Chapter Fourteen

Section 18

John stood outside the Seven Eleven in the blistering heat. He leaned back against one of the Air Force Humvees that had met him and his unit at the warp, cigar hanging out of his mouth. There had been some initial difficulty with the officers on the scene as to why a heavily armed small military force had shown up, but after a few minutes of explaining, things had gotten sorted out. John had ordered Cpl. Folly and Sgt. Rook to see if they could talk to the store owner well John waited for the police to talk to the other employee. Apparently he'd been pretty shaken up about what happened, and started screaming about being dragged off to Area 51 once the Marines showed up.

John looked up from his thoughts to see one of the officers he'd first spoken to walking over. His tag read Sgt. Ruth, and he looked in every way like your stereotypical beat cop, from the cup of coffee and donut powder in his hand to the 80's caterpillar mustache.

"Are you the commanding officer of this little unit?"

"Yes I am, what'd you need?"

"We talked the kid down and he's ready to speak,"

"Alright where is he?"

"Over round the back of the store, come on I'll take yah," the officer said. John pushed himself off the Humvee and followed the man around the back of the gas station. As he walked he looked up at the gas sign. The thing was melted where Peridots shot had hit, leaving a rather distinct hole in the body of the price board. John shuddered at the thought of having to treat that kind of wound.

The two men walked around the building to the back where there were parked to police cruisers. Sitting on the bumper of one of them was a very distraught looking man in his early twenties,"His name's Paul and he's pretty shaken, so try and talk easy with him, okay."

John walked over to the man and squatted down in front of him. He took a pull off of his cigar, and then offered it to the boy, who took it gladly,"My name's Captain John C. Cupal. I hear your's is Paul correct?"

"Y-yeah, that's my name," Paul said, passing the cigar back, and taking a minute to cough.

"Look Paul I need to know everything you can tell me about the green gem that attacked you last night okay," John said, taking another pull.

"Captian am I in trouble?" Paul said, visibly afraid of what John's answer might be. John shook his head, he hated moments like this. All too common with civilians trapped in a war zone, when people got scared they began to assume that those who were around them that could hurt them, would hurt them if they didn't get what they wanted. Because of that it made any information gained less reliable and the person being interrogated feeling more afraid if the interrogator got rowdy.

"No son you're not in trouble, I just need to know what the green gem wanted and where she went. If you really help me I might even be able to pull some strings and get the damage to your shop fixed free of charge," John said. This was of course a lie, the military had other things to do than fix a Seven Eleven and John didn't know anyone in the area who could actually do the kind of work this place needed. But such incentives, even if false, could pull people out of their shell shocked states and make them more reliable sources of information.

"Well it all started when I went to take out the trash," Paul regaled John with the events that lead to Peridot assaulting his boss and running out of the store with computer and skype camera in hand.

"And she flew off in which direction again?" John asked.

"That way," Paul said pointing to the north.

John looked in the direction the man pointed, and frowned. It was not in the direction of the secondary kindergarten. In fact it was in the exact opposite direction and even more so it was where the warp pad John and the gems had arrived on was. This was not good, as now John was without any leads on what Peridots reason for being here was. John shook his head, and stood, "Thank you Paul, I'll try my best to have someone look at your store,"

He walked away, and made his way to the front of the gas station. The place was still wrecked, with bags of chips and candy sprawling all over the floor. He looked over at the cashier's station to see the manager of the place. The man was overweight, in his late thirties, early forties, and had a heavily receding hairline. He was sitting back at the cashier's station with the tv on above him, playing the local news. The two of John's Marines he'd sent to talk sat on either side of him, and were in the middle of their interrogation.

"So you claim that the assailant ran in with your employee in front of her and proceeded to ask for what again?"

"She said she wanted a computing unit or something like that. Then next thing you know I'm inside some weird green bubble and getting slammed upside my snack aisle. I mean just look at that," He said, pointing to the broken shelves and littered bags of chips,"When I come to I'm in the back of an ambulance with a bandage over my head and a iron taste in my mouth."

"Is there anything else you can tell us, did she say what she wanted them for, or where she was going?" Rook asked.

"For the last time no she didn't say anything, besides what are you doing a cops job for?" the man said, sounding annoyed, "Now let me get back to these high lights and- hey what the hell?"

John looked over at the tv he was watching. A strange static started to wash across it until finally materializing into an image,"This-Peri-This is Peridot transmitting on all frequencies on abandoned crystal colony Earth. To Yellow Diamond, my mission has been compromised, my escort and informant are gone, I am now stranded, and am currently being hunted by hostile entities of this planet. Please send help!"

"What the? Hey that-that's her! She's the one that wrecked my shop!" he said pointing wildly at the tv screen. John turned the tv towards him and then ran out of the shop. He ran over to one of the two radio operators he'd selected and turned on his radio, placing the headset to his ear.

"Whoa, sir what are-"

"Shut up for a second," John said, listening intently to the static in the headset.

"Okay, rude," SSgt. Wright said. John stood there listening to the static, and just as he was about to put the headset down, it came to life repeating the same message that had played on the tv. John dropped the headset and stood, hands shaking, gaze miles away.

"Sir are you okay?"

John paused from a moment, thinking. He then turned to SSgt. Wright, "Get HQ on the horn and tell them we have a section 18, are falling back to the warp pad to try had head to the source of the disturbance once we determine its cause."

John turned and proceeded to walk back towards the gas station, before Wright reached up and grabbed ahold of his arm, "Sir, my radio just keeps repeating the same message over and over again. I can't get it to stop, no matter what channel I switch to."

"Damn it," John said under his breath, "Okay, go get the rest of the team and have them assembled here and ready to move in 5. I'll get in contact with HQ."

"Where are you going sir?"

"To see what the gems know about this," John said, walking to the back of the four vehicle colum. John had asked the gems to stay in the car as to not alarm the people who'd just been attacked by one of their kind and further complicate things. He reached the rear most Humvee, opened the driver's door, and sat down in the seat. Steven looked up, half-awake, and gave the officer a weak wave.

"Oh John, anything new," Pearl said, with a cheery tone.

"Yeah, I need you to tell me how Peridot could have managed to do this," John said, reaching over and turning on the radio. He sat back as the message played over and waited for their response.

Connie walked up the steps to Stevens house, dressed for another round of training. She knocked on the door and waited on the steps leading upto the house. She looked out over the clam ocean. It was nice enough out today to go for a swim, maybe John had some sort of water combat techniques to show her or they would do a warm up swim. The warm ups before their training had gotten increasingly harder, with increasing results. Connie looked back at the door, puzzled. It was already one and Steven didn't sleep that late. Even if he was asleep he should have heard her knocking.

Connie pushed herself to her feet and knocked on the door again, "Hey Steven, it's Connie! Wake up!"

There was no answer. Getting the sudden feeling that something might have happened Connie pulled open the door and rushed inside. She scanned the walls, keeping her eyes at waist level ,as John had taught her, to catch any threats in the house whether they be standing or waiting to pounce. But instead she was greeted by no one. The house was completely empty and it looked like no living thing had been there since the day before.

"Steven? Pearl? Gar-" Connie was cut short by the door to the temple opening and a rather bored looking Amethyst stepping out.

"Oh hey dude, you looking for Steven and Pearl?" Amethyst said, taking a bite out of a tin can.

"Yeah, where is everybody?" Connie asked.

"Steven didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"He, John, Pearl, Garnet, and a couple of his Marine dudes are out looking for Peridot. Their gonna be gone for like three weeks," Amethyst said.

"Three weeks! Who's going to keep me up on my training?" Connie said. A day or two would be fine, but John and Pearl had both told her that if she slacked off then she could lose all of her muscle memory and they would be set back days, even weeks on her training.

"I think John said something about having someone take over for him well he was gone. If I were you I'd check the tent with all their command stuff," Amethyst told her, reaching into the fridge for something to eat. Connie thanked her and left, making her way to the tent. She walked down the rows upon rows of parked Humvees, and past various Marines stopping outside to chat, eat, or for a smoke break.

"Hey kid," one of the Marines playing a game of cards on the hood of a Humvee said.

"Yes," Connie said, trying not to sound nervous.

"You looking for somebody or something? Cause if not I'm gonna have to ask you to leave, this section of the beach is currently an active military installation and we can't just have people wandering around," He said, pointing to the sign no trespassing that had been set up around the small encampment.

"I was wondering if someone could tell me-um-where the person John left to instruct me is?" Connie said.

"Are you talking about the Captain? Look he's not gonna being in the city for awhile. If you need to speak too someone like him there's Gunnery Sergeant King who he left behind, and what's this about instruction?" The marine said, looking confused.

"John has been teaching me how to use a bayonet, and a rifle in hand to hand combat," Connie said.

"Wha-uhh, of course. I told you he was doing some shit like this. Jesus Cap can never not get close with the locals," the Marine said to the others he'd been playing cards with, rubbing his eyes, " Alright I'll take you to the Gunnery Sergeant, but if he doesn't know anything you're gonna have to leave, okay."

"Okay," Connie said, following the Marine to the command tent.

"Hey Tromley, what about our game?" one of the other Marines asked, hopping off of the roof.

"I'll be back in five, and I'm taking my cards with," He replied.

"Like anyone would want to look at your shitty hand," the other Marine reported.

Connie and the Marine walked towards the large canvas structure that sat at the encampments center. He lifted the entrance flap and motioned for her to enter. Connie looked around at everything that was pack in the tent. It certainly wasn't small on the outside, but the sheer amount of stuff that was in here blew her away. Standing at the edge of a table in the middle of the room, surrounded on either side by a half dozen or so other Marines, was a 6 foot something, muscular, dark, hard faced man, with the name tag GSgt. King. He looked up as Connie and the other Marine entered.

"Oh hello, you must be Connie. I'm Gunnery Sergeant King, acting first Sergeant of Bravo Company 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. John told me about your training, and had me be the one to continue your instruction well he's in the field. We've had a bit of a situation come up, so I won't be able to give you a hands on evaluation, but John did tell me he was a bit lax with you and I intended to have you read these anyway so I guess it all worked out," The man said, grabbing a stack of five or six books and handing them to Connie. She took a quick inspection of them. Most of them were an inch or more thick and had titles like; "One Mind, Any Weapon, Combat & Hand to Hand Fighting, and Combat Conditioning."

"Thanks for the books, but what are these for?" Connie asked, a little puzzled.

"For one to adept at fighting one must understand the principles behind it, both mentally and physically, and I should know. I taught black belt 2nd degree at the MARSOC hand to hand combat center for two years and at Parris island for four more before I shipped off to Afghanistan in 2010. Now have One Mind, Any Weapon, and the Marine Corps Close Combat Guide read before you even think about trying to train with me," King said pointing out the books Connie was to read. None of them looked too long, but Connie couldn't say that she wasn't a little disappointed. But on the plus side she did enjoy a good book and had been looking for something to read since she'd finished Familiar Unfamiliar.

"Thank you sir, I'll have them finished by tomorrow," she said, and turned to walk out.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I had been made an officer," King said, in a voice that would've caused a grizzly bear to whimper. Connie turned around to see that the friendly face she'd been greeted with was now gone and replaced by scowl that somehow continued to get angrier by the second,"Now since your parents haven't signed a release from and you're twelve I will not give you the Quantico treatment, but you'll want to have this memorized front to back before we train in any way shape or form."

He handed Connie a small booklet that read; The Do's and Don'ts of Basic, "I wrote it myself, so don't get sloppy with it. Now get to reading we have to deal with this."

Connie nodded and left the tent making a turn towards the cliff where she usually read. She sat down on the soft sand and opened up the small booklet. The forward was a short few paragraphs that went over the purpose of the text contained within the next fifty some pages. As she read through it one particularly stuck out to her; "Look to the Cadets to the left and right of you. They are just like you, brought to these barracks for the same reasons as you. It is true that there will be small differences between each individual's reasons for joining, but all of you have come here for the same reason, whether you know it or not. A shared sense of brotherhood, of sameness and closeness with those around you. In these next 13 weeks you will foster and grow that sense of brotherhood with your fellow Cadets as you come ever closer to attaining that title of U.S. Marine. However know that if it does not grow then you will fail and if you do not here you will fail your platoon farther down the line. We are all Marines and we operate together or we die alone.

Connie smiled at the last line. It almost seemed to mirror what Pearl had told her about being a knight. She continued to flip through the booklet finding more and more connections between what it said and what she'd learned from the ivory gem. She finished it and opened One Mind, Any Weapon and soon found herself unable to not turn the next page. Each one gave her ever more useful information one how to hold herself, and how one's mind must be as sharp as their blade. She especially adored the parts where it would explain the history of the techniques used by the program the book was written about. How they had their roots in so many other martial arts from around the world. Maybe three weeks without Pearl and John wouldn't be so bad after all.

The front gates of Tonopah Test Range Airport opened to allow the small column of Humvees to enter. On any other day the guards at the front door would have questioned why there was a kid and two very oddly dressed individuals in the line of cars. But today was by no means any other day. Every single piece of communication equipment one base that wasn't encrypted and could play audio had malfunctioned and began playing a strange message over and over again. After the Marine captain in the lead vehicle had explained what they were there for the guards had waved them through and now Pearl found herself studying the sprawling military complex. She found it so intriguing how humanity had evolved to be so efficient at killing one another and at the same time had beaten back so many of the other things that had pushed them so close to the edge of extinction.

It was truly impressive though. Fifty hangars and a massive air strip covered what had once been nothing but desert. She felt a small strange sort of melancholy smile on her face as she thought,"Oh what Rose would think of you all,"

She supposed it would be the same as what she had thought when she was still here. After all humanity had never been the most peaceful species. Her smile faded as she looked over to Steven. He too was in awe of the size of the complex, but he was still naive to it's real purpose. She knew he would need to know and would find out eventually whether or not she wanted him to. He knew so little of the darker sides of humanity and she hadn't ever really considered how to tell him that they existed and what they were.

But there was no time for that now, no she needed to focus on the task at hand. Garnet had explained to John after the message had played that Peridot must have somehow fixed the Homeworld communication hub. He had been relieved once they told him that even in it's fully functional state there had been a delay of several minutes, sometimes even hours before a message could reach the gems home planet. With whatever condition it was in now it would probably take several days for any message to stretch across the stars to even the nearest gem colony. They had also explained, much to John's annoyment, that the warp pad to the hub was nonfunctional and the next nearest one was several hundred miles away from the hub.

The vehicles stopped and an Airman came over to open the door for the gems. Pearl stepped out and was greeted by the roar of the turboprop engines of one of the five C-130J aircraft on the airstrip next to them. Garnet and steven got out of the other side of the Humvee and stood next to her. She looked over to the front of the column to see John stepping out and greeted someone in a dark blue uniform. The two saluted each other and shared words before making their way towards the gems, still in deep conversation.

"So you're the group of gems that have been working with us in these recent months," the new man said, extending his hand to Pearl. She took it and gave a firm shake, "I'm Colonel Richard Glen, commanding officer of this base."

"It's a pleasure Colonel, has John explained our situation?" Pearl asked.

"He contacted us using one of those pagers. Thank god someone looked over at their receiving stations. I can't even recall the last time that we used those, probably not since Somalia. Though if you can't stop whatever it causing that message to play they might be all we have to use," He said, as the group moved towards a set of what looked like office buildings.

Once inside the thunderous boom of the massive aircraft engines died down somewhat, but it could still be heard through the thin walls. The group of Marines, gems, and GGRCA operatives followed the Colonel down a hallway and turned into a room. Inside where several rolled maps, a set of tables,and a very old looking projector. The group assembled themselves around the table and John stood at the head.

"As of this moment Operation Desert Ghost is at an end and we will soon begin planning for Operation Desert Ghost two. As the gems have informed me and I have informed you Peridot as some how managed to get operational the gem communication hub here on Earth. As my knowledge on the hubs construction and inner workings are limited I will hand off explanation of that to Pearl," John said, stepping aside to allow Pearl to take the stand. As he stepped down he walked over to the table of maps and began to sift through them.

Pearl stood at the end of the tables with all eyes on her. Taking a moment to clear her throat she spoke, "The gem communication hub was what was used to keep Earth in contact with the other colonies and Homeworld. It works through the use of several energy pylons arranged in a manner to project messages, in either text, audio, or video form. About a year before now we, the Crystal gems that is, had traveled there to disable it entirely as it had begun to interfere with TV broadcasts here on Earth. The demolition work lead to some...difficulties, but that is beside the point. The hub was believed to have been made permanently inactive, but as we know Peridot has somehow been able to make it at least some what functional. Without a picture or diagram or really anything to point to I can't definitively say what we would need to exactly do inorder disable it, but unless she has by some means drastically modified the hubs inner workings then all we will need to do is remove enough of the pillars from their placement or cause significant damage to them," Pearl said, looking around the room. The Marines were nodding in understanding or talking quietly amongst themselves. She then stepped aside to allow John to take the floor, having gathered the maps he needed. He spread them open across the table and began to lay out the plan.

"Alright we are extremely short on both time and resources here, but as they Gems described it and as the Colonel told me, we have determined that the hub is located in western Libya, near the border to Algeria," John said, pointing to an area on the map of africa he laid out," The gems have also explained to me that the warp pad in the area is nonfunctional due to a complication during an earlier mission. Lucky for us this base has on it 5 C-130Js that were actually on their way to drop supplies to rebels we are supporting in the region. However as every piece of communication equipment that is not through the internet, encrypted, or text based has been shut down this has taken priority so we will be commandeering one of them and making a HALO jump over the target.

"Sir," one of the Marines piped up.

"Yes Pile,"

"If communications are nonfunctional how are the C-130s going to be able to communicate with their refueling craft during flight?"

Lucky for us the one that we are commandeering is the only one out of the group whose comms are unaffected by the broadcast. Now if we had more time I would have some over head photographs of the area, but we don't have the time to wait for a satellite or UAV to get over the area and give us that intel. However there is a massive plus side in the fact that as it transmits the hub shoots a beam of light into the upper atmosphere. This will act as a beacon for where we will land. We will be dropping with three Humvees, two equipped with M2s and the other with a MK-19. Since we will be operating on foreign soil without the permission of the local government we will be scrapping the Humvees once we reach the warp pad. As we will only have five seat available with each Humvee sporting a gunner some people are going to be left behind.

John paused for a moment to allow it to sink in. Pearl looked around the room and was a little surprised at the expressions of the Marines. She figured they would be revealed to not be going into what could most definitely be a combat mission, but most of them looked annoyed or even angry,"Steven, Pvt. Pile, and Sgt. Rook you will be stating."

"Aw, what," Steven said in a disappointed tone.

"I'm sorry Steven but it's a matter of legality, not skill," John said, turning to the Marines,"Pile you injured yourself at the kindergarten and I don't care what the doctor says, no one falls that high and is just fine and Rook I need someone I can trust to make sure these two make it back to the beach in one piece okay."

"So you're putting me on babysitting duty? Cap that's some bullshit," Rook said, angry.

"That may be, but it's a direct order from your commanding officer," John said, shutting Rook down, "Now our flight takes off at 1300 hours and we should be dropping around 1100 hours. Take this time to re-equip yourselfs in the on base armoury and double up on ammo. We are dropping illegally into an active war zone, so well we will be trying to avoid contact, it is still possible and if we get into a sustained firefight we will need to be ready."

John continued to mark the areas on the map where the group would be moving and avoiding. Pearl watched him with vigor and found it incredible how he was able to so quickly move so many different things into motion. But there was still something in the back of her head that bothered her. He'd said they would be dropping into an active war zone. She'd dreaded this moment from the second she started working with these humans. She had promised Rose only a few short years into the rebellion that she would never directly involve herself in a human war. When the British landed at Beach City that promise changed and Rose asked her to swear that she would never take a side in a human conflict or a human life unless it was absolutely necessary. She couldn't help but wonder if soon the line between necessary and wanted would be blurred.

Pearl was snapped out of her train of thought by the sound of the Marines around her standing and moving to do the tasks that had been asked of them. She stood and made her way over to Steven. She knew the boy was disappointed that he wouldn't be going on the mission and didn't quite understand why. She had hoped it would have been much later that she would need to explain the darker sides of humanity. Infact she had never really considered how to go about the question. She came to the sudden realization that up until humans direct involvement in gem affairs she had never even thought that Steven would learn about their wars.

"You could just let him live without the knowledge, at least for a little bit more," Pearl thought to herself. The idea did appeal to her, after all she would only have a few short hours, if that, to explain why humans had their standing militaries and why they continued to fight. In fact the more she thought about it the more she realized she knew so little. She had of course studied the combat of the medieval era time and time again, but the lessons of those conflicts were mainly ones of why knights gave their servitude, rather than the reason behind the conflicts themselves. No if she was to dive into this topic with the boy she would need time to prepare. Pushing the thoughts out of her mind she walked over to the boy and readied herself to present him with another white lie. There had been so much she hid from him and one more thing for the sake of his own good wouldn't hurt. But Garnet had already beaten her there, kneeling in front of the boy with and hand on his shoulder to talk to him. They exchanged a few words and soon Stevens disappointed face lit up and the two quickly embraced in a hug. Steven then followed the other two Marines who would be heading back to the temple out and Garnet turned to make her way towards Pearl.

"What did you say?" Pearl asked.

"I simply told him that because we would be going into another country without their leader's permission that if we were caught we would be in trouble and John didn't want him to get hurt," Garnet said.

"Did he ask about what John meant by active warzone?"

"He did and I told him I didn't know,"

"We'll have to tell him sometime, or he will find out on his own,"

"I know," Garnet sid in a low tone,"This is why I didn't want to work with these humans. Steven's too young and pure for their type of warfare and I fear that if-"

"When," Pearl corrected her.

"When he finds out his faith in humanity may be shattered," Garnet replied.

"And if he finds out we've been hiding it from him his faith in us might go with it,"Pearl said.

"But none of us have the expertise in this area. I have long wondered why humankind never came together under one banner," Garnet said.

"There is John, he could explain to Steven the various in and outs of human conflict," Pearl said.

"No, I don't think that would be wise. Well John has built up a relationship with Steven his view on human war could be...problematic and Steven would probably get more from it if one of us were to explain. At the very least we know that we could be more comforting and able to deal with his reaction."

"Sorry to interrupt," John said, appearing behind Garnet, "But I needed to talk with you two."

"Okay, what do you need?" Pearl asked.

"As I stated we will be dropping into an active warzone and well we are going to try and avoid the locals, combat is still entirely possible."

"Yes, you said that during your briefing," Garnet said.

"Eh right, I need you two to carry supplies. Ammo, water, food, medical, anything that a force like ours might need. Honestly if you had the training I would have you carrying weapons, but I would rather have you armed with what you now than spraying lead all over the place," John said.

"Um won't your vehicle's be carrying our supplies?" Pearl pointed out.

"Yes, but I have learned all too well that if you can carry more you should carry more. Look I'm going to be completely straightforward with you, if you won't hump ammo and medical then you won't be dropping with us," John said, in a flat tone.

"Excuse me?" Pearl said definitely.

"How gave you the authority to make that decision?" Garnet asked.

"Section 32 of the Beach City accords, the documents that you both read and signed. Look I'm not asking you to kill anyone and chances are we'll be able to avoid contact, but I don't allow people to come on sustained missions like these without pulling their weight. I just need you to sling a pair of kevlar plates and a rucksack stuffed with ammo and water over your shoulders," John said, trying to reason with the gems. Pearl paused for a moment, thinking. After all he really wasn't asking them to do much more than carry somethings. She looked over to Garnet who gave her a nod.

"Ok, we'll carry whatever you need us to," Pearl said.

"Good, I'll get together your rucks and meet you at hangar 14 in two hours. If you need something to do then you could come and help prepare for the drop," John said over his shoulder, walking away. Pearl and Garnet waited for him to leave the room.

"Then again if John were to tell Steven we could count on him being straightforward and simple," Garnet said.

"I suppose so, still this may be a situation requiring a scale not a machete," Pearl said.

"These are thoughts for another time, for now we should try and make ourselves useful, least our companions think ill of us,"Garnet said, and the two made their way out of the room. They turned down the hallway where they had entered and almost bumped head long into the two GGRCA agents that were accompanying the group.

"Oh sorry, we didn't see you there," Pearl apologized.

"No problem, just watch where you're going next time," One of them said and the two walked around the gems.

"Wait, where are you going? The rest of the group is that way," Pearl said, pointing down the hallway she and Garnet were heading.

"We have to find a working satellite phone and report the change in mission to our CO," one of them said.

"CO?" Pearl asked.

"Commanding officer, Lt. Townsen," he replied.

"I thought John was the commander for your unit," Garnet said.

"No, well yes...kind of. John is our acting field commander and he really only holds that title and the power with it because we chose to follow him and because Townsen gave us orders to do so. Since we're a whole different section of the military we have to report to a different CO and in a reality Cpt. Cupal holds no real power over us. If he gives an order we'll follow it because there's no reason not to, but we don't have to and if we decided not to Cupal could only really tell our suppiour. He doesn't have any power to actually discipline, order, demote, or promote us," the other said.

"Well that seems a little-"

"Odd? Counter-productive? Nonsense? Well it's not. The reason it's that way is so our departments stay separate and both have the ability to act on information given to them under their own intuition," He said, cutting Pearl off.

"Look well we would love to stay and explain the inner works of the relationship between us and the Marines we have a report to make," the other said, and the two walked away.

"That was...informative," Pearl said.

"Indeed, we should go see the other and make ourselves useful," Garnet said. Pear nodded and the two walked outside, and towards the group of Marines loading equipment on to their Humvees.

And Fourteen, wow was this one a bitch to write. Sorry for cutting it before the drop, but I felt it was dragging on and if I had them drop I would have to write the hubs destruction which by the way I have hit a real brick wall with, but that's for me to figure out. On another note, does anyone remember how a few chapters back I said that down the road I would have a massive divergence from the main cannon, probably somewhere are season four? Yeah, well I've been rewatching seasons two and three again and have come to the realization that there are whole archs that just can't happen without just completely disregarding the characters as I've built them so far and in some cases logic. So that shift from the main plot may be coming a lot sooner, and trust me I am just as upset as anyone who simply wanted to see the show with Marines. I really did not make any sort of major plot plans for this area, and planned to coast off of what Rebecca and Crewniverse had done up to about seano four, maybe five. I don't know when it's coming but I do know that I will try my hardest to keep in line with the basic plot of the show and have the big moments represented, but yeah.

Now chapter analysis, first calling Operation Desert Ghost Two, well lame, is actually correct. This is something that the military does to basically make paperwork easier as often when it's done the same people, with the same gear, will be operating under the same or similar pretenses and often in the same area. Great example: Operation Prairie 1 through 4. As to the name of the chapter being section 18 and John having his radio op call one in, in the Beach City accords a section 18 would basically be an form of communication by any thing to Homeworld. The thing with John not having direct control over the GGRCA members he's working with is something I'll get to later, but trust me it's going to be a plot point. Connie training has kind of been something that I'm not quite sure how I'm going to finish up, as I don't really feel I've shown enough of Pearl indoctrination to have the pivotal plot moment where she shouts "Why won't you let me do this for you Rose", but to be far in the show we got a song and a 2-3 min fight/conversation with Steven and Connie. Also I know I introduce like eight new OCs per chapter, and I'm just gonna say the most of them are throw away names I don't even remember, but having an officer who fought with his Marines for several years refer to them by their rank, rather than by name is kinda stupid. Basically if they don't get mentioned past the arch I originally had them for then don't worry about it. I will try and put out 15 before December, but with Thanksgiving and family being around, finding time to write is going to be hard, especially with the amount of rewrites I'll be doing. (not even joking part of me wants to scrap this whole chapter and start over) So that's that, please leave a review if you think of anything that would be interesting to have, you have a question, a critique, or just something nice.