Utterly Mad

After a brief check of the area, Hettie sets her drone to check for movement in the jungle while she drags the pole back to the Lumberyard.

"Well, fuck it." He murmured as Alex climbed through the vent.

Father:
You do what a flamer does best, and engulf the small outpost in flames.
Hopefully the commander's safe inside...
The hounds on the palisade scatter, trying to get out of the inferno. Some run across the palisade, some jump off to eventually die anyway, and some keep fighting even as they're being cooked.

Suddenly you feel something hit the tank on your back. A quick glance reveals that it's been pierced on the upper half, going straight through, making 2 holes. Could be a sniper around somewhere.
But you ought to call yourself lucky, becase the fuel didn't erupt into flames! The tank's failsafe has a 50-50 chance of stopping eruption, so it's a good day.

But alas, you are now losing pressure and fuel fast. Soon the flamer will be nothing more than a paperweight. For now, your range has been halved.

You're still in cover behind a dead tree, next to your CO. You're still taking fire from 2 hounds with automatics in a tower behind the burning palisade. You note that there are only 2 other light infantries alive, the rest now lying lifeless in pools of their own blood.

Wolf:
#An atlas? They shot down an atlas?#
There's some muffled talking. The colonel is probably checking something.
#The atlas that was supposed to fly over your current position was carrying a priority cargo! And they shot it down? WITH A SAM?!#
He loudly barks out orders to the people next to him. You can't make them out.
#Listen, I need you to get over there ASAP! Secure the crash site! It will take some time to get reinforcements there, but you MUST SECURE THAT CRASH SITE, UNDERSTAND?!#
He sounds very concerned.

The assault squad's leader shouts to you from the hovering VTOL.
"We need to get this HVT to the Lumberyard, but good luck to you!"
The VTOL flies off east, towards the Yard.

You note that the scared villagers have started to come out of their huts.
One of the younger villagers has even gotten close enough to examine your walker, seeming awed by it.
Leon quietly keeps an eye on the villagers.

Crusher:
In a quite clever move, you launch the drone from your pack to scout further in while you repair the fence.

After pulling the pole back up, repairing the fence is trivial. You weld the pole back in place, and re-attach the wires into it.

Before you're able to put the final wire in, your PDA lights up. Seems like the drone has found something.
The camera shows 2 humanoid heat-signatures. In the regular camera mode, it would seem that the signatures are behind some kind of loose camo-plate in the middle of the jungle. The location looks a bit like a burrow.

Hawk:
#We're on a transport ship here, and the hounds have surrounded us with patrol boats! There's 6 of them, all armed with some heavy machine guns! They're trying to board us, but we're keeping them at bay right now!#
You hear heavy gunfire in the background.

You're almost there now. 1 and a half clicks away you see the large transport ship, and the dots around it being the PT-boats.
Seems like 4 of them are on your side of the ship, and the other 2 are hidden behind it.
You're coming in fast.

Alex:
With reckless abandon, you open up the vent and crawl in.
It only goes in one direction, so you don't have much choice where to go.

You crawl along the vent for a while in darkness. After a turn at the end, you end up in the main ventilation shaft.
You're standing on an edge, and below you is a fast-spinning fan. Death, in other words.
On the other side is another vent. There's a ledge that you might be able to jump to, then to enter it.
Lastly, there's a ladder leading to the top of the shaft. There's a bulkhead on the top, leading up.

Lucas:
"Yes, all of them! And you don't need a plan for these creatures. Just don't let them get the drop on you. COME ON!"
Your CO leads the rest of the squad towards the village, firing at the villagers. They advance slowly in a line at first.
Several villagers don't even get a chance to react, but they're the lucky ones, because the flamer brings more painful ends. He sprays at both villagers and huts, leaving flames to erase the village.
The line scatters as the villagers flee screaming into the village, and your CO shouts loudly as your squad runs into the village.

"Understood, moving towards the Atlas's suspected crash position." Duncan said as he ordered the crew to head toward the suspected crash sight and be careful to avoid injuring the villagers on the way there.

Alex:
Your crime was being late...
You prepare to jump across the ventilation shaft. Since you're on a ledge with no way to go, a simple jump will have to do.
You lean forward, and make a leap for the other side.

Failing to put your feet on the other ledge, you almost fall to your certain death. But luckily, you manage to grab a hold of said ledge, and pull yourself up.

You are now on the other side of the shaft.
The shaft creaks, and shakes a bit. Considering that this is an interstellar transport, it might be time for it to leave soon...

Wolf:
"Copy that corporal, moving to the crash site."
Leon shouts to clear the villagers out of the way.
"Fastest route would be to follow the road surrounding the lake. Hang on, this is going to get bumpy!"

The walker goes into motion. You leave the village, and it's shaken inhabitants alone for the time being. Once you're out of the narrow village, the walker goes into full speed. In other words, it runs along the lake-side road.
Every step it takes is heavy and the stabilisers have a hard time keeping up, so for every step you jolt in your seat, and the loose objects in the tank are going all over the place.

Eventually, you reach the end of where the road can take you. So it's off-road from here. Thus you're forced into a stable walk again.

It takes you a total of 40 minutes to get close to the crash site.

You walk along the jungle, and finally come into view of the crash site. Since the Atlas is a massive plane, the crash is obviously massive aswell.
Everywhere you look you see piles of twisted metals, wires, and pipes. The crash is also dotted by fires, burning heavily as it's fueled by the planes splashed fuel.
Your crew is silent.

But you note one unusual thing.
The site is covered in tracks, suggesting that there's already been someone here. The tracks suggest a lot of armored footsoldiers, and even walkers.
You can also note that some parts of the wreckage have been moved, suggesting that there's been an extensive search.

From where you are, you could either move towards the remains of the cargo bay, or the front of the wreck where the cockpit should be. The front seems to have little to no tracks near it.

Father:
Bravely you keep low, and move closer and closer to the outpost.
You dodge a bullet here and there, but eventually you succeed to get into a good range to pour the remaining fuel onto the tower.
The last hounds scream, and eventually cook.

Your flamer is now not only lacking fuel, but is also depressurized. You can't have it fixed in the field.

As the tower begins to burn to ashes, a log of the palisade falls outwards, dragging the small gate down with it. Clearing a path into the main building.
You note that your CO is trying to keep one of the last 2 soldiers from dying, while the other is moving up towards you.
But as he gets up to move to another cover, his head erupts a fountain of blood. There's definatively a sniper, and this time you got a good idea where it came from.
In a tree 10 meters away from you spot the hound sniper. He's been well hidden in some foilage, but now that you've got him in sight...
It seems that he's unaware of your position, and is currently taking aim at your CO.

"Sniper!" Saul shouts. Hopefully, that short exclamation will get his CO to take cover, as he drops his flamer, pulls his machine pistol from his holster, and fires an automatic spray of bullets towards the sniper's general position. Not to kill, though hopefully he'll get lucky and score a hit, but to provide cover fire for his CO.

Perhaps, Saul hopes, that'll give her an opening to take the kill shot.

Hawk shoots with the 30mm cannon at 2 of the closest PT-boats, and throws 2 of the smaller bombs at the other two boats.

Alex:
You acend the shaft, which is still shaking mildly.
At the top, you reach the bulkhead. It's electronicly operated, and luckily it doesn't need a code from the inside.

With little time to spare, you open the bulkhead, and crawl on out into the sunlight.
You're now on the top of the massive transport, still on the Lumberyard landing pad. But as it seems like it's about to pull out.

You quickly close the bulkhead, and make sure it's sealed. You then slide on down the sloped hull to the ground.
Just in time to, as the transport lifts off, leaving you to inconspicously walk off the landing pad.

You're now in the middle of the Lumberyard. Seems like noone has noticed you little stunt.

Father:
Maybe it's the suit slightly muffling you voice, or the noisy inferno close to her, but she fails to hear your warning call.
You toss the paperweight of a flamer, and pull your sidearm. The sniper notes you the moment you take aim, but alas it's too late for him.
Firing a burst from your machine-pistol, atleast 2 of them finds your target.

The hound looks silently pained as he falls to the ground, straight into a very dense bush. His rifle gets stuck in a branch, and remains in the tree.
There's movement, so you might have succeeded in simply wounding him.

Your CO is still busy trying to pull your squadmate out of death's grip.

But around you, things seem quite calm now. All around are either shot or burned bodies, and the last hostile is moaning in pain just in front of you, presumably unarmed.
The outpost is completely engulfed in flames, so there's little a chance that anyone's alive in there.

Smasher
The drone makes a final confirmative beep as it marks the location on your PDA, and returns.
You finish the fence just as it returns, and re-attaches itself to your backpack.

With the job done, you return to the hangar and briefly tell the guy in charge that the fence is done. Then it's off to the Lumberyard HQ.

Inside the HQ you see a couple of desks to deal with the administrative stuff, and behind them rows of manned control stations.
There's a man in casual clothes leaning at one of the desks. He looks at you, and straighten himself out.
"Need something private?"

Hawk:
You slow on down to get a bit longer to strafe. Then you angle downwards, and row up your first target.
The cannons roars, and streams of shells rain down on the unlucky buggers. It's a direct hit, and the PT-boat explodes.
It's then a trivial matter to adjust yourself a bit to the right, and take out another one.
Finally, you zero in on the remaining two to bomb.
You carefully predict the fall, and let them go one after the other. You then pass over the battle.

You look behind, and see that your bombs failed to hit them, and instead fell into the sea. Thus they did zero damage.
It's a bit hard to bomb naval targets, and even harder to bomb targets that small...

The screen suddenly lights up, screaming "LOCK". Someone's locked on with missle!

Wolf:
#Command to 263, roger that. The colonel is on his way with backup. Proceed to secure the site. Command Out.#
Command seems unfazed by your human claims.

James makes the walker move along the wreckage, heading towards the cockpit.
You keep an eye out for survivors, and the missing cargo. Leon has turned out to see around better.

The wreckage over by the cockpit is far denser, as it seems untouched. It would also seem that the front of the plane has been unequally split into 3 pieces. The tip, the right, and the left side.

You have the walker do what it does best, and walk around the area, looking around.
Eventually, Leon taps your shoulder and points at a piece of unpeculiar wreckage. As you look closer, you see someone lie under it, wearing Uniware heavy armor.
There's no way to tell if he/she's alive from the walker. But for what it's worth, the armor seems relatively intact. And that armor can protect from a lot.