Stay safe everyone.

Ethan slouched in his seat; they had been walking for awhile now. They traveled along an old service road that lead to the mountains. It had not been used in a long time made obvious by the multitude of abandoned vehicles and overgrown containers. "Pilot, we will soon be exiting this road and travel a supply road. We must be ready to engage any IMC we come across. If you have changed your mind, we can still cut across to the rendezvous point with Major Anderson." Ethan considered the option; it was the main mission. "No, we get to the relay and try to contact the fleet. I'm pretty sure the mission is screwed anyways, if we can regroup with the fleet then maybe we can still complete whatever the main goal is." Doc didn't like the idea of abandoning the mission, it was against his programming. "Very well ,pilot," Doc stated, "we will advance to the relay."

They finally came upon the supply road. It was, by comparison, much more well traveled and not so overgrown by the planet's flora. "Pilot, I am detecting a small IMC transport convoy up ahead. It is protected by a single titan." Ethan took manual control and asked "What kind of titan?" Doc identified it as a Northstar chassis with the armament of a Brute. Brutes had rocket launchers, rocket pods, a vortex shield, and utilized a flight core. They were repurposed Northstar chassis so it wouldn't take much to destroy it. Ethan ran up behind the convoy locking onto and firing a salvo of rockets at the escorting infantry. The brute swung around and began to fire its rockets. Ethan caught them and sent them back. The brute dashed and dodged the rockets. Ethan fires his XO-16 at the titan dealing a decent amount of damage. The brute had locked its acolyte pods and fired a salvo which was caught in Doc's vortex shield. Ethan fired his own salvo striking and stunning the brute. Ethan had installed arc rockets in Doc as to gain an edge in combat. With it stunned Ethan unloaded what remained in the XO-16 while rapidly advancing on the titan. He grabbed the brute's arm, tearing it off. Using Doc's other arm he pried open the cockpit revealing the pilot. The pilot attempted to jump out but was crushed by Doc's hand. Ethan began to mop up the remaining infantry with relative ease. "Pilot, we are now about halfway to the relay. The remainder of the journey will require us to scale some of the mountains in order to reach a separate path that will lead to the relay." Ethan sighed and said "Great, more walking."

"Pilot, I detect an anomaly at the relay, it seems it is already being activated." Ethan is was taken aback by this, was there already militia forces there, is it the IMC? "Pilot, the activation sequence was a failure, it seems one of the components in the dish has been damaged. I advise we continue with utmost haste." Ethan put on his helmet and said "Agreed, let's move as fast as possible." They found a path Doc said would lead to the relay and began to travel it. "Pilot, I have decrypted parts of IMC chatter from the area, it seems there is Militia forces attempting to use the beacon." Ethan perked up, good to know someone else is alive. "Indeed it is, however it seems that a component within the dish has been damaged and must be replaced, hopefully they can repair it before IMC forces arrive." Doc was right, if they didn't move the Militia at the beacon could be overrun, and he wasn't about to let that happen.

"This is BT-7274 to the 9th Militia fleet," the signal was broadcasting. "I'll be damned, they did it." Ethan remarked. "Affirmative, we are nearly there. It seems the remnants of the 9th fleet are regrouping at the beacon, we can meet with them." Guess we aren't entirely fucked.

They arrived an hour later. The beacon had swarms of Militia troops moving around. Ethan saw Commander Briggs talking to another pilot in a titan labeled BT-7274, the titan that saved him back at the crash site. Ethan jumped out of Doc to speak to Commander Briggs. "Commander Briggs!" he called out. "Ethan! Nice of you to show up." Briggs responded. "Who was that you were talking to?" Ethan asked, he hadn't seen Lastimosa in the cockpit. "That's Cooper, he was given BT when Tai was KIA." Ethan shook his head, "Tai saved my ass back when I crashed. Speaking of which have you heard from the 6-4 at all?" Briggs smiled and pointed at one of the ships, "In the Ventura's Mask. They had asked about you actually. But I needed to ask you something, we found what we're looking for, a weapon that can destroy entire planets. It's power source is at an airbase waiting to be transferred to the Ark. I need you to come with me for the main assault." Ethan shrugged and agreed, it was the least he could do. "A transport will be here in an hour, do whatever you need until then." Ethan jumped back into Doc and sat down, he was tired. "Hey Doc, let's go talk to BT-7274, thank him for saving us, it's the least we could do." Doc strided over time BT, his Pilot was sitting in the cockpit. "Hey pilot, my name is Ethan, your titan saved our asses today." The pilot gave a thumbs up and said "I'm happy he did." Ethan asked what his name was, he said he was Cooper, Jack Cooper. He was a rifleman before getting a field promotion to pilot, a pretty large step. "I heard you're with the main assault group for the airbase, I happen to be in it too." Ethan nodded slightly and said "Yeah, I guess I'll see what you can do then, and BT-7272, I'm sorry about Lastimosa, he seemed like a good man." BT gave a quick thumbs up, a show of gratitude Ethan supposed. With that Ethan walked away, he needed to call someone.

"Don't get yourself killed, you've come too far for that." Droz was still the same at least. "Hey, we'll meet you after the battle!" Davis shouted in the background. "Yeah whatever guys," Ethan replied, "I'll see you guys around." Ethan cut the call, they seemed pretty optimistic considering what happened. He called Gates last, "Hey, you doing okay?" Gates sighed and replied with a weak "Yep" Ethan was a little worried "You sure you're all right? You seem a little down." Gates inhales and said "I'm tired, I've been worried about you, the fleet is in shambles, and the we barely made it out of the extraction zone when we got rescued, stressed out is all." Ethan rubbed his temples "I'm sorry about that, but I need to go, briefing is in five." hopefully the plan would work this time. "All right, see you later, good luck, and please don't get killed. I'll see you later." Ethan swallowed and said "I love you." he swore he could see her smile as she replied "I know you do." The call ended and Ethan headed to the bridge for the briefing. "Alright people listen up."