Chapter Text
Shiganshina Exploration and Security: one of the smaller mercenary outfits in the Maria system, owned a small office in the ruins of Shiganshina's capital city. It was located in the abandoned remains of an old military complex, which the merc company had claimed under the Abandoned Property Act, fixed up, and now used to house their men and machines.
The captial city had been nuked into rubble during The War and while it was slowly being rebuilt, you still needed to wear a radiation cowl whenever you went outside and an ATV to get anywhere outside the city center. To have someone visit their offices in person was a rare occasion.
Which is why Armin was so interested when his console had chimed, and the voice of his secretary announced that a Lady Historia was here to talk to him.
"Mr. Arlert," Historia had said as soon as she had come in the door. "I am interested in hiring your company to do some work for me. You come with high recommendations. They say you have one of the deadliest women on the planet as one of your senior officers."
Armin nodded, leaning back in his chair. "That's true. We may be a small company, but our troops are all highly trained and we have some of the best 3D infantry in the whole sector."
"It's said also that you do whatever it takes to get a job done," Historia leaned forward. "Tell me Mr. Arlert, is it true that you have a titan?"
---
It was rare to find a working titan these days. During The War, those great war machines had been churned out by the millions by the manufacturing centers of Brackdur, Issell, Ypiru, and Chromiar. The widespread use of these machines had been the sole reason The War had been so devastating to the galaxy. A small squad of titans had been capable of completely annihilating a settled planet within a matter of hours.
Now of course, there was not a single place in the galaxy capable of building a titan. Brackdur was still trying to pull itself back together, Issell and Ypiru had both had their surfaces completely incinerated, and the last foundry on Chromiar had been blasted into slag near the end of The War. Most of the titans that had been produced had in turn been destroyed during the war's progression. While the pieces of them were everywhere, an intact working titan was nearly unheard of.
But that didn't mean that one didn't occasionally surface that had escaped destruction with the end of the war.
---
SES was very tight lipped as to how exactly the had acquired their titan, but they restored one of the old repairing bays in their base and housed it there. It was here that Armin took Lady Historia.
"So it is true," Historia whispered as she gazed up at the fifteen meter mecha. It was humanoid in shape, with weapons sprouting from nearly every available surface. Its plating showed hard wear, but it had clearly been well looked after. A fresh coat of paint in the company colors decorated its shoulders and someone had even took the time to paint a set of straight white teeth on its face. "A Rogue class from the looks of it."
Armin nodded. "Exactly. Eren, our pilot, could level the capital within hours, if he had reason to."
The Rogue class of titans had been built as a purely offensive machine. While it had basic defensive systems and could move at a respectable speed, it was no match for the Armoured class or Dancer class in their respective areas. It made up for those shortcomings in range and pure firepower. The logic behind its design had been, that one would not have much to fear from an enemy that had been reduced to a pile of radioactive ash before it could even get within firing range.
Lady Historia nodded in understanding. "You've convinced me Mr. Arlert. A few days ago, there was an attempt to kidnap me by one of the outlaw gangs hiding out in the scrapwastes. It failed, but my bodyguard Ymir was captured in the process. From what I gathered, the outlaws have taken her back to their hideout and are now torturing her for information. I fear that they will kill her eventually, regardless of whether she tells them anything. I want you and your company to return her to me, alive and as unharmed as possible. I am willing to pay whatever you ask, and cover all extra expenses, on the condition that my bodyguard is returned to me alive. If she dies for whatever reason, I will not pay you a single sol."
Armin closed his eyes, engaged his neural implant, and did some quick calculations. He suddenly opened his eyes and turned to Historia.
"I believe we can do that. Twenty million sols, plus expenses, and we will return you bodyguard to you alive."
Historia held out her hand, her eyes hard with determination. "You have a deal."
---
Eren Jeager was many things, but peaceful and well adjusted were not on the list. There were many in fact, who felt that it wasn't a wise move to leave the piloting of a fifteen meter war machine capable of destroying an entire planet, to a man with documented rage issues and who thought that "total annihilation" was still a viable war aim.
But, if Eren was at the bottom of the list of potential pilots, it was because he was the only one on it. The neural implants required to sync with a titan were as hard to find as the titans themselves, and if you had them, there was no guarantee anyone would survive the installation with their mental functions still intact. Even then, it was hit or miss as to whether the candidate would then be able to successfully sync with the titan.
Eren had done both, which left him as the only person in the entire Maria System which could pilot SES's titan.
Besides, no one could deny the fact that if you wanted anything wiped off the face of the galaxy, Eren was the best person for the job.
---
Most imagined that titan pilots sat in chairs with their screens and control panels arrayed before them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead the pilots spent most of their time with their bodies completely encased in the neural receptors located in the base of the titan's neck, with information being displayed through the pilots personal HUD.
Your body was basically paralyzed from the neck down. But when he synced, it ceased to bother Eren. Every step the titan took, as it made its way across the decimated urban environment of scrapwastes, felt like his own. He could perceive his target ahead of him. An old industrial manufacturey and refining complex that the outlaws had turned into their fortified base of operations.
Normal policy was just to blast such a installation into slag and then move on to more important objectives. Something he couldn't do unfortunately, without slagging their primary objective along with it.
His HUD lit up as he subconsciously identified dozens of potential targets. A stray thought opened up his comm channel and he spoke. "Target is in range. Initialing light bombardment."
For a rouge titan, that basically meant every weapon that couldn't level a city in a single hit.
---
"Everyone clear on the plan?" Jean spoke into his comm, as his squad made their way through the old transit tunnel. "Mikasa's squad is approaching the complex from the old freight lines. They will be both securing our evac zone, and creating a diversion. We're apporaching from the other side. Our goal is to get in, secure our objective, and get her to the evac zone alive. Remember, if she dies. We're not getting paid a thing."
The ground under their feet suddenly started to shake.
"Damn," Jean swore. "Looks like Eren's already started the bombardment. Let's go before the idiot accidentally blows our objective away."
The squad broke into a quick jog as they made their way down the transit tunnel. Finally, the tunnel opened up into a station, with an upper level walkway that overlooked the tracks. One of the outlaws was patrolling along the walkway, an assault rifle at the ready. He suddenly jerked, raised a hand to his ear comm, then bolted out of the room. Obviously Mikasa's squad had started their assault.
"Right," Jean hissed. "Anti-grav on. Lets roll."
There was the jarring feeling of weightlessness as his 3DMG's anti-gravity generator kicked in. He fired a line into the ceiling above the second level, and then he was flying through the air, his squad behind him.
---
According to a popular net legend, which had been made into a media series, three dimensional maneuvering gear had been developed on one of Saturn's moons, in order to aid the colonists in fighting a race of man-eating giants.
In truth the gear had originally been invented to solve the problem of working in the weightless environment of deep space, and was still heavily used into civilian sector for any job that took someone into a weightless environment.
Nearly three hundred years ago however, someone had gotten the bright idea to take a normal set of 3DMG, attach an anti-grav generator to it, and make it so any idiot could launch themselves around a room like they were a helium balloon tied to a particularly excited puppy. The new 3DMG saw its first use in the area of extreme sports, before armed forces across the galaxy started taking note of the new dimension 3DMG added to tactical combat.
3D infantry had been born.
---
Jean's squad made rapid progress through the complex. Most of the outlaws had been draw away to deal with Mikasa's squad, and those that had remained were not expecting a 3D assault from behind.
Jean crouched behind and massive support beam on the ceiling, as a barrage of light fire pinged off the metal. The anti-grav on 3D gear meant that every surface could be utilized, and that inevitably threw many people off guard. There was a burst of automatic fire from Connie, hidden behind a burnt out neon sign, and the outlaw dropped.
"Right, forward!" Jean snapped. The squad leapt from cover, half covering the ceiling, the other half covering the floor and walls. Reiner fired a line into the wall, the cable yanking him into new cover right by the stairwell.
He glanced down the stairs, raised a hand and signaled to the rest of the squad. They were clear.
---
The outlaws had been keeping Ymir locked in an old janitor's closet with her hands behind her back. The surprised guard never even had time to grab his gun before Jean blasted into the hallway, his rifle at full auto. Connie's autohacker made quick work of the old magnetic lock and the door was open in a second.
Ymir looked pretty good for someone who had apparently been tortured. But Jean knew that didn't mean anything. He knew that if you made a few very illegal modifications to a common nerve stimulator, (The kind that could be bought in any sex shop in the Maria system.) you had a very nasty torture device that didn't leave physical marks.
Marco, the squad's medical officer, was by Ymir's side in a second, his medical scanner running a diagnosis. "It's her," he confirmed. "No immediate physical injuries either.
"Who the fuck are you?" Ymir hissed, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Shiganshina Exploration and Security," Jean explained. He activated his industrial omnitool and sheared the bindings off Ymir's wrist. "Lady Historia is paying us to rescue you."
Ymir let out a laugh of shock. "Goddamnit," she chocked. "Goddamnit. I should have known..." She accepted the radiation cowl and pistol Marco handed to her. She quickly threw the cowl on, and gripped the pistol tightly. "What's the plan?" She braced herself as the building gave a sudden jolt. "Goddamnit! You've got a titan shelling this place or something!?"
Connie let out a laugh. "Bingo!"
---
It was easy enough to find their way to the evac zone. They just had to follow the bodies. Mikasa was focused and ruthless whenever she was on a mission. She and her squad had gunned down every outlaw they had come across, leaving the way to one of the outside landing pads clear. Getting Ymir through the complex had been quick and easy.
Outside was a different story. It was literally raining ordinance. Artillery shells were falling like rain drops, the sky was streaked with the chem trails of countless missiles, sonic detonators made anything that was under the least stress shatter like glass, lasers burned their way across the ground, melting steel and igniting anything flammable, sharidier anti-personnel rounds burst apart in mid-air, sending a deadly rain of disks ricocheting off every surface. The nanofactory on-board the titan meant that Eren could keep firing until the titan's fusion generator burned out. (Which would happen in about ten thousand years, give or take)
Jean's squad booted it across the landing pad, Ymir in the middle of them. An armored troop carrier in SES colors had landed, and Mikasa's squad was standing guard around it.
"Get in the goddamned carrier!" Jean commanded. "Who knows how long before Eren accidently blows this place off the map!"
He wasn't unjustified in his words. While Eren did know where the evac zone was, and had avoided hitting it, rouge titans were not well known for avoiding collateral damage, or friendly fire incidences.
The troops bolted up the boarding ramp, cramming Ymir into a seat directly behind the cockpit. The loading doors closed and the carrier took off. The sky outside began to blur by as the aircraft booked it away from the combat zone.
"Eren, we're clear. Slag the place." the person in the co-pilot's chair spoke into the comm.
He had barely closed the call, before the entire complex disappeared in a gigantic pillar of fire which reached up passed even the tallest clouds, obliterating the complex and everything within a fifty kilometer radius. The shockwave buffeted the carrier, causing Sasha to spill chips over everyone, but doing no damage.
"Fuck," Ymir hissed. "A clean fusion nuke! You really do have a titan."
The co-pilots chair tuned around to reveal Armin leaning back in it. "Compliments of Lady Historia," he explained. "I don't know what you are to her, but she was willing to pay twenty million sols to get you back."
Ymir let out a choked laugh. "Goddamn that woman. Goddamnit..." She let out a long breath of relief. "So, where you dropping me off? Capital hospital?"
Armin smiled. "Lady Historia requested that we drop you off right at her door. So that's what we are going to do. We cannot afford to have anything happen to you if we dropped you off somewhere else. Shiganshina Exploration and Security gets the job done, no matter what we have to do."