I’ve had some unrest about this mission since Lt Light briefed us about it this morning. Sounded like a simple Rift closure to everyone else, but something about its size and location didn’t fit right with me. When I glanced over at Grey, who always sits in the back, the look on his face confirmed I wasn’t the only one who felt off about this mission. I had meant to talk to him after the fact to ask what his thoughts were, but he had ducked out right before it ended and disappeared. Knowing him, he went to call his wife. He always called her before we went out the wall, even if he always came back in a sour mood because of it. ‘That woman doesn’t deserve him’ I thought to myself. Not that it matters. He’s not into men, or at least not into men like me. Or into cheating, even if I’ve caught his eyes looking at the females in the company when they passed by.

At least that’s what I tell myself to keep from making things awkward between us. I’d jump his bones in a heartbeat, wife be damned, but we are coworkers and coworker relationships always end badly. Maybe after this op I’ll come out to him, but knowing me I’ll just bottle it up again like always. A man can dream.

The dropship hitting turbulence broke my reverie. It was a pretty rough one, so we must be getting close to the drop site. I checked the timer: 20 seconds. Man did time fly when you’re daydreaming about people you can never have.

Those 20 seconds seemed to crawl as we got closer. But, as always, they simultaneously seemed forever and no time at all before the ramp to the ship opened, revealing a cloudy, soot stained sky and broken skyscrapers as far as the eye could see.

The intercom dinged, announcing the pilot was about to speak.

“This building seems the most stable around. I’ll be coming back here to pick y’all up when the rift is closed. Make sure you aren’t late because I want to get dinner with my new girl tonight. If you are the reason I miss it, I’ll kick your ass before I go kiss hers”

That caused me to chuckle. Airman Andy was always a jokester. We all knew he had no game, and only by showing off his credits could he ever get a date. Granted, as a pilot he made more than most, but his genetics were entirely against him in his love life.

I waited my turn to get off the ship. Right behind the titans of Grey and Ghost. Grey had a gunmetal grey titan, with no embellishments, trophies, or markings on it besides the CDC logo required on all suits. It was immaculately cleaned and looked fresh off the factory line. I had heard that when he first showed up to the unit he stripped it of all paint, by hand, before spraying it gray. Ghost on the other hand, his titan was a mottle of grays and blacks. It had a skull painted above the sensor housing, and two combat knives strapped to either arm. A couple monster skulls hung on a cord strapped to the torso, making him look intimidating. His camo pattern blended in perfectly to the ruins south of the city we fought in, making him look like, well, a ghost.

Those of us who had a sense of humor called the GG team because they always won a mock fight in their suits and made it look like they were playing games with us. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them lose a fight. Monsters or otherwise. I was really glad to have them on my side, because the pair terrified me. No one knows why they stayed on with the CDC when either of them could easily catch a spot in a larger outfit. I know they’ve received offers, but are still here regardless.

Once we were off the dropship, the pair swiftly walked off the dropship, over to the side of the building, and jumped off. I glanced at my partner, a newbie like me, knowing he was looking to me for guidance. I mentally sighed before waving my arm in the opposite direction, and heading that direction myself. We go to the edge of the building, looking down at the street some 40 floors below. Taking a deep breath, I jump.

I feather the jump jets on the way down, making sure I don’t gain too much momentum. I also watch my partner struggle, but he doesn’t seem out of control so I let him struggle. We touch down on the street and my jump jets are reading operational, but requiring time to cool down before they can be engaged again. Works for me, because we still have a few miles to go to reach the recon site.

I signal to my partner to follow. He has the same mission data, but as the experienced member, I know I’m expected to lead. We start walking east, which we will follow for a few miles before cutting north towards the rift.

As we are walking, I’m watching corners, intersections, and scanning windows for potential hostiles. The mission might be the rift and the monsters that are, as I speak, pouring out the rift to murder anyone they can, but there are other dangers living in these husks. Looters, Squatters, Bandits, etc. Thankfully the titan is well defended against small arms fire, but even outdated anti-vehicle weapons can punch a hole in a titan this size. Scouts are built for mobility and speed, not durability and survivability.

Two miles pass with no signs of humans, and still no signs of monsters, which is good. If monsters were already this far south, this quickly, my partner and I would be screwed. Only one of the monsters, Sprinters, were fast enough to have covered this distance. They also traveled in packs, and a pack of them would be more than what two light titans could hope to fight alone. Taking the next intersection, we turned north, and hopefully, to a building that had a good line of sight over a flattened section of the city. It used to be some large industrial zone before a reactor meltdown flattened a good chunk of space. The scanners showed the building still standing, but they failed to show the condition of whatever is there. Wonders of modern technology and all that.

After another mile or so of walking, we reach our destination. A larger commercial office building with plenty of windows facing north by northeast. Perfect. We walk to the north side. The north east section was collapsed, even better. I never minded destroying buildings to make better recon sites, but with how big this rift was, I figured I needed every bullet and missile I had. We walked up the ruins, tapping the thrusters to go over objects or skip over unstable pieces. Once we reached the 20th floor or so, I signaled we should stop here and assigned him to watch the north by northwest area while I watched towards the rift, located northeast of us. We had our communicators and scanners turned off for now. Some monsters can sense those kinds of things, so until we had something to report, we’d stay silent.

I figured we’d have to wait a long time before we’d catch any signs of monsters, but after only 20 minutes, I caught a glimpse of a thermal bloom, about a mile out. I didn’t notice it at first, too busy daydreaming to be paying the most attention, but my titan pinged me, making me refocus. Once I did, and noticed the thermal signature, my heart started racing, as it always does when I see the enemy. My mouth went dry, my hands had become sweaty, my feet doing the same. My chest became cold and time seemed to slow down. I started analyzing the thermal, switching to zoomed optics, only to be confused. It was too small to be a monster. That was a person. Releasing my breath, I realize I had been holding it. It was just a human. Nothing to be afraid of. I ping the results to my partner, so he knows what’s going on, before leaning back, looking to settle back in and wait. Keeping an eye on the person, while also scanning the surrounding area, I noticed that that one person became two. Then four, then more. After a minute or so I am sitting back up, staring intently at the 150 or so people walking down the road to the ruined industrial center. Once the last couple people, who are faced backwards with guns in their hands, are in sight, I ping the total over to my partner. He pings back:

[That’s a dangerous amount of people. The monsters will be able to smell that many]

[I know]

[What are we going to do? They will attract a bunch of the fuckers here towards us]

[I know that too.]

[Well what the fuck are we going to do???]

[Idk. Nothing I guess. No one ever told me what to do about bystanders. To the corporations, these people aren’t even people.]

[We could kill them. Monsters don’t like cold meat.]

That response stops me cold. I don’t necessarily care about the people walking in our direction, trying to flee the monsters, but that also doesn’t mean I want to murder them. They haven’t tried to kill me, rob me, or anything. They just want to live. No, I wouldn’t kill them, but I had no way of moving them either. They would be dead weight, and me and my partner would die trying to save them. Or get fired when we got back even if we did make it back. We would fail our mission, watching for the monster advance, and be booted right back into the streets.

[If you want to kill them, be my guest. But I won’t waste my ammo doing it. I came here to kill monsters, not people.]

I was bluffing him, but he didn’t have to know that.

[Yeah, you preach now, but just wait until those monsters start clawing open your suit for your flesh. Then you will wish we had waxed these people and been done with it.]

I hated that he was right. The crowd was slowly marching south. They would walk right past our building. In doing so, they would attract monsters towards us. Quite a few monsters at that. Probably more than me and my partner could handle.

[Our suits are pretty stealthy. Even if the monsters do come right by us, instead of to the southwest like the projections say, and what we are watching for I might add, they’ll breeze right past us. We will be able to report it up, and carry on with our lives just like before. They won’t even know we’re here.]

[I fucking hope so Brown. For both our sakes I fucking hope so.]

It took the small crowd of people an hour or so to walk the two miles to our position. Even someone who wasn’t big into fitness could tell that they were moving slow. They would never make it far enough to escape the monsters unless they happened to run into some friendly combat titans. That would be slim as there was nothing to the south so it was the lowest priority to clear out. Besides maybe east, but few monsters would go that way. All of them would be attracted to the city to the north, where millions lived. It’d be a beacon to their senses, a promise of endless slaughter.

After they passed by us, completely unaware of our existence, I settled back down to wait for the inevitable monster wave that would be chasing after the scent of easy pickings.

15 minutes passed before they arrived. Way earlier than I thought they would. I immediately pinged my partner and started to zoom in to get a better look. 10 Sprinters. Doable for the two of us. Especially with the high ground and an open ground to fire long range over. Titans weren’t meant for long range, but lead was lead when shot out of a gun. It’d take them a few minutes to run across the terrain to us, giving us time to prepare.

I pinged my partner.

[I think we could take them. We use the open ground, get in a good position, and pick them off. Thoughts?]

[I don’t think we should risk our necks to save some nobodies.]

[We aren’t risking our necks for anyone. We both know that we are to kill any stragglers and packs small enough for us to engage. We tag the big stuff for the combat teams. These Sprinters are doable for us and you know it. Stop being spiteful you sack of shit]

[Fine. Fine. You’re right. We can take them.]

I felt pretty smug about that exchange. I hadn’t thought I’d convince him to fight with me. Not that I wanted to save so nobody people, no, I just wanted to kill something. At least that’s what I’d tell myself and everyone else.

Also, to read that I got such a masculine dude to listen to me, sounding submissive even…. That sent a shiver down my spine. I know he’s my subordinate and he has to do the things I say, but I expected him to resist more. That got me thinking about the taboo of abusing my power, and how his muscular arms would feel around… Fuck me I needed some help. How in the world was I feeling horny when I’m about to kill things. ‘Nah. I just need to get laid’, yeah that was it. Maybe I’d call Kelly up tonight and see if she wanted to have some fun. With that settled, I pinged him back.

[Alright, come over towards my side. We’ll post up with a clear view of the road to hit them when they are around half a mile out. That gives you about 2 minutes to get here, so be quick.]

He pinged affirmative back, no message. That was good. He might be new to the outfit, but he was clearly experienced in titan combat. That was good, as I had only met the guy this morning and here we are. No one bothered to tell me anything about him, not even a damn profile link to get a feel. Just a message from LT Light saying “There’s a new guy to the unit. He’s yours. He’s also coming with us. Don’t give him a hard time, in any sense of the word, you fucking twink”.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

He showed up after about a minute, finding a nice spot to rest his autocannon on for stability. The titans did a pretty good job at controlling recoil, but resting the weapon on a barrier or wall helped. I was resting my weapon on an adjacent wall already, having picked what I thought was the most stable one around. He pinged ready, and I checked the coming monsters. The Sprinters were still about a minute from our location, but I could tell they were getting riled up. They were picking up speed, barely slowing down to smell around for their prey. They were close and they knew it. Soon they would break out into what we called the Death Sprint, where monsters will run straight until they either reach their target, or blow past it. The speed they get while doing this is significantly faster than normal, but they sort of lose all control while sprinting. It ends in death, either for whatever they collide with, or themselves. Missing usually means they eventually slow down and go back to normal, but we still called it the death sprint.

I’d want to shoot before they started that up, else they would barrel past us and into the crowd of fleeing people. Thankfully, they’d start it shortly after the point I already decided was going to be where we started opening fire from. We would interrupt their focus, throwing some confusion into their hunt. Maybe save some people in the process of just doing our job. Today was starting to feel like my lucky day. I absently hoped that’d translate to tonight.

I sighted up the forward monster, pinging my partner to hit the second. When they crossed the line, I opened fire. My first round blew straight though the creature’s neck and spine, painting the road blue. Dead before it even knew it had been shot. My partner’s round hit his target in the skull, fracturing it to pieces, causing it to collapse, but not instantly killing the creature. Gods these things were resilient.

As soon as the first rounds hit the targets, and the sound wave followed to reach their ears, every single creature slid to a stop, and looked right at us. There was no doubt they knew exactly where we were and that they’d be going anywhere else. That was fine by me. Killing monsters was good money.

I sighted up the next creature, firing off another round. This one went wide, hitting the concrete beside it as it turned to start running directly for us. My partner’s next round hit one in the shoulder, causing it to stumble, but not killing it. It rolled a few times, before getting back up and starting to limp its way towards us.

What came next was sort of a blur. We fired rounds in semi auto, trying to conserve ammo where we could, and pick them off one by one as they approached. Thankfully Sprinters were like hunting dogs. Large as a truck, and deadly fast, but still like a dog. They didn’t think like some of the others. Just came as a pack and ravaged anything they got their teeth into. Mindless. They scurried over the rubble we had climbed up not an hour previous. They moved silently, focused on murdering us before we picked them all off. 4 made it to the rubble. 3 made it to the 10th floor. 1 made it about 30 feet from my spot before I put a round through its face. The final one, the one my partner had shot second, was still limping towards us, a few hundred feet away. I looked over at him, and he didn’t even turn his head. He lined up his autocannon and fired one bullet through its skull.

I looked at the first one he had shot. It was still trying to get up, despite missing half its head and brain.

[That’s so fucking creepy. They just never seem to die] I pinged to him

He didn’t answer me, but watching him scope his cannon at it, but not pull the trigger, told me everything I needed to know. He was just as creeped out as me. Horrified by their unnaturalness just as much as me.

We were mid salvaging the corpses when we saw a ship fall out the sky. Not just a small ship either. It was huge, the biggest I had ever seen. It looked nothing like even the super planes the corporations used when they visited other cities. Or the spooky flying gun platform the military was building. It looked like a spacecraft, like one from an old Holovid that survived before the rifts. It was blocky, like it did not have a care in the world for being aerodynamic, with engines in the rear and thrusters on the sides. Obvious weapon points were all over the hull, with multiple turrets lining the spine. Those thrusters were spewing blue and white, trying to slow the ship down enough to land carefully. It wasn’t going to stop the crash, but it might not wipe out everything and everyone, including us.

It flew right over me and my partner. Coming down to crash on the far side of the flattened industrial one. It must have been less than three miles away, and we watched as it hit the ground, bounced a bit, and then slid across the remains of buildings and industrial equipment into the side of a skyscraper.

My first thought was aliens. It has to be. We had never gone to space. Even before the rifts, no one had been able to breach the upper atmosphere. Something about it being too hot, or some other bullshit. We were in an insulated bubble, with just enough light making it through to keep us healthy and plants alive. The core of the planet was dead, so its coolness is what kept us from being burnt to a crisp. That’s what the scientists said. No way it belonged to one of those rich Corpo bastards, unless it was from another part of the world, which I doubted.

Either way, we watched, transfixed, as it came to a stop half way in the building. I knew we’d have to report this, monsters knowing our position be damned. I packaged up the information and sent it to HQ. Not much, but enough that they’d be able to issue us new orders. I knew before they sent them what they’d send, so I told my partner that we’d finish this quickly and get over to that crash site. We’d want to be the first on the scene to see if there was anything to salvage. Corporations were always greedy for information not already in their massive data-banks. This would be one fine paycheck.

Finished grabbing our trophies and collectables, we piled up the bodies and tagged them for pick up. We then walked west towards the site, recording everything we saw. The initial land spot, the skid, even getting good looks at the building that collapsed onto the ship. It’d take a while to dig all this out, but our objective was just to get on site and claim it for the CDC. Crews would come later to recover whatever was hidden under the rubble.

It took a few minutes to reach the site and walk around. The crash had caused the whole building to collapse, almost perfectly, directly on top of the craft. Like someone had put explosives and purposefully made it collapse straight down. The craft was buried under about 30 feet of an apartment building, and our sensors couldn’t penetrate it to figure out what, if anything, was going on under it all.

Then I got the message from headquarters.

SECURE THE SITE AND FLAG IT FOR RECOVERY. REINFORCEMENTS ARE ENROUTE TO YOUR LOCATION. DEFEND IT UNTIL THEY ARRIVE. ETA FIFTEEN MINUTES.

I shook my head. Exactly what I thought they would say. Figures.

I pinged my partner that reinforcements were incoming. Man, I really should have remembered his name by now. Wasn’t my fault he said it in passing as we shook hands this morning and I had never met the guy before. At this point I was just hoping he wouldn’t ask and I’d be able to look at his file tonight when we got back to base. Nothing worse than having to ask someone their name after you’ve killed things together. Or slept together, but I’d take that awkwardness over this right now. I’d take a lot of things over this situation right now.

This sounded like a videogame objective. Protect the point against waves of enemies until overwhelming reinforcements showed up to take the battle off your hands. Guess it made sense that some of the most popular games were mercenaries doing the exact job I was doing right now. If the report of this battle ever made it to a game developer’s implant, they’d have a field day.

That thought lifted my spirits a bit. Knowing teenage me would freak if he knew what I was doing. Killing monsters, protecting random people, being the first on the scene of what might be aliens. It was so cool when deep in your implant, pretending it’s real. It was entirely different when you had no idea who, or what, might appear at any moment. We had no clue if anyone (thing?) was alive in the aircraft. Whoever was in the craft could be doing any number of things and our titans were not equipped to move the rubble to find out. They just weren’t strong enough for it. After the rift was dealt with, whichever Corp the CDC sold the finders rights to would come and unearth the craft. Assuming none of them owned the thing and would claim it outright. There was every chance there would be blood staining these streets by nightfall.

‘Man I hope that the combat team gets here soon’. I was not about to die over some junk that fell from the sky.

Sighing, knowing there wasn’t much to do besides wait and see what happened, I pinged my partner.

[Go see if you can’t find a nearby building we can over-watch from. I don’t like being here out in the open like this. I’ll stay here and keep eyes on the crash site]

He pinged affirmative and started walking back out to the industrial wastes to see if any of the adjacent builds would provide a good overwatch position. Meanwhile, I walked around the ruined building again, looking to see if any on the backside would be good, maybe the one next door.

After a few minutes of looking, not seeing any spot suitable, my partner pinged me

[Come take a look. Found a good spot next block over. It won’t be perfect but it should be good enough]

I pinged an affirmative and turned to walk to his location. As I was walking away from the crash site I had a sensation. Something didn’t feel right, like someone was looking at me behind my back. A chill ran down my spine. I took a few more steps before the sense of wrong permeated my whole body and refused to let go. Fear gripped my heart, and in an odd state of panic I whipped my titan back around, bringing my autocannon up. I held it up, combat ready, and scanned the area.

Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. No sounds, no movement, no heat. Not even a breeze that could be detected by my titan’s sensors. Nothing was out of place, yet everything felt wrong. I did an active scan, breaking radio silence to ensure absolutely nothing was there. It was a risk, but sometimes in combat you had to take risks. “Better paranoid than dead” as Gary once said, when I was a fresh recruit learning the ropes.

Nothing, not a wisp or an irregularity on the sensors. Nothing had changed in the 10 minutes or so since we had been on site. Just fallen rubble and abandoned buildings. I stood, stock still, scanning, for about 20 seconds before I felt nothing was actually wrong, and I was just being paranoid.

“Is this crash haunted or something?” I chuckled to myself, now that embarrassment had replaced the fear in my heart. The adrenaline was still keeping my limbs stiff, mind alert and ready for combat, but with no target to focus on, it started to subside.

I lowered my weapon, and turned my sensors off active sweeping. No sense in broadcasting my location if I didn’t have to.

Then my partner’s signal went dark.

I pinged him for a response

[You good?]

No answer.

I pinged him again.

[Partner, come in.]

No answer.

I went to active sensors again, seeing if it was a glitch in the system or if his comms system went down. We didn’t have the best equipment or funding so sometimes things like this happened. Nothing. I turned my titan around, focusing the sensors at his location. There, I saw him. Then the fear hit, again.

His titan was down. The friend or foe identifier showed his titan, through the building separating us, lying on the ground. His cockpit was wide open, and a body lay slumped on the ground in front of it. Body practically torn in two. No vitals were showing on him either. I was looking at a corpse. The titan had a hole in the back of the torso, but it didn’t look like a gunshot had been born through it. It looked cut open, like a knife or something.

Adrenaline surging at full again, I raised my cannon again. I knew that he was beyond saving, and my only thought was that I was going to be next if I didn’t move. I had no idea what did it to him. There were no sounds of weapon discharge, besides some backdrop of fighting happening a few miles away. There were no units in the area. Or at least there weren’t supposed to be. We were on the fringe south of the rift, playing round up for straggler packs of monsters. The corporations had only hired us to do this because monsters meant money, and even the few monsters that didn’t run right at the city were worth hunting down for parts. Other contractors got the lucrative assignments, where most of the ‘real’ fighting would take place. We weren’t large enough to do those jobs, not that the CDC wanted them right now anyways. We still haven’t recovered from our last big scrap.

Sensors didn’t show any signs of monsters in the area, not that me being active wouldn’t shine like a beacon in the sky for any looking this way. No, a monster wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on my partner like that and kill him without him at least firing some warning shots or pinging me for help before it could chew through his armor.

My instincts kicked in. I needed to get out of here before whatever got him got me too. Galvanized, I sent an emergency SOS to headquarters.

MY PARTNER IS DEAD. NEED ASSISTANCE. ENEMY UNKNOWN. NO SHOTS FIRED. PLEASE HELP ME.

I had no time or thought power to send anything more. Scared shitless, I took off running in the opposite direction of his body.

Running towards the intersection on the west side of the crash, I was frantically trying to think of what could have waxed my partner like that. Unless he got out of his suit on his own, a death sentence in its own right out here, no monster did it. That left humans. But what human would think to take on a titan without a gun strong enough to blow up a tank? Again, there was no gunshots or explosions. Nothing could have gotten through his armor without making enough sound to alert my titan. Unless…

Before I could finish the thought something shot me.

A large caliber round tore through my titan, right through my cockpit, and blew off part of my left coolant stack before knocking out my missile launcher and going right on past. My arm, thankfully still attached, got some glowing fragments thrown into it, shredding it. The temperature in my cockpit skyrocketed as the round’s concussion superheated the air trapped in it.

There was an odd moment of clarity, before the shock, before the pain, before the inevitable soundwave caught up to the round and it took the breath from my lungs and blew out my eardrums. Before the round even fully registered in my conscious brain, I had a thought. ‘That’s a railgun. I just got shot by an actual rail gun.’ I was going to die and it was from a weapon that didn’t even exist.

Then everything hit me at once. The sound caught up to the round, screeching the loudest noise I had ever heard, right before the headset turned off external volume to save my eardrums. The pain of the shrapnel digging into my arm, shoulder, and face. The superheated air burned my skin, stealing the breath from my lungs. The concussive force of the round hitting a running titan. It all slammed into me and my titan swung, mid stride. It pulled the shoulder back, knocking the machine off balance. It spun around, falling onto its right side in the middle of the intersection. The last thing I felt before my vision went black was the jarring of the titan hitting the street.

Then I lost consciousness.