!"

I doubled my pace. A couple blood soaked corpses littered the hall; grunts who gave their lives against the Spectre horde. I tried to carefully step around them in reverence. An ironic thought struck me that moment. If Spyglass had not orchestrated the betrayal of the IMC, I may have actually murdered those grunts in the hall, even those two women who had saved me from the Spectres in the building prior. It would have been my heart that killed them.

"Autto, heard you were looking for a sniper? We made it into recycling in the electronics store. Ryder out."

Jeremiah Ryder was one of the few pilots that came out of the funeral pyre of the IMC. He knew he was taking a big risk like Alice and I did to enlist with the Militia. He believed Marcus Graves like I did, but he said many others were still skeptical and held onto their grudges against the Militia. At least that gave me hope that some had made it.

I thanked Rider and jumped headlong out of a window. Smoke rushed into my lungs as the glass fell into the burning streets. I activated the jumpkit to quietly run on the side of the building until I arrived to Alice's battle. And she sure knew how to pick them. The side of that black wave crashed against the muzzle fire and tracers of dogmatic Militia forces. Amazingly, the factory was still standing with three robotic titans laying all their firepower into it. Alice had to be pinned down inside. She couldn't risk a rodeo right there without the two others turning to terminate her. Let alone the swarm of Spectres.

I tapped my earpiece. "Sid, what do I have on deck?"

My specially programmed titan AI from the black market growled into my ear, "A Stryder titan equipped with quad rocket launcher. So with your piloting skills I won't be in this battle but five seconds."

"Make that seven seconds Sid, drop into battle on my mark." I took out my G2A4 rifle to make my coordinates accurate. I aimed at one of the auto-titans standing like a silly statue.

"Right there Sid. Bring it fast." I started to run off the roof of the building I knew it would be fast. I could feel the air being sucked in like a giant breath. A sonic boom was that release and two second later a Stryder Titan dropped in front of me. My ears thundered like a million mad bells as I slipped through the dome shield and landed on top of the Stryder. As the Stryder stood and lent a hand for me to jump into the cockpit I glanced the smoking remains of the auto-titan crumpled around the feet. The shredded metal still glowed orange hot. My first time in a Militia built titan felt squeezed. Militia parts were not as advanced or streamlined in the cockpit at the IMC had. A titan cockpit in the IMC was a coffin no doubt, but this setup was a damn vice. Not to mention the cheap seating that chaffed the backside. The view of the domeshield and the impending battle flickered to life on the screens in front of me. Bullets raked the blue sphere around my titan.

"Warning! You are outnumbered, two to one," Sid said out of standard. Then he added with a technological smirk, "but I'm sure you'll do juuust fine."

I took another grip on the controls and tightened my knees.

"Then watch me."