"Cooper, get the Ark out of there before it launches, hurry!" Briggs yelled through the comms in his helmet.

Without thinking Cooper channeled his neural link and pushed BT forward with all the speed his systems could manage. There wasn't much time before the Ark was launched and the Fold Weapon used to obliterate Harmony, it's citizens, and the Militia's final hope against the IMC.

"Fold Weapon priming sequence… complete. Deploying the Ark." Cooper heard the loudspeaker announcement from inside the cockpit.

Cooper & BT had reached the Ark's catapult but not in time. The concussive blast of the launch blacked out BT's external cameras and caused a forced shutdown.

"Cooper, do you read?" Brigg's panicked voice piped in through Cooper's helmet. "Cooper, BT, do you read?"

BT had managed a reboot to a semi-functioning state. Cooper, the injector backblast has overloaded my critical internal systems. The message was clear enough but BT's speech module was damaged. The words came through in broken stutters.

"BT! Cooper! Respond!"

Attempting to restore ocular systems.

"We've fired everything at the Fold Weapon - no effect on target!"

Ocular systems restored.

Cooper's mind was swimming from the information assault. He could hear the sheer terror in Brigg's comms. He knew all too well the destructive power of a close airstrike bombing. If a full salvo of cluster bombs had no effect on the Ark, he and BT's chances of stopping the weapon were slowly dwindling to null report. The external display hud flickered several times and then remained constant.

REINITIALIZING ROOT SYSTEMS. . ran across the screen.

My analysis indicates a throw is our only option here.

Warning - hostile Titan detected.

Red bolded text flashed WARNING on Cooper's hud. There was nothing he could do but watch; BT was still trying to regain core functionality from the injector blast. BT had dropped his Predator Cannon and all shields were down. Other than having his legs ripped off there was little could be done to put he and BT in a more vulnerable state. Cooper watched as Blisk's Ogre-class Titan stopped a couple meters short of BT. The cockpit doors hissed open and Blisk hopped out, a dull thud resonating through the cockpit as his boots impacted BT's chassis.

"It's your lucky day, hero." Blisk mocked. "I'm not going to kill you. I don't work for free." His South-African accent really inflecting the 'r'. Mercs were all garbage; their only honor lied in piles of credits. To Cooper, men like Blisk were nothing more than hookers with big robots. Though you couldn't see through his helmet, Cooper's eyes were hot pokers of rage. He wanted nothing more than to humble Blisk; destroy his Titan and crush his legs with BT's hand.

"But… you don't get to kill me either…" He chuckled as he said the words. What did Blisk have to be concerned with - he was holding all the cards - including the Apex playing card he fished from the front-left pocket of his combat vest.

"Here, you earned this, eh?" Blisk slapped the card on the cockpit doors and stood up.

"Blisk. That Vanguard class Titan is still in there!" Cooper heard General Marder's voice come through the short-wave radio.

"Not my problem Marder." Blisk casually replied. "Should have put it in my contract. I've got other people with money to see." Mid-sentence Blisk's Titan lowered an arm and scooped up the merc to place him back in the cockpit. As the doors closed, Marder came through the radio, his tone was full of venom and impatience.

"What are you doing? What do you think you are doing?" Blisk could not have cared less. He was already marching off - ready to score another bloated roll of credits. He was, after all, a professional.

Cooper was shaking with rage. BT interrupted.

My analysis indicates a throw is our only option here. More buzzing and stutters from his voice module. The damage was more significant than Cooper had realized.

INITIALIZING EMERGENCY RESTART flashed on the hud.

REROUTING AUXILIARY POWER now flashed. Cooper looked around the cockpit to see if any other systems were running when after a few moments AUX POWER ONLINE came on the screen and changed from grey to solid amber.

Cooper, I require your assistance. My auto-navigation systems are offline. Get me into that injector assembly. We must do this together.

A series of scrambled letters were moving on the screen above the Aux Power message. Cooper struggled to try and make sense of them but before he could, they rolled into place. 1. Link to Pilot Jack Cooper - Linked. More lines of text moved and shuffled about the view screen.

Validating Neural Link

Success

Motion Link Restored

Success

Rebooting Comm Array. . . the three dots continued flashing.

"B-boost the signal!" CDR Brigg's voice was coming through Cooper's headset again. "BT! Cooper! Our ground teams can't make it there in time! You've got to find a way to destroy the Fold Weapon from the inside! There's no other way!"

Commander Briggs, I believe I have a solution. More jumbled text was cycling on the hud. 2. Uphold the mission. In its exposed state, my reactor core may be able to destabilize the Ark at the center of the Fold Weapon. 2. Uphold the mission - Destroy Fold Weapon. Cooper used the manual control override to move BT's arms up one by one to the injector seat. Right arm up. Close grip. Hydraulic pistons compress. Left arm up. Close grip. Pistons compress. He repeated the movements. They were torturously slow, but they were making progress.

"What are you saying?" Briggs knew what BT had meant but wanted him to validate her.

W-we can b-b-blow it uuuuup. I'm sending you coor-coordinates for a dropship rendezvous-ous.

"Coordinates received. We'll be there, but I don't see how you can." Briggs replied.

Trust me. I have done the math. The word trust was repeated twice and BT's voice was full of static and oscillating rapidly from bass to alto and back to bass.

"I sure as hell hope so. We're on our way. Good luck - both of you. Briggs out." Her voice snapped off and the comms were silent. BT was now fully in the injection seat and Cooper felt the whole system shudder as the launch gears locked into place.

Uploading

Connection unverified

Rerouting link OS V18.723M

Success

A high-pitched whine permeated into the cockpit and Cooper's ears were ringing. The injector was preparing to launch the next object. He finessed the controls and leveled his vision out the central viewing hud.

Vanguard Class Titan: BT-7274 MAIN PROTOCOLS 3. Error Error Error

Cooper drew in a deep breath and let it out. This was it. "Don't worry BT. I'm not going anywhere." he assured the Titan.

Copy that, Pilot. The third protocol was whirring now, cycling through characters. 3. 'Protect' was the only completed word but Cooper already knew what BT was doing. Yellow-amber bars of lights were beginning to work their way up the sides of the injector. The whining of the capacitive launch controller indicated it was nearly at full charge.

"You know the problem with you, BT?" Cooper almost laughed the words out of his mouth.

Yes, Cooper. My critical internal systems have sustained heavy damage. I am no longer able to function without assistance.

"No. You're too predictable." Cooper replied. He moved his right hand over a cluster of multicolored buttons and reflexively punched in a sequence of commands.

"Pilot has engaged manual override. Cockpit ejection switched to Pilot control." the system announced.

MANUAL MODE flashed repeatedly on the hud.

Pilot…

"Not this time, BT. If you eject me you'll be blind without the optical sensors in my helmet. We're only going to have one shot at this. We can't afford to miss the Ark."

Pilot Cooper, you will not survive the blast. When overloaded, my reactor core will release an estimated 144.39 terajoules of energy. Vaporization is guaranteed.

"I know, BT. There was a reason Lastimosa entrusted you to me. Fact is, your auto-nav systems could have taken you to another pilot. A better, more capable pilot. And yet, here I sit." BT did not respond.

The amber lights had reached under BT's chassis and Cooper could no longer see them. They were about to be launched.

"BT…"

Yes, Pilot?

"Bless all forms of intelligent life. See you on the other side."

Noted. See you on the other side, Cooper.

The injection seat wavered and Cooper felt himself being pressed into the back of his seat with 5G of force. Once cleared of the mouth of the injector there was a brilliant flash of blue light - the Ark shimmered. BTs 40T hulking mass hurdled through the air as Cooper did his best to keep his vision forward and centered to give BT the best estimate of the center. It worked. Cooper felt an immense heat building under his seat. He closed his eyes and exhaled.

Goodbye, Cooper.

As the reaction built there was a momentary calm before BTs reactor core fully imploded in on itself and burst out in a violent hot white light. The Ark shuddered madly and was overtaken by the core explosion. Their combined energies ripped apart the rotating field rings that previously held the Fold Weapon's energy. BT was right. Briggs watched at a distance from her shuttle as BT's chassis was enveloped in light and vaporized. She gave an unreciprocated salute as Jack Cooper's Status indicator changed from 'Active' to 'Deceased'. She sat down in her jump seat and switched off Cooper's indicator.

"No response from Pilot Cooper or BT-7274." Briggs ordered the shuttle pilot to reroute to Harmony. She felt her face flush and fought back the tears welling in her eyes. "Godspeed, Pilot…" she whispered.