Behind The Red Line

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==Wolfpack==
0632Hours, January, 2531
Undersea, Micronesia, Earth
"Contact!"
In the cramped, damp space of his midget submarine, United Rebel Front sailor Lyle Zarvox peered through the periscope, and spotted what earlier radio traffic had hinted at. Within torpedo range of himself and the other two URF subs, was the jutting superstructure of a UNSC Navy ship, a small one at that. "Send a radio message to the other two subs. We've made contact, moving into attack position." Zarvox ordered, eyes still pressed firmly against the periscope, tracking the UNSC ship's every move, as one of the crewmen sent the message along via an encrypted radio that had been supplied to the sailors by the URF with the subs. "Turn ten degrees to port, flush the torpedo tubes, prepare to fire once in range." Zarvox continued. Within seconds of his command, he felt the tiny submarine shift quite dramatically as it made the ordered turn.
"Full ahead." Zarvox ordered, and once again, the order was carried out, the sub's interior becoming noticeably hotter as the engine was pushed to maximum output. There was no noise within the cabin, save for the ambient noise of machinery, and the orders barked by Zarvox. He continued to keep his eyes on the UNSC ship as the submarine continued on its collision course, his filthy and malformed wheel cap propped up high on his head to facilitate looking through the periscope. Watching the ship draw closer, Zarvox heard the radio crackle to life. "This is URF Pike, preparing to fire." followed by another transmission. "This is URF Saber, torpedo fired!" the voice came over the radio.
Now closer than ever to the UNSC ship, Zarvox saw the corvette immediately make a sharp turn to port, exposing its side profile to his sub. "Fire, now!" he barked, and a whooshing noise sounded through the cabin as the torpedo streaked towards the target. Several seconds later, Zarvox nodded with approval as a column of water erupted on the corvette's rear starboard quarter. Mere seconds later, another column flew up amidships on the port side, indicating that his torpedo had hit as well. But there was no third explosion from the torpedo of URF Pike. "Good hit, good hit." Zarvox said as he pulled down the periscope. "Hand me the radio." he continued, grabbing the handset. "URF Pike" he asked. "Haven't you fired your torps yet?" he continued.
"Roger that URF Savager. Torpedo was fired, however, ship took evasive action, and it missed." the response came over the static of the radio. "Copy. All subs return to base." Zarvox responded, setting the handset down. "Take us down to below periscope depth." he ordered, and the vessel began its descent further into the sea. Taking a seat on one of the bunks, Zarvox looked up at the hull of the submarine. There was a creaking noise. There had always been the ambient noise of the engine or the various mechanisms of the ship, but this creaking was coming from the hull. He wiped his forehead as he felt something wet and cold on it. Then it came again. And again. Looking straight up, Zarvox saw a steady drip of seawater coming from the hull, but it was turning into a stream.
"Oh no..." he muttered. "Surface, surface now!" he yelled, and as the ship began to surface, a massive creak sounded, and the hull buckled, with seawater pouring into the vessel, bringing it back down again. "Open the hatch!" Zarvox screamed as the vessel continued to sink. In response, one of the crew punched a red button on the control console of the sub, and a series of explosions sounded as the hatch was blown off. "Go, go, go!" he yelled, forcing the other two crew out, struggling against the torrent of water as the submarine continued its unstoppable descent. Forcing himself out, Zarvox mentally breathed a sigh of relief. The surface was not far above him. Swimming to the surface, he lay back, keeping afloat with the help of his life vest. 
"Ed, Zach!" he yelled over the sea, looking for the other two members of his submarine's crew. "Yeah Lyle! We're here!" came the response. Swimming towards the source of the voice, Zarvox felt relieved. Both of his crew were alive. But quickly, a pit in his stomach replaced that feeling of relief. Questions raced through his mind. Would they be rescued? Would they be captured? What was going to happen to them? He thought and thought and thought, but there were innumerable scenarios for what could happen to the three sailors. But the space around them was silent. No one was going to speak of what could happen, or what they thought might happen, if they had any thoughts of that at all besides getting back to Victoria, somehow.
"Guys, we're floating away." one of the three said. "Let's lock arms so we don't float away." he continued. "Yeah." responded Zarvox, and he did so, along with the other sailors. The three continued to sit, bobbing up and down in total silence, as the seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes to an hour. In the distance sounded the motor of a small boat, a noise towards which all three sailors looked towards, with equal hope and dread. The corvette was still somewhat in sight, and they had no idea if their fellow Insurrectionists were going to come and save them.
As the tiny boat approached, any hope the rebels had was immediately lost. "Hands in the air!" a voice yelled, and within seconds, the three realized they were face to face with a squad of UNSC Marines. There was no escape now. As the rigid inflatable boat pulled up within several feet of the rebel sailors, Zarvox felt two hands grab his arms, and haul him aboard the tiny vessel. Almost immediately as he touched the surface of the tiny boat, Zarvox felt his arms restrained behind him, and was planted face down on the black material of the boat.
Above him, he could hear the UNSC Marines conversing, but their voice tones were not one of rage as he had expected, but rather of confusion.
"Yeah, send a transmission to the Lily. We've picked up the three people out of the water, and that these guys aren't civilians. We just plucked three rebel sailors out of the water."
"Rebels? On Earth? What's going on?"
"Yeah, I'm as confused as you. We'll hand them off to the spooks when we get back to port."
Zarvox immediately regretted not bringing his sidearm with him. There were so many rumors about ONI, that even if half of the rumors he had heard were true, he was in for it, with no chance of getting back home. After an indeterminate period of time, Zarvox felt himself hauled up again as a Marine snarled at him. "Get up Innie." he heard as he was brought to his feet. In the shadow of the corvette, so much bigger up close and personal, he could see what damage his subs' torpedoes had done. The hole made by his torpedo on the port side looked like a knife had been driven into the side and torn through. The hull was peeled and scorched, wires were hanging from the top of the bulkheads.
As the boat pulled into the rear bay of the corvette, Zarvox felt several men seize him. Before he blacked out, he heard a final phrase. "War's over for you Innie." it snarled, and Zarvox's vision went black.
==Into The Mouth of Hell==
2256 Hours, January 19th, 2552
Hill 132, Sigma Octanus IV
"Stanap, press the attack! The Frees have control of the anti air!"
In cover behind a ridgeline on the side of Hill 132, First Lieutenant Adrian Stanap heard United Rebel Front officer Jonathan Ulan's voice come over the COM, urging him to lead his men up the hill to take out the formerly rebel controlled anti aircraft guns that had already knocked one rebel dropship out of the air. Peeking over the ridge, Stanap felt the heat of a high powered rifle round pass mere inches from his helmet. "Sniper." he snarled.
Looking over at Elijah Cavorel, one of the few non native Victorians in the Naval Infantry, Stanap at first was speechless. The short Mamorian native was eating a candy bar, disinterestedly looking back and forth, even as rifle fire whizzed right above the unit's heads. "Sir?" he asked in a concerned voice as he looked over at Stanap. "What's up?" he continued, in a similarly deadpan voice.
"We got a sniper over somewhere, I can't tell where, and Ulan wants us to take back the CP." responded Stanap.
"So you want me to take him out?"
"I'd like that, yes." Stanap asked, growing irritated at how calm Cavorel was in the face of the heaviest combat the unit had seen yet.
"Alright, hand me your cap."
"Okay." Stanap said, ducking his head lower as he removed his field cap, and handed it to Cavorel.
"You might have a hole in this. Just saying." Cavorel said as he placed the cap on the end of his SRS99 rifle, and began slowly popping it up over the cover. "Come on you..." Cavorel muttered as he got ready to return fire on the sniper. Almost on cue, a crack sounded, and a tracer round tore through the air, throwing Stanap's cap off the barrel of Cavorel's rifle and into the dirt. "I got 'im", Cavorel said. "He's a good one. Rifle's barely over the lip of the roof. I can't see him though. On my mark, attack. I'll keep him off you." he continued, loading a fresh magazine into his rifle.
Loading his own rifle, Stanap looked at his infantry squad. "Get ready to go over once Cavorel gives us the order." he said, checking at the same time to make sure that his M6G and knife were close at hand for if his first weapon failed him or ran out of ammunition. "Ready?" Cavorel asked.
Taking a deep breath, Stanap responded in the affirmative, assuming the position he would have as a sprinter in his younger days, readying to make the mad dash up the hill. "Alright, here we go." Cavorel said, propping his rifle up. "Three, two, one, now!" he barked as he let loose his first round from his rifle. Leaping up out of cover, Stanap and his fellow rebels began dashing for the building. It was only about a hundred meters, but it felt like an eternity to Stanap as he waited for the fire to tear through him and his squad. But none came. The gunfire was directed at the other side of the command post, the only rounds whizzing by him coming from Cavorel's rifle.
==The Greatest Naval Battle of the Insurrection==
0632Hours, September 6th, 2553
Space above Victoria
"Slipspace rupture detected!"
At the words uttered by Sara Wolcox, the navigator of the URF Origami II, Daniel Pawso, the weapons officer for the ship, broke into a cold sweat. This was it, he thought. "Can you confirm?" Francis Tolcott, the captain of the vessel, asked. For a second, in his mind, Pawso had a glimmer of hope. Maybe it was just an anomaly, he thought. But those thoughts were wiped away as Wolcox responded. "Negative sir, I'm seeing at least seven masses approaching Victoria." she said. No time to pity himself now, Pawso thought. If he was going to go down, he was going to go down swinging to protect his planet, his family, he thought as he began to boot up the weapons systems. "Pawso, start readying our weapons for action!" Tolcott ordered.
"Already on it sir!" Pawso responded as the alarms began to blare throughout the ship, including on the bridge, with Tolcott speaking over the PA. "All hands to battlestations, brace for immediate maneuvering and enemy contact! Launch our Longswords!" came the word over the speakers over the blaring of the alarms. Running through his checks at a furious pace, Pawso began to sweat heavily, even in the lightweight uniform each member of the Origami's crew wore. One by one, on his console, the status indicators on each weapons system turned green. As the final light turned green and a "ALL SYSTEMS READY" flashed across the screen, Pawso donned his harness. Only months before, a bridge crewmember had been heavily wounded when Tolcott made an evasive maneuver, and he had no intention of being sent into a coma in the middle of a battle.
"Systems ready!" Pawso cried. Only seconds later, Wolcox calmly stated "Thrusters and engines ready." as well. As he strapped himself into his own jumpseat, Tolcott gave one final warning over the PA. Unkeying the microphone, Tolcott turned his head to face Wolcox. "Push the engines as hard as you can. Make heavy evasive maneuvers, and bring us right up next to them." he ordered. Turning to Pawso, he continued "Ready our Archer missiles, point defense guns, and MACs. If you have a target, take it. We won't miss at that range with any of our weapons."
Pawso nodded in response as he began entering in targeting date to correspond with what Wolcox and the navigation AI had come up with. "Alright." Tolcott said. "Pawso, once we're within range of their MAC cannons, give the mark for the manuever." he continued. "Sir." Pawso responded. For the next agonizing three minutes, he watched, sweat streaming down his face, as he watched the range close between the lone rebel ship and the UNSC task force. As the destroyer came into range, Pawso yelled "Now!", and on cue, Wolcox began the maneuver. Struggling to stay conscious under the force of the acceleration, Pawso began preparing targets for each of the weapons. Even though there was an AI aboard, it was entirely dedicated to navigation, leaving only manual control for the computerized weapons systems.
"Thirty..seconds to...deceleration." Wolcox said, trying to speak while coming under the ever worsening G forces. While he could not see Tolcott, Pawso could hear the hiccup-like exhalations of the captain as he himself attempted to stay conscious. "Ten!" Wolcox cried. "Decelerating!" she yelled as the ship quickly began to slow down. Locked into his harness, Pawso was still jolted forward, but was saved from slamming his face into the glass console.
Looking out the windows of the bridge, he was mesmerized by the sight. There were UNSC Navy ships, up close and personal. But he had little time to be entranced by it. He had to open fire. Tapping the icon to engage the targeting data he had put in, the silence of the bridge was quickly pierced by two loud booms, and then a massive cacophony of missile launches and point defense gun fire. Looking out the front observation window, Pawso saw a UNSC cruiser, evident from its monolithic structure, hit in the bow by both MAC slugs, tearing a hunk of the Titanium-A structure off. Meanwhile, explosions erupted around the Origami II as its missiles and point defense guns fired upon nearer ships. "Brace!" Wolcox yelled before she turned a key at her station to fire several hydrogen peroxide emergency thruster tanks, blasting the ship sideways in an attempt to avoid the now-inevitable return fire.
But it was too much in the close confines in which the destroyer was fighting. Bracing himself for a fast acceleration sideways and another forward, Pawso was jerked against his harness again as the ship quickly stopped. "Status report!" Tolcott ordered. "Sir, our stern just hit a UNSC ship! At least three quarters of our engines are out of action!" Wolcox responded. "Can we escape?" he asked. But before Wolcox could respond, another explosion rocked the ship. "Sir, all of our engines are down. We're dead in the water." Wolcox said.
"If we go down, we're taking some of them with us. Send out a message of surrender. Pawso, weapons status?" Tolcott asked.
"Some Archers, two MAC slugs, and a little ammo for the point defense guns are left." he responded.
"Prepare to fire it all off."
"Yes sir." Pawso responded as he began to pick targets again.
As the seconds ticked by, there came no response from the UNSC. "Sir, they're moving off." Wolcox said. "They're not taking the bait...they're going to destroy us." Tolcott responded. "Pawso! Fire, now!" he yelled. But as Pawso tapped the icon to fire, an Archer missile from a UNSC ship slammed into the bridge, killing everyone inside, as a wall of fire from the other ships tore the Origami II apart.
----
"Sir, look!"
Aboard one of Origami II's two Longsword fighters that had been launched at the beginning of the battle, pilot Zachary Xavier turned his head as his navigator pointed at the UNSC flotilla. "Holy shit..." he muttered as the Origami II opened fire from all sides on the UNSC ships around them. Red-orange explosions and tracer fire from the point defense guns of the ship scarred the blackness of space. The firing seemed to go on for an eternity. Checking his watch, Xavier looked back in horror as he saw the UNSC ships beginning to return fire as he realized the battle had only been going on for a mere two and a half minutes.
"Copilot, take over. I've got to see this." Xavier said as he watched the deadly dance between the ships, mesmerized. Without warning, the destroyer quickly changed course, its stern slamming into the underbelly of a UNSC Navy corvette, dodging a salvo of Archer missiles that cut white lines across space. But it was not enough. Within seconds, the UNSC ships opened fire again, missiles and gunfire battering the Origami II as the ship kept returning. "Come on Cap, you can't win this..." Xavier muttered under his breath, a pit forming in his stomach as he thought of all his friends aboard the destroyer, and hoped that Tolcott would be able to make it out of there somehow, someway.
As an Archer missile exploded amidships with a orange fireball, Xavier turned to his navigator. "Set us a course out of here. Get us out of visual range." he said in a deadpan voice. "Yes sir." his navigator said as a nav point appeared on his HUD. "I'll take it from here." Xavier said as he began to maneuver away from the carnage, eyes focused on his instruments and flying, not even taking a fleeting glance at the doomed destroyer as it continued to fight for its life. "We have to relay the message up the chain. Navigator, send it. Have it read: 'Attempt to halt UNSC task force failed. Destroyer lost with all hands. Ground battle inevitable.'" Xavier said, still not taking his eyes off the controls of the fighter as it turned towards Victoria's atmosphere and prepared to reenter.
==Swarm==
1739 Hours, November 4th, 2552
Agley, Victoria
"So I walk onto the tarmac that morning looking for this kid, and see him passed out in one of the hangers without any pants on. Now, I don't know what he was doing there the night before, but I gave him a good slap and he wised up real fast."
"Damn, now that's a good story!"
Aleksander Makosky chuckled as another of his fellow pilots recanted another of his stories about the various strange things he had seen in his time as an instructor. "You know." he said "That's why I didn't take up becoming an instructor." he continued. "Ya end up dealing with these kids who are slightly better than the rest of the crop, but still can't tell what's dumb or not." Makosky said, continuing to eat the chicken sandwich he had ordered at the pub as another one of the pilots began to tell his own story.
"Beep beep. Beep beep."
In the middle of his story, Phillip Quinn halted, and pulled his beeping Chatter out of his pocket, hiding the message from any prying eyes in the restaurant. He looked up from the screen, placing it back into the pocket of his shorts, and said "Alright gents, put in your share for the price. We've got to return to the airfield."
"What? Why?" asked Makosky.
"I'll explain later. They want us back though."
"Alright." Makosky said as he pulled out his share of the price, ten credits, or Liberation Notes as Afeld and his officials were fond of calling them, and placed it in the middle of the table with the money from the other pilots. Standing up, he brushed the crumbs of his sandwich off his shorts and t-shirt, before following after Quinn out of the restaurant. "So what's wrong?" Makosky asked as he entered Quinn's HuCiv sedan. Without looking away as he began to pull out of the tight spot he had parallel parked in, Quinn responded "Apparently there's been a group operating off the coast out of a cove on the frontier terrorizing our shipping and recently kidnapping two of our officers. Haven't been able to find out where they were until an hour or two ago."
"So we're going to destroy them?"
"Effectively, yes."
As Quinn sped the sedan up, Makosky laid back in his seat. The Independent State had used some of the infrastructure previously made to allow the planetary police to quickly respond to the scene of a crime, only this time on vehicles owned by military personnel with a card that was activated by an officer when personnel were needed quickly at any place within the city. Makosky smirked as he remembered when the system was 'unveiled'. One of Afeld's lieutenants passed it off as a feat of rebel engineering, but everyone humored the man, knowing that it was a total lie. Unless you were a crazy die-hard rebel that is, Makosky thought, mentally rolling his eyes at those kinds of people. "Get out the damn way! Fricking idiots!" Quinn swore as he was forced to slam on the brakes in order to avoid a car that had just blown through a red light, causing Makosky to grab onto one of the 'holy shit handles' as his parents referred to them to prevent himself from getting flung out through the windshield.
As Quinn's vehicle tooled up to the tarmac on which the twenty odd jets that composed the Victorian Independent State's air force sat, Makosky watched apprehensively as one man, with a shemagh tied around his neck, wearing a pair of gray shorts and a similar colored shirt, with a tactical vest, and an old civilian hunting rifle, approached the car. He was not regular Independent State military, although that was no surprise to Makosky. The Army numbered in the low thousands, and the Navy and Air Force were even smaller, a result of a lack of funding, so the rumors went. Although he had been vetted by militia before while coming onto the tarmac, Makosky was still nervous. Some militia just did not care at all, and would allow most anyone in if they looked official, but others were fanatics, whom he heard if you made the slightest mistake, would detain you with little to no cause under suspicion of being a UNSC spy. 
"Name and ID?" the guard asked. It became evident to Makosky by his tone and voice, as well as his relatively young age, that this militiaman just wanted to get through his shift and return home to do whatever it was he did. Probably more enjoyable than standing guard, Makosky thought. The guard waved the vehicle through, and Quinn pulled off to the side of the road, into one of the grass fields that most of the officers used to park their cars. Stepping out onto the green field, as the sedan automatically locked itself, Makosky followed Quinn towards one of the hangars, which had another guard standing outside the personnel door. This guard was a fair bit older than the one guarding the front gate, and was wearing gray UNSC fatigues, with a crimson beret, tactical vest, and MA3A assault rifle at the ready. A much more imposing figure, but he simply nodded and opened the personnel door for the two officers. His name was Oliver Graham, and even though Makosky had first met him several years before, he was still as intimidating as ever, especially in light of recent rumors that he had beaten a man to within an inch of his life after he initiated a fight with Graham in a bar.
But he was still courteous as ever to the two pilots, rendering a friendly greeting and smile to the two. Inside the hangar, which had been converted into the main command and control center for the Air Force. But there were few personnel walking the halls today, just the regular security and a few grime covered maintainers. They had probably been working on the aircraft he was about to fly, Makosky thought as he turned left into a room filled with gray lockers, brushing past one of the maintainers as he did so. The locker area was the antithesis to the rest of the halls today, with the sounds of men talking and equipment donning filling the room. Walking to his own locker, with 'MAKOSKY' placed on it with a label maker, Makosky entered in his combination on the keypad, and opened it with a creak.
Taking off his shorts, Makosky threw them in the locker, exchanging them for an unadorned sage flight suit. Zipping up the fire retardant, coverall-like garment, he reached back into the locker, grabbing his helmet and oxygen mask, before slamming the locker door shut and locking it, the whir of motors confirming his command. Tucking his helmet with oxygen mask attached under his arm, Makosky walked back out of the locker room, and turned left once again, heading for the briefing room. 
As he entered what was referred to as 'pilot country', Makosky looked at the various paintings that lined the wall as he passed by them. He had taught the history behind the events that each depicted during his time becoming an officer and pilot, but he was still entranced by the beauty of some of them. A dogfight between fighters of the long-gone U.S. Army Air Forces and Nazi Germany's equally dead Luftwaffe over Europe during World War II, fighter-bombers of the Alliance For Autonomy attacking UNSC forces during the 2160's, and a current-day rebel armed general aviation aircraft crash landed on an airfield, its crew looking up as more of their type soared low overhead to name a few of the events that the paintings depicted.
Stepping into the briefing room, not half as decorated as the outside halls, Makosky took a seat in one of the chairs, as other pilots, outfitted in the same type of equipment as he, began to file in and sit down as well. As the last pilot walked into the room, he turned around, and closed the door behind him, punching in the code to lock the door in order to prevent anyone from opening the door and eavesdropping on the briefing. As if on cue, Quinn walked into the room, and everyone went silent as he began the briefing. "Gentlemen, please come to the front and take your mission data chips." he started. As each pilot grabbed his own chip and sat back down, he continued "Your mission today is to attack a pro-UNSC insurgent base located in a cove on the frontier. The area in which they are operating will be highlighted on your heads up displays. Be on the lookout for anti aircraft fire. It is likely, if these insurgents are sponsored by the UNSC, that they will have anti aircraft weapons of some sort. It's going to be dark, and you might not know the ack-ack is there until you see tracers flying around you, so stay vigilant and cautious. Any questions?" he asked.
There was silence. "Excellent. Prepare to launch." he said as he began stepping out the door with the rest of the pilots. "Let's go." said Makosky as he followed after Quinn towards the tarmac, with the other pilots filing in behind him. Stepping out onto the blacktop of the flightline, Makosky looked towards the west, where Victoria's sun was beginning to set, bathing the military side of the airfield in darkness, save for the floodlights that shone upon the blacktop. As each pilot broke off towards his own craft, Makosky did the same, walking towards his, the first one from Quinn's jet. 
Doing a walkaround of the aircraft, checking for anything out of the ordinary, Makosky looked closely at the control surfaces for any sign of sabotage. He had no intention of going down without a fight, or at all for that matter. Doing a quick two finger 'salute' of sorts to the ground crew who were fueling his jet, Makosky clambered up the crew ladder, and settled himself into the cockpit of the F/A-440. Sitting up slightly, he pulled the straps out from under him, and placed them in easily reachable positions as he turned his helmet over in his hands, and slotted the chip into the data port.
Placing the gray helmet on his head, Makosky tightened the chinstrap to fit the flight helmet snugly. Continuing to strap himself into the jet, Makosky turned around and shouted to the ground crew. "Clear the area! Pull the chocks and crew ladder!" he ordered, and immediately he saw the gray coverall clad men scramble away from the jet. Looking over to his right, he saw the crew ladder being pulled away from the cockpit, and gave the ground crew a thumbs up as he began to power up the twin engines, their whine adding to that being generated by his fellow pilots' jets. Grabbing hold of the canopy, Makosky pulled it into position, and flipped a switch in the cockpit, engaging the powerful electromagnets that held it in place.
While the whine of the engines grew louder, the computer screens within the cockpit of the jet began to light up, and as had happened many times before, the data chip within Makosky's helmet began 'talking' with the aircraft, lining up waypoints not only on his heads up display, but also on the displays within the aircraft. Tugging on his straps one more time to ensure they were completely snug, Makosky linked his oxygen mask's hose into the port to the left of his seat. Fitting on the mask, he lowered his visor, and began talking to air traffic control for Agley Airfield.
"Agley Airfield." he said. "This is Shark 2, requesting permission to taxi to runway one seven." he continued.
"Shark 2, this is Agley Airfield. Permission granted to taxi, you are number two for takeoff." the response came.
"Roger that, thank you Agley Airfield." Makosky said as he slowly increased the power, and began taxiing out of his jet's spot, lining himself up behind Quinn on the taxiway. Slowly rolling along the asphalt, Makosky looked over to his right, and saw a group of pilot trainees cheering on the jets as they went out for their mission. Rendering the trainees a quick salute, Makosky returned to the task at hand.
Applying pressure to his left rudder pedal, Makosky turned his jet onto the runway, and halted his fighter on the left side of the runway, slightly behind Quinn's jet on the right side. "Ready to go Shark 2? All aircraft, we'll meet at rendezvous point Yank" Quinn said as his voice crackled over Makosky's helmet COM. "Roger that, let's roll." Makosky responded, placing his hand on the throttle. Watching as Quinn's aircraft pulled away, Makosky throttled his own engines up, rumbling down the runway.
Applying slight back pressure to the stick, Makosky's aircraft lifted into the air. Flipping a lever in the cockpit, the electric motors whirred as the landing gears retracted into the fuselage. Following closely off Quinn's wing, Makosky looked for a moment at the city lights of Agley as they faded into the night. Suddenly, Quinn turned out his landing lights. Makosky followed suit, and enabled his helmet's night vision.
Reaching the rendezvous point, the two aircraft banked into a turn, beginning to orbit the area as other aircraft formed up with them. After several minutes, Quinn's voice came over the radio. "All aircraft, account. This is Shark 1." he said.
"Shark 2, off your left wing Shark 1." Makosky responded.
"Shark 3, off your left Shark 2."
"Shark 4, off your right wing Shark 1."
"Shark 5, off your right Shark 4."
"All aircraft accounted for." said Quinn. "Keep formation, follow me to the waypoint." he continued as he changed course.
==Heading Downtown==
1931 Hours, September 8th, 2553
Airfield Bravo, Victoria
==Keys To Hell==
2246 Hours, October 16th, 2561
Frontier 11-B1 Silo, Venezia
"Anything new on systems?"
"Nothing, still ready for launch."
Inside the Titanium-A clad walls of the launch control bunker for an 11-B1 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in the middle of Venezia's unsettled frontier, the two rebel personnel responsible for the launch of twenty five megatons of nuclear fire, Michael Folan and Charles Lowap, sat at their respective consoles, watching the LCD display screens in front of them for something, anything. Each officer had been on duty with twelve hour shifts ever since the UNSC had attacked the planet a little over a week and a half before. Both were starting a grow a stubble on their faces, and dark circles and bags under their eyes were something both missile operators had learned to live with. In the back of the bunker was a coffee machine, but what coffee beans had been at the base had long since been used up, and the mechanism sat there.
As he ran yet another system check, Lowap pulled a white tablet out of his coverall's pocket and dropped it in the drink. As it went through checking the missile, once again, there were green indicators under every system. Looking back at his thermos of water, he saw that the tablet had dissolved, and picked up the container, turning away from the console as he drank its contents. "Much better." he said under his breath as the caffeine began to take effect. "Anything new Lowap?" he asked.
"Nope." he responded. "But hey, nothing's better than something right now, right?"
"Means we're winning, and we don't have to run these twelve hour shifts anymore. Moritz wouldn't order us to fire unless something was very, very wrong. So hey, maybe the guys launched a counteroffensive, and the Oonskies are getting driven off planet."
"Hope so. But they're keeping us in the dark."
"Not like we can get any news with the position we're in." Folan said, gesturing around the room.
"Guess so. Running another system check?"
"Yeah, anything to keep me occup-"
Folan was cut off as a series of high pitched buzzes rang out through the launch control bunker. A voice came over the message system. "Code blue, repeat, code blue. Message inbound." it said. With all traces of drowsiness wiped away, both rebels grabbed their notepads and pens, and prepared to take down the message. " Message follows." it continued "One, one, six, nine, eight, nine, four, three, seven, seven." the voice said. Feverishly taking down the numbers, both rebels turned back to the handwritten scrawled first pages of their notebooks, where series of numbers and their meanings were written down. Running through the list, both men looked at each other from their stations. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Lowap asked.
"Yeah." Folan responded. "Orders to launch weapon immediately, full yield." he continued.
"Do we...do we launch?"
"What?"
"Do we launch?"
"I...I don't know. The war must be going much worse than anyone thought. I never thought this day would come."
"But it's our duty to do so."
"I don't know...maybe some Oonskie hacker or AI got into our system and sent that message."
"Not like we're going to be able to tell, can't get anyone on the line in New Tyne, we tried that back last week for orders."
"We've always had the capability to launch, but now we have the authority."
"And we have to choose. Should we stop debating and just launch before we change our minds?"
"But what of all the civilians in the city that are going to be vaporized with the UNSC."
"Duty or desire, sir. We've got to choose one."
"We both know what's going to happen to us if we launch."
"Yeah, I do."
"We're both going to die here. And be remembered in the history books as the men on par with those at the Haven arcology."
"But we are doing it out of our duty, not of malice."
"The UNSC doesn't care. They'll write us as terrorists either way."
"We've got to make a choice soon. We can drive them off planet if we launch."
"Maybe, but I don't know. Can we, can we really?"
"I don't know. We've only got minutes to decide though."
Folan placed his head in his hands, and ran them through his hair, his breathing sounding as if he were crying, but no tears came. Inside his head, he could hear the choices in his own voice. Die as martyrs and terrorists, or live as regular people? Do the duty assigned, or cave in to what one believes? The bunker was silent, save for the sound of breathing, and the creaking of the chairs as each man shifted their weight. Folan spoke. "Alright." he said. "Enter launch codes." he continued. "Sir, are you sure?" Lowap asked. "Yes, I'm sure. Enter the launch codes." Folan responded. "Roger that." Lowap said as he began to punch in the seven character code. 
"Launch codes entered."
"Target confirmed?"
"Target confirmed, trajectory is correct, missile systems ready for launch."
"Alright. Place launch keys."
"Roger."
Both men stood up, and placed their thumbs on the biometric locks of the safes above their consoles, and pulled open the doors on each of them. Reaching inside, each pulled out a tiny, thumb sized silver key with a chain like one would use to hold dog tags on it. Sitting back down, they flipped open the flaps that covered the slots for the keys.
Looking at one another, both rebels inserted their launch keys into their respective slots. "Turn launch keys to pre-launch, on my count, one, two, three, turn!" Folan barked, and both men turned their keys to the position. On each man's screen, a sixty second countdown, accompanied by an automated voice, began going down from one minute at the moment the keys were turned. "Ready to launch?" Folan asked. "Roger that, missile systems still all green." Lowap responded.
"Thirty seconds elapsed on countdown!"
Firmly gripping the key, Folan closed his eyes for a moment. Opening them again, he saw the number in the single digits. "Turn to launch in five, four, three, two, one, turn!" he yelled again. Firmly shutting his eyes, Folan turned his key, as Lowap did the same. Immediately, the bunker began to shake violently. Scanning his console, Lowap saw a green box flash in the center, with the text 'MISSILE LAUNCH SUCCESSFUL' on it. "Missile launch successful." he quietly said. "What have we done." he continued. 
"Sealed our own deaths." Folan said. "Now we wait." he continued.
It was totally silent in the bunker. Both men knew what they had just done. In each of their minds, they hoped it was all worth it. Both remembered Far Isle. In their own minds, they thought, would they be the next Far Isle bombers for their actions?
Category:Safe Havens
Category:Stories