It was a slog, even with the steel tread of Titan feet marching robotically against the grains below. And it certainly took all day to reach the target destination, but reach it they did. It was breaking to nightfall when the distant rush of water was able to be picked up by human ears, at least. He thanked whatever deity ruled over this place that the river had been flowing for at least a few hundred years, having a nice thick surrounding of plant life and tall trees springing right up on either side of the bank of the flowing stream. At least he assumed it to be a river, given the circumstance. He couldn’t see the other side of it from here, but it was definitely a river.

It would be a good camouflage and place to rest for the night, if absolutely nothing else. But where there is water and flora, there is most likely fauna as well. Somewhere up or down this river there had to be a civilization, and the most likely route was to follow the way the river flowed. For now though, Johannsen slid off the shoulder of his partner and fell to the ground below, stretching his limbs and moving to the flowing river to fill the canteens he had.

“Right, whaddya think AK? Do the LRRPs pick up anything out of the ordinary?”

“Current radar pulses to the North reveal open desert and foliage to the maximum range, however more anomalous readings concurrent with settlements are to the South.”

He turned his helmeted head to the South, the direction the river was flowing to, and sighed. That would probably put them deeper into the desert, if they couldn’t find a civilization they would be quite out of luck. “Copy. Let’s make camp here for the night, set yerself to silent running for the night, huh you big metal bastard?”

“Roger that.”

A Titan’s ‘silent running’ is mostly just a joke term between Pilots, but it’s really just dimming any outward lights and minimizing your profile as much as possible. Both Titan and Pilot had programs that automatically ran in low-light scenarios, such as dimming visors and cutting rifle lights. He yawned inside the helmet, his vision crawling along to near nothing as the sun fully set and what looked like a full moon pushed along into the open sky.

He motioned along to AK and quickly embarked into the cabin for the night. Setting his rifle to the side in a spot specifically designed to hold it, he sighed out and spoke the first thing that came to his tired mind, “Rabbi, who was it that sinned for the man to be born blind?”

He chuckled at himself, remembering the times when he was young that his father would read passages from that ragged old book. His helmet slipped off his head and onto a random control surface to his side, and his eyes closed shut as his world was bathed in near-total darkness. It was a peaceful kind of serenity, being in that infinite non-seeing void.

He didn’t know the exact time he woke up, but it was definitely still late in the night, and still enough time not to be able to see shit. He fumbled around in the cockpit with a groan, reaching around for where he thought he’d left his helmet. “Goddamnit, AK put the interior lights on.”

He figured that it might be easier to see… something with the lights on. Maybe. “Unable to comply. Pilot, we have unknown contacts approaching quickly, most likely in a low orbit capable vehicle. I was about to wake you.”

Ah, fuck. His groan deepened as a multitude of possibilities crossed through his mind, the forefront of them hopefully being a rescue team tracking his, admittedly sloppy, tracks. Although with his luck, it would be an IMC salvage team.

He pushed his hand through the basically pitch blackness in the cockpit, eventually landing his fingerless-gloved hand on that telltale helmet, cradling it close for a moment before popping it right onto his head and turning it back on. The vision it provided at the moment was… negligible, at best. But it was better than nothing, which was what it was before. The next thing he fumbled for was the rifle in its slot, which he didn’t need to spend as much time looking for as he picked the thing right up.

Staring right at the Longbow designated marksman rifle, he pulled the bolt back and racked the first 8.19mm cartridge into battery, his hands naturally knowing every curve, bend, and feature on the firearm from prolonged use. “Alright buddy, open the hatch and get into uhh.. fuck. What ambush pattern am I thinking of right now?”

To emphasize his own stupidity, he slapped his hand against the helmet’s surface to try and coax the information he desired from it. “Zulu 34! Good ‘ole Zulu 34.”

“That calls for multiple additional Titans dropping from orbit, Pilot.”

“Fuck! Ad-hoc it then, find something that’ll mostly cover yer big metal ass and try not to be seen until we can confirm these targets.”

“Roger that, I do not believe I will be able to climb a tree.”

He scoffed and chuckled, tapping the canopy of his partner before the Titan let him out into that mostly inky dark nothingness. Well except for some rather lovely and convenient moon light, that is. It lit up things just enough for the helmet to be able to pick up, and then display enough information to the rugged pilot.

He made sure the helmet itself didn’t glow as bright as the visor normally did, and slung the rifle to make his way up a decently sized tree, Titansized, at least. He found his footing in some of the higher up branches, mostly fumbling around trying to see what would hold his weight, and got nice and comfortable as the rifle was unslung and leveled at… “AK, what direction were they coming from?”

The Pilot scolded himself and spoke quietly into the comms link, cursing himself that he forgot to ask such a pivotal and simple question. “86 degrees North-West.”

He gave a simple thumbs up in response and turned his body, and more importantly rifle, towards the project location. He thought he could see something against the darkness of the sky, but it might have been something on the lens of the scope. He knew better though, it seemed to move despite the scope, rather than with it. It was definitely still a ways out, following nearly his exact path he came from not a few hours ago, but they had time until it managed to get to their position.

To him, he figured it definitely was some kind of low orbit transport looking for him and AK, the two partners imposing something of a black eye onto the IMC in battles prior. If this was even IMC, anyway. He still didn’t know what had engaged the Orwell before the uh, ‘Mega Jump.’

A couple of things surrounding that Jump were just plain strange to him too, number one being the automatic chronometer in AK that was acting up. It couldn’t decide between being the year 2733, 2350, or 1500. He and the Titan both attributed it to something wrong with the code or hardware, even if AK said everything was mostly in working order. He brushed it off, as he did with most things, but it still bugged him.

He sat silently in the light of the apparently full moon, the lush tree obscuring his body from the possible threat. It was closer now, enough to make out that it definitely was some kind of ship. It sure as shit didn’t look like any the IMC used, or even the Militia. The closer the ship got, the more he was worried. Bloody hell, was this planet inhabited by a third party? The frontier planets that didn’t agree with the Militia were usually just added to the IMC’s forces, but this definitely looked… different.

Roughly three kilometers out now, gaining distance fast. Looks like whoever it was, was getting impatient. It was close enough now to have AK start figuring out some information on it, basic stuff like hull composition and the crew onboard, which he was surely already doing. As for him though, the scope never left the target for a millisecond, his aim held nice and steady by his ‘bad’ arm.

“Pilot, composition of aircraft hull is some type of steel alloy, unknown materials are present all throughout its structure. It seems similar in construction to larger ships like the Orwell, but flies perfectly fine. Emissions detected from the vehicle are hard to define, composed of pure energy.”

“Right, pure energy just like how Jump drives work. These guys are lunatics, can you work out anything to distinguish them in there?”

“Scans of the vessel indicate crew composing at least fifteen individuals, three currently piloting.”

He hummed in agreement, silently doing the combat math if it came to that. It should be easy, sure, but nothing ever is. They’d have to wait and see what happened from here.

The damned ship was too hot, even at night. His feathers bristled at the heat of the small Griffonian designed dropship, the roughly fourteen other members of the ‘R and R’ team crammed in like sardines. All that body heat did wonders for the internal temperature, but it would be alright in a bit. Apparently, the pilots were ‘near something.’ They’d been saying that for about three Zemyla damned hours now.

He looked towards his sergeant who just shot him a ‘I know. Deal with the saddle sodomizers for just a bit longer’ type of look. He was lucky to even be here, realistically. He and the team should have been sent to the front a long time ago, but providence provides he guessed.

The ship lurched, signalling a sudden slow in speed, and the voice of their lovely pilot choked over the buzzy intercom, “Green light Chicksz.” Doors on either side of the ship opened, and the flyers of the group practically fell out as they got into a flying formation just in front of the ship. He was one of those flyers, somewhere at the bottom of the proverbial and literal pecking order as he flew at the end of the large ‘V’ formation.

They slowly took the ship in for a landing near a river’s edge, and seeming that it was this far West, it was most likely the beginning of the Guto river bordering the Saddle Protectorate, and the Griffonian Empire. The ship eventually touched down and let the earth-bound Saddles out, the already moving Griffon team proceeding towards the roughly one kilometer distance to the river.

Fortunately for him it wasn’t uncommon to have to walk, or move in general, at longer distances like this. It was a standard patrol, Captain Alleoue in front and Lieutenant Arante right next to him. Just behind them, Sergeant June led the rest of the six odd griffs in an orderly fashion. He, as always, was in the rear. Like he’d thought many times, his sorry hide was lucky to be here, Privates usually didn’t get the option to go on specialized teams like this unless they provided some kind of service or specialty. Helpfully, he had an affinity for all things mechanical.

Though, that didn’t particularly apply in this case, not yet at least. It was fucking dark out here, and they didn’t expect to be out this long. He just sighed internally and thanked Zemyla the full moon was out tonight, giving better visibility than nothing. The griff in front of him broke formation and moved just off to his right side, looking at him while they walked.

“Szo you’re the mechsz expert out here, whaddya thinksz thisz could be?” Corporal Delonge was an Imperial Griffon, with the accent and all to match. He was not.

“Honestly don’t know. Looked like treads but weren’t a solid track. Might be some kinda suit, maybe?” They whispered quietly, not exactly wanting to throw off the other members of the griff team. They didn’t particularly give any care to the Saddles behind them, neither did the Saddles… disorganized lazy heathens.

“Riiight. That’sz crazy talk, Chevy. But I promisze not to desztroy whatever it isz too bad, you know, szo you can get a nice look on it~”
He could practically hear the sarcasm dripping from the Corporal’s beak, just raising a brow in response and telling the oversized chicken to get back in formation. This time he outwardly sighed and rolled his eyes, but to tell the truth he was rather excited to see just what did cause those tracks, and how it set up a beacon like that.

The team was probably around five hundred meters from the river now, definitely close enough to hear the audible rushing waves in the water, at least faintly. Vision was alright, but he didn’t put his entire trust into it. He cradled the lightweight rifle under his wing that everygriff here had, the trusty mass-produced H43 pattern firearm. He hated the fucking thing, it was vastly inferior to other options. At least it was simple to use…

He turned his head to look back at the Saddles trailing lamely behind the griffs, just shaking his head at the vastly inferior group. Something told him they wouldn’t have a very successful military career after-

His head snapped towards the nearby treeline, definitely having seen something glimmering there. He pulled out the rifle under his wing and held it aloft, looking down the scope for a moment to pass over where he thought he’d seen something. It took a moment, but something barely visible within the trees was definitely there… what the fuck was that?

Just what in the fuck are these things?? He’d been watching them ever since they landed that junk looking ship roughly a kilometer out, then a bunch of four legged bird things stalked towards him. He was mostly just confused as he tried to get the magnification up on the variable zoom scope, still rather unable to make out the fine details of anything. Just broad strokes.

What he could make out though, was what looked to be a sharpshooter looking right at him, rifle and all. He didn’t like that one bit, putting the crosshairs right on target. “C’mon guy, put the rifle down..”

His breath hitched in his throat as his finger idly played against the trigger, just waiting for a sudden movement from the creature. He heard his heart beat in his chest, the thumping sounding in his ears as the cold night bit at his skin, “C’mon… drop it.”

Eventually whatever possessed the strange bird thing to aim at his rough position passed, and he went back to the rest of his squad just ahead. He’d already taken a look at the majority of whatever force this could be considered, finding what looked to be a rather obvious officer leading towards the front… maybe two, actually.

Why they’d ever want to do that is beyond him, but there was no doubt now, they were after him and AK. He pulled his head from the scope and looked behind him, foggy and fuzzy vision making a shit time trying to find the big metal dickhead he called a partner. He knew AK would have found something decent to hide behind, or maybe in, but not if these creatures could get close enough for detailed inspection.

He rocked his head side to side, cracking the vertebra in his neck, before looking right back down the scope towards the first officer he’d spotted. They’d gotten a bit closer now, and he could just barely make out some foggy shapes across their various uniforms. He’d guessed it was medals, or maybe their equivalent of rank. Whatever the case, he knew they were all armed with firearms under their wings, making this that much more difficult.

His finger played against the trigger of the Longbow, his sight right across that black coated officer’s helmeted head.

Must have been nothing. He could have sworn though…

He sighed and slung the rifle underwing again, pushing up to catch the Corporal, falling back into step as they marched right along. His mind was bugging him though, and his eyes kept along that same general area of the treeline they were rapidly approaching.

His pace quickened and he moved up alongside Delonge, eyes looking around their environment, and not liking what he felt. “Corp’, this doesn’t feel right. Feels like we’re walking into a killzone.”

“Relax Chevy! There’sz nothing out here that could hurt usz. I’m Szure the Captain is putting usz in the beszt poszzibl-”

A loud shot rang through the air, and immediately the Sergeant ordered everygriff drop to the sand, the squad doing so without hesitation as they got their guns up in nearly every direction. He knew where it came from though, of course he did. He heard his voice scream out, “Zemyla damnit! They're in the trees!”

His rifle found itself aimed directly at where he thought that shimmer came from, the retort of the Griffish made instrument of war sounding back as he fired seven quick rounds, his squad seemingly content to fire random shots wide into the treeline, then the voice he recognized as the Lieutenant screamed over the fire, “The Captain’sz dead! W.we’re doomed!”

He scoffed and cursed himself for not saying something about that damned tree, and he cursed his officers for being such weak incompetent chickenshit.

Fuck, that got ‘em squawking for sure. He didn’t much appreciate the fire he got in return either. He put his sights onto the other officer, basically motionless over the one he’d just put down, he wasn’t going to give him a chance either.

The loud retort of the eight millimeter round tore through the night sky, just like it tore through the other poor creature's face. Literally in one ear, out the other. A clean shot that dropped him instantly, what he failed to account for was the flash of light that… had just given him away. Okay, moving now!

He quickly dove out of the tree and to the ground, landing with a thud and a grunt before getting his feet under him to sprint back into some form of cover. “AK! NEED A BIT OF HELP HERE BUDDY!”

He heard the massive hunk of junk move from… somewhere, he’d lost track of the Titan as he was getting into his own position. Turns out, his partner had simply submerged himself into the river and was waiting for the opportunity to release himself from it. “Counting 12 hostiles, ballistics put their rifles at 7.62 caliber.”

He laughed as he threw a grappling line towards the Titan, embarking quickly as a round zipped in and pinged against the armor plate he was just next to. It was actually an impressive volume of fire, considering from what he saw there was no squad automatic weapon among them.

“Alright buddy, let’s hope these birds don’t have AT weapons!”

Rounds were being dumped into the treeline, the officers were dead, the radiogriff was practically screaming into the equipment, and the Saddles were running around like fucking chic- like idiots. From what he could tell, two enemy shots were fired and two Griffons were KIA. Everyone here knew that meant it was most likely a marksmare, maybe even Equestrian. Fuck.

He heard the voice of his Sergeant yelling over the gunfire, “leave the bodies we’ll come back for them! Alpha you’re advancing, Bravo you’re covering. Move!”

His legs picked up on instinct and started to move up as fast as he could to the treeline, Bravo team laying down more fire for their movement as the combat continued. They’d most likely relocated by now, it would be suicidal not to, but that’s when his ears heard various ‘plinks’ against something heavy metal just beyond his sight.

He really wasn’t prepared for what poked through the treeline, some massive metal monster with glowing blue eyes like a demon starting laying fire into the team members ahead of him, explosions rounding in his ears as his Sergeant was turned into a Griffon shaped bloodstain on the sand, his own body dropping straight down like a sack of potatoes as he threw his rifle down.

He heard the screams of the Griffs around him as an explosion rocked sand and pebbles all over him, feeling pain carve its way into his left rear leg as he screamed out in agony, tearing his eyes away from the ground to see the hulking beast step free from the treeline, if only partly, and fire on the friendly Saddles and Griffons just behind him.

It was a slaughter. He couldn’t pry his eyes away from the thing as it decimated the entire fifteen griff section, w.wait this was… o.oh Zemyla..

He felt his eyes involuntarily close as he passed out from the agonizing pain in his leg, his head hitting the sand stained with his friends and his own blood, fading deep into that inky black nothingness.

It wasn’t a fair fight, it never was against unprepared infantry. ‘Titan, Titan!’ Yeah, he’d heard it before, though this time it was really like he was a god of death, tearing through what seemed to be just cloth and simple armor with the high explosive 40mm tracker rounds from AK.

Within minutes the hostiles were down, and he turned his sights on the ship that was seemingly starting back up, trying to escape from him and his partner. No sir, not on his watch. “AK, test out those new homing rockets that the Fleet so lovingly gave to us.”

“Roger that, Pilot.” Was the simple response his order, a shoulder mounted pod deploying from the Titan that housed the rockets themselves, armed and ready to fire. Five loud ‘whirrs’ sounded as they shot out from the launcher, and locked themselves onto various points across the ship’s vital targets. Within 20 seconds, five entire rockets found their marks one by one as the ship went up in a glorious fireball of death and destruction.

Johannsen snorted and turned his attention to the remaining targets and ground level, immediately surrounding him. None of them were combat capable anymore, if they even lived. Fuck, he needed intel from them. “AK, any vitals among the wreckage here?”

“123 meters to the front, multiple heartbeats. Analysis says most will die within minutes, one is not beyond saving.”

“Cover me.” He tapped the canopy and it opened right up, hitting the sand and moving his ass straight to the designated survivor. He pulled up and slid against the grains under his boots, getting down to his knees as he slung the Longbow rifle over his shoulder. He took a look at the creature, and from such a close and personal view he knew this wasn’t something that should be possible, whatever.

He ripped open the first aid bag he had on his backside, applying a tourniquet for the back leg at where he thought the best possible place, jeez this leg was torn up. He looked his eyes towards the face of the creature and plucked the damn thing out of the sand, it’s breathing was a bit wet… not a terribly great sign all things considered.

He tore open a syrette of Exicedrin, plunging it just into the bird thing’s ass and picking it up, right up over his shoulder. He turned to leave but noticed the rifle he’d dropped before passing out, making a small sound of thought before picking it up and slinging it with his own Longbow.

This was gonna be an interesting day, he told himself as he walked back to the tree cover.

Author's Note

How ironic, a sniper that can't see. To the blind man the world is black.

LRRP - Long Range Radar Pulse
AT - Usually anti-tank but here it's anti Titan
KIA- Killed In Action