Jaxs's Random Titanfall abominations

Found what was once lost

 The signal comes through faintly.

On a sparsely-inhabited planet called Hiemal, the distress signal comes through. Faint as it is, they can tell it is there. They have no idea what it could be, so they take extreme precautions.

Hiemal is a beautiful planet, in their opinion. Snow as far as the eye can see, reflecting the distant starlight in glittering swathes. It reminds Keplar of home. The chill is welcome to them, even beneath the thick coat and layers of thermal wear underneath. One thing they revel in: the Militia-issued boots do an excellent job of keeping their toes warm. As much as they loved the cold and brisk air, numb toes are not an enjoyable experience.

For a moment, they stop in their tracks and take a deep breath, feeling their face tingle with the chill. They close their eyes, reveling in the feeling. If only they could be deployed to more missions like this, they think. Missions like home where heat is nowhere to be seen; nothing to make them sweat through their armor and leave it uncomfortable. They almost enter a daze, brought on by the nostalgic feeling of coldness and the crunch of snow under their feet and--

"I'm cold," Zev whines.

Keplar is rudely torn out of their bliss by his complaining. The other Pilot is...tolerable. They do not hate him. They do not despise him.

They do wish he would bite his tongue sometimes.

"What am I s'posed to do about it?" Keplar retorts. "Hug you to keep you warm?"

Even beneath the facemask to keep his face from being exposed, Keplar can tell Zev wrinkles his nose at the suggestion. "Absolutely not!" he huffs.

"So, why are you complainin'?"

"Because I'm cold."

Keplar stops in their steps and breathes deeply, forcefully. They let it out in a huff, a thin cloud puffing up where it comes out of their mouth.

"We're almost there," they bargain. "We'll get to it, disable the signal, and set up camp. Fair?"

Zev literally perks up at the suggestion of setting up a camp. "Yes."

They trek for another half an hour before they reach their destination. There is no clear sign of what they're looking for-- the snow drifts pile so high that they tower over the two Pilots.

"Signal is coming from here," Zev states. "Strongly. It is literally right here in the drifts. Now what?"

"Uh," Keplar fumbles. "We dig, I guess?"

Again, Zev's nose wrinkles at the idea of digging through the cold. Not waiting for him, Keplar doesn't wait for him (because, honestly, if they did it would be ages before they started), stepping forward and starting to scoop the light, dusty snow away. Eventually, Zev follows suit, albeit reluctantly.

After what feels like an eternity of digging, Zev curses as his hands catch on something hard. Shaking one hand delicately, he uses the other to dig out the object. Once it's free, he hands it over to Keplar so he can shift his gloves.

"It's..." Keplar focuses on it closely. "It's a datacore."

"From what? From who?" Zev asks curiously.

The sides of the core are encased in ice. The lens is cracked. Keplar tries to chip some of the ice away, but their gloves don't allow a hard enough strike to make it break. "Let's set up camp here. The drifts will block most of the wind. We can start a fire or something to melt the ice away and figure out what it is."

Zev seems ecstatic, already moving to set up the tent. As he works, Keplar's mind goes into overdrive. How would a core end up here? As far as they knew, no Titans had been deployed to Hiemal.