An: Hi all, I recently rewrote basically this entire story. Most of the major plot points are intact, but not all. If you've already read the first four chapters I'd advise you reread it or atleast give it cursor glance so you're not as fuzzy on the details. For those following, sorry for the long delay between updates, becoming a writer the do it yourself way has been fairly difficult, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Special thanks to Seventy Four Mudkips and jaeger gypsy danger for all the help and encouragement, and thank you to all the rest of you for taking time out of your to read this, it means a helluva lot. Please, please review. I can't stand writing and not knowing how people feel about it. Even if all you have to say is "it sucks," or "it's great," I still apreciate it. enjoy.

"A great love is a lot like a good memory. When it's there, and you know it's there, but it's just out of your reach, it can be all you think about. You can focus on it and try to force it, but the more you do the more you seem to push it away, but if you're pacient and you hold still, maybe, just maybe, it'll come to you."

Pvt. Leonard Church (Alpha)

Location: insurrectionist controlled planet Taurus VI, Taurus system, 07:35 standard military time, January 5th 2558

Brandon and Alison woke to the sound of loud repetitive knocking on their room's front door.

"URF police, open up, we have some questions for you," came the call from behind the door.

Alison grabbed her handgun lightning fast and had it trained on the door before Brandon could say a word. Brandon rushed over to block her fire.

"It's ok Alison, it's just the police. Unless you catch them on a bad day shooting at them isn't generally a good idea."

Alison didn't back down for a second.

"What do they want?"

"Hell if I know, but we'll be fine, I promise."

Her expression softened if only slightly. She nodded and reluctantly hid it under the mattress.

Brandon walked over to the door and pulled it open, standing behind it was a URF police officer whose rank patch marked him as a captain. He was outfitted in military gear and flanked on either side by two additional officers. All of them were wearing Marine Corps and Army surplus plate carriers fitted with raid patches that read POLICE in large block letters. The two officers that flanked the captain both wore marine corps issue helmets painted black and carried shotguns while the captain wore a simple operator style base ball hat with a URF flag Velcroed to the front of it and had an M6 series pistol strapped to his right thigh. Between his buzz cut hair and his five o'clock shadow he looked more like an off duty marine than a police officer, then again on most URF colonies the military and the police were the same entity, this was probably how every officer in the town dressed.

"Sorry to intrude on you all, I'm Captain Lassiter, I run this town's security force. I have some questions to ask you," he said, honestly sounding apologetic for waking them. It wasn't what he had expected from a URF cop, but Brandon wasn't about to complain. Lassiter stretched out his hand and Brandon shook it.

"David Brandon, I don't run anything anymore," he responded.

Alison finally decided the area was clear enough and moved forward to stand next to Brandon in the door frame. She still wasn't wearing a jacket and one of the officers with shotguns gaped at the burns and scars that covered her body. She shot him a, what are you looking at, look that shut his mouth instantly.

"And your name is?" asked Lassiter as he held out his hand for Allison to shake.

"Alison," she replied tersely before shaking his hand.

"Alison what?"

"Just Alison."

Lassiter decided it wasn't worth his time getting an answer out of her and dropped it.

"Look if you're here to talk to us about what that guy said about us being UNSC at the bar last night I'm sorry. I was under the impression you had an open arms policy with deserters."

"That policy still stands David so long as you registered properly, which I'll assume you did or there's no way in hell you got onto this world undetected. We did hear about what was said at the bar last night. That leads me into the real reason we're here. We want to offer you a job."

Brandon looked over at Alison and she nodded, this was the job they had been sent here to get.

"A job?" Responded Brandon as quizzically as he could manage. He didn't want to be two obvious about his intentions for fear of making Lassiter suspicious, "why would you want to give us a job?"

"Come on David, your obviously veteran military," he said, gesturing to how they were dressed, "It's harder to find competent fighters out on these parts than you would guess."

Brandon feigned a chuckle. "Find someone else. We just got out of the last job a military offered us and we're planning to keep it that way for a while at least. Besides we're both POGs. Do you really need a bunch of logistics experts?"

That peaked Lassiter's interest.

"Come on David, at least hear my offer."

He feigned an exasperated sigh and motioned for Lassiter to come inside and sit. The two other officers stayed outside the door while Lassiter entered and sat down on the couch as Brandon and Alison sat down on the bed across from him.

"First may I ask why you left the UNSC?"

Brandon looked at her as of wondering if she would want to tell him. A question he already knew the answer to. She shook her head and he proceeded.

"Me and her were working shipping and receiving for the army on Reach back in 2552 when the place was glassed. When the order went out to evacuate all high value personnel from the planet's surface before the covenant glassed the place, we weren't deemed high value personnel and were left on the planet to die. We only escaped the glassing because we hot wired a civilian ship and legged it the hell out of the there. It was that day we decided we were done with the UNSC."

That lie was based mainly in truth. He had been on Reach when the planet was glassed, he had been left to die although it was by his own choice and was done in order to make room for more civilians to fit aboard the Army evac shuttle. He had even been taken off planet by a civilian ship although the ship had been routed to him by Army evacuation dispatch. He thought it was a fabrication of the truth Osman would be proud of.

"Typical," scoffed Lassiter, "I had a buddy of mine who had similar shit pulled on him on Coral. Any way you made the right choice, the URF is the way to go."

"Who said we joined the URF? If you have an offer for us, make it," responded Brandon.

"Well, the offer is this. That space station in orbit above this planet is the supply hub for our forces in and around this area. Condors leave from that station hourly to go and resupply various important installations of ours. Those condors carry very valuable equipment; weapons, ammo, food, and pay roll money to name a few. We've been looking to recruit competent fighters to ride alongside the ship's cargo and protect it from any would-be pirates or borders, however, despite popular opinion, trained soldiers are hard to come by in this neck of the woods, and ones with logistics experience are even less common. Our proposition is simple, if you enlist as reservists and agree to accompany 40 shipments a month we'll give you each a standard enlisted man's wage paid in cash each month, no questions asked."

Brandon sat there for a moment, pretending to mull it over. This Captain Lassiter had just inadvertently handed him his ticket to infiltrating the URF and he planned to take full advantage of it. This was almost to easy.

"Ok, we're in."

Lassiter reached out his hand and Brandon shook it, followed by Alison.

"Some guys from the station will be at the airfield at 07:00 tomorrow with a pelican to pick you up and take you to the refit station for some on the job training, see you then."

Lassiter turned around and walked out the door, followed by the other two officers. Alison let out a long breath as the door closed behind them. She relaxed the white knuckle fists she had curled her hands in to and stopped looking over at her handgun compulsively. She had been certain she would have to fight her way out of that one.

Damn, being this close to the enemy is going to take some getting used to.

"Are you going to be ok?" Brandon asked after a moment.

"I'm fine," she responded without hesitation. She paused moment and let out a breath.

"Just a little surprised is all." Alison intended the comment as an olive branch. Generally she would have never elaborated on her disposition with just anyone. Wether Brandon took it that way or not, she couldn't tell.

"If you're sure," Brandon said with concern.

She sat back down on her bed and looked out the window at the town. She still wasn't so sure how she was taking the idea of being undercover. She couldn't imagine how people could possibly do this on a regular basis. Staying around so many people she knew were the enemy made her incredibly nervous. Sure, she had one recon before, but this was different. When she had conducted recon she was completely hidden, and the enemy didn't know she was a threat until she had already killed them. Here she was in plain view of everyone and still had to convince them she was not a threat. She pushed these thoughts out of her head. She had promised herself last night she would give it a chance, and the Lieutenant one as well.

"Lieutenant, I realize I was a bit apprehensive last night being in a place with so many people."

Brandon shrugged, "Don't worry about it. It's mostly my fault for bringing you to a place like that. You don't seem like you appreciate large crowds. I should have recognized that."

Even if he was a being a little to apologetic, Alison liked this new side of Brandon. Few people had ever been concerned with her own preferences when sending her on ops, and based on his initial reaction to her she had never expected Brandon to be among them.

"I forgive you Lieutenant, you were just trying to do your job."

Brandon frowned, "I know, but I always manage to screw it up anyway don't I. If you want to stay here today that's fine. It might be an easier adjustment for you, and we'll have plenty of time to look around town soon enough."

Alison looked out the window once again. She wasn't sure why she was so afraid of this place. It was just a town, most towns she had been to had been made living hell by the covenant long before she ever showed up. Between the dozens of small shops and peaceful looking people milling about she knew she should find this place relaxing, but she still couldn't help but see the enemy in all of them.

"I'd like that lieutenant," she finally said.

Brandon nodded and picked up his backpack, heading for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna se what kind of food they have around here. I've been star side way to long, regular food sounds great right now. You want anything?"

Alison shrugged. She wasn't sure she had ever eaten anything that qualified as civilian food.

"Oh well, your loss," said Brandon as he left.

Alison curled her knees back up to her chest and looked out the window once again. Watching the town was almost a surreal experience. Peace, quiet, all things she rarely had an opportunity to enjoy. She reached over and cracked the window slightly, allowing a hint of fresh air into the room. She inhaled a breath of it through her nose and still couldn't believe how good it smelled. Having unfiltered air in their lungs was something way to many people took for granted. Between the time she spent in her armor and on warships she rarely got to taste fresh air, if at all. It smelled sweet, and was just a tad bit more humid than the dry, stale air of UNSC ships. Despite her best effort to keep her eyes open just the feeling of the cool breeze and the sent of the fresh air made her feel like she wanted to fall asleep. It made her forget about the dozens of people on the street below that would want her head if they knew who she was, and really the fact that she was on a mission at all.

God, a spartan enjoying the breeze. CPO Mendez is probably rolling in his grave, if he's dead that is.

Her peace and quiet was shattered as Brandon stumbled into the room with a bag full of food.

He smiled at her and set the bag down on a table, "enjoying yourself?"

"I was."

"Oh, sorry," said Brandon with an apologetic grin. He reached into the bag and pulled out a small package wrapped in tinfoil.

"Here, maybe this'll cheer you up," he said as he handed her the package.

She took it from him and slowly pulled back the wrapper, pulling out a bar of chocolate.

She looked at him quizzically, "what's this supposed to be?"

"Nothing, I didn't know what you would like to eat so I figured chocolate would cheer you up. If you don't like it I've got other stuff."

She nodded and looked down at the bar. To the best of her knowledge she had never had chocolate. It wasn't something the UNSC tended to ration out to Spartans, probably because it wasn't the best thing to put in your body if you wanted to be alert in battle. She set it down next to her and continued to look out the window.

"Oh come on, try it," persisted Brandon, "it won't kill you, I promise."

Very reassuring, she thought.

"Fine," she reached down and picked up the chocolate bar, taking a small bite out of the top.

The instant she bit into it it was like a flood of memories came back to her. She couldn't make a mental image of what they were, but they were probably from before she joined the Spartan program. Whatever they were they felt pleasant, comforting, reassuring. She had definitely had chocolate before. She ate the bar as quickly as possible, hoping the memories would stay, maybe she could decipher them, but they didn't stay for long. She looked down disappointedly at the empty wrapper in her hand. She had heard of other Spartans having reactions like that, small things that caused them to remember life before the program, she never expected it would happen to her, much less did she expect she would enjoy it.

Brandon smiled at her, "see, I told you you would like it."

She didn't answer him, instead she tried to concentrate on the memories. Maybe she could remember a face, a planet, her last name, anything. It was no use, she couldn't remember anything but the ancient feeling. It was a feeling of warmth and happiness and a care free existence, something she hadn't felt any time she could remember.

"Hey, you ok?" Asked Brandon.

Alison abruptly snapped back to reality as she heard Brandon speak

"I'm fine, I just, uh, just remembered something." There was a little more excitement in her voice than she remembered and for some reason she couldn't help but smile.

Brandon smiled back, "must have been something good."

"you have no idea."

She took another deep breath through her nose and took in the sweet smelling air. Combine with the memories she had just felt it made her forget all about the unfamiliarity of the planet and her proximity to the enemy, in fact, this planet actually seemed pleasant right about now.

"Mind if I sit with you?"

She shrugged, and moved over to make room for him.

"You know I grew up in a place like this."

Alison raised an eyebrow, "really?"

"Yeah, not as exciting as you would imagine," he said with a small laugh, "but I kinda liked it that way."

"Oh really, considering how much you talk I find that hard to believe."

He laughed, "well I guess I wasn't always this talkative. What about you, where did you grow up?"

"Reach," Alison answered reflexively.

It wasn't a complete lie. With as much time as she spent training there she might has well have grown up on Reach.

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Don't be, I barely remember it anyway."

"Well, for what it's worth I liked visiting Reach, even went to school there. Before the war and all It really was a beautiful place."

"Even considering what happened there?"

Brandon sighed, "yeah. I try not to let that spoil what it used to be like. It was incredibly beautiful. Actually it looked quite a lot like this place."

She sighed, "I wish I could remember all that."

Truth be told she could, but it didn't seem to come back to her the same as it did to Brandon. For her Reach had been freezing cold in the winter and scorching hot in the summer. It served no purpose but to put her through living hell and train her to be the protector of

Earth and all her colonies. If Reach ever had been anything like this it was well beyond her memory of the place. For her it had been the same before and after the glassing, but then again that wasn't were she had grown up for real. The memories from the bar of chocolate had made her certain of that. Somewhere, she had a family, assuming they weren't dead. It would be her luck if they were.

"Lieutenant, could you tell me about your family?"

"What do you want to know about them?"

Alison shrugged, "I don't know. I just want to know what they're like."

"You may not want to know."

"I do," she insisted.

He let out a long breath, "Well, I don't know most of my family. Like I said I grew up in a place like this. I rarely left town, which meant I was pretty isolated from my extended family. My mom worked for a car company and my dad didn't do much working at all. My dad hung around the house, drank, and bitched about anything you could think of, and when my mom got home that just intensified. I had a sister but she just seemed completely oblivious that any of this was going on. The first chance I got I left that damn place, went to Reach for college, joined the Army, and never looked back."

This wasn't the image of a family Alison had always imagined. She thought of the other Spartans as her family, her brothers and sisters in arms. They watched each others backs and looked out for each other on and off the battlefield and had made her feel welcome and secure, but if this was what a real family was like than it honestly sounded horrible

"Did your family care about you Lieutenant?"

He sighed, "I'd like to think my mom cared about me, but she rarely said more than a couple words to me and loved to make fun of me. My dad didn't give a rats ass about me, he's probably the reason I wanted to leave the most, and if my sister cared about me I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you. Look, I shouldn't be talking about this. I got over this years ago and you've heard enough of my problems anyway."

"No, I want to hear about this."

"You do?" Said Brandon with more than a little bewilderment.

Alison tried to make her response as minimally confusing as possible.

"Well, when you gave me that chocolate, it's gonna sound crazy but it made me remember something from when I was very little."

"Really? What was it?"

"It was nothing really, just a feeling, a good feeling, an old one, one that had to have come from when I was little, maybe it came from my family. I don't remember anything about my family Lieutenant, not anymore."

"Wait, how do you not remember your family at all?"

Oh great, how was she going to explain this one.

"They died a long time ago Lieutenant, I don't want to talk about it. Anyway, I thought the memory might have been of my family, but if that's what families are like I guess those feelings must have been from something else.""

Brandon nodded, and they sat in silence for a long time.

"Alison, I don't want to bring up a touchy subject, but I just want to say not all families are like mine. I'm sure that your family cared. Most do."

She didn't really believe him, but the comforting thought was nice.

She gave him a small smile, "thanks Brandon."

"No really," he said persistently, "I don't know that I knew anyone who had a family like mine, I'm sure that you had a family that really loved you Alison."

His words were sincere and made Alison feel just a little bit less melancholy.

She gave him another small smile, "you think so?"

"I know so."

Her smile became just a bit wider and she went back to facing the window, once again inhaling and exhaling slowly as the warm air filled her lungs and she remembered the warm feeling the taste of chocolate had given her. She looked briefly over at the Lieutenant before closing her eyes once again. It felt inexplicably good to have him by her side. Normally words didn't do much to console her, but he was better at talking than most people she knew.

She heard the lieutenant stand to leave, but her incredible reflexes allowed her to grab his wrist without even opening her eyes.

"Please stay lieutenant, I like having you here."

Brandon smiled, "of course."

She took another series of deep breaths and looked out the window once again. Maybe this mission wasn't going to be so bad after all.

Location: URF planet side security office, insurrectionist controlled planet Taurus VI, 08:30 standard military time, January 6th 2558

Captain Lassiter sat at a large wooden desk at his office on Taurus VI's planet security office, filing papers as he always seemed to at this do nothing job. He had had his job down to an almost robotic routine for the last month until today. Today he had had his first chance to get out of his office in a long time and he was glad, not that his office was a shabby place. It was furnished with the best furniture and art he had captured in planetary interdictions, things that he assumed the URF wouldn't miss if they didn't show up on his after action report, But no matter how nicely furnished his office was he still found himself going stir crazy from the amount of time he usually spent in it, which was why he always liked meeting anyone new who arrived on his planet, especially if they claimed to be former UNSC.

The UNSC wasn't something he harbored any love for, but UNSC deserters were always fun to deal with. He had employed many in his time. They made excellent officers, willing to work long hours for little as long as you promised them a planet that was a haven from the Covenant and the UNSC alike. His job was to make sure the planet remained such a haven by routing out spies and any other dirty individuals the UNSC threw at him, which lead to his job being very boring, and to him spending a lot of time in his office.

Although some planets in URF territory had had entire groups of ONI spies infiltrate them, or found UNSC scout sniper teams sneaking around and watching them, or even found lone spartan IV's stalking around a militia bases, very little ever happened on Taurus IV by way of infiltration, or so it seemed. In fact, very few new people came to Taurus VI at all, and few that did come stayed for more than an hour, which was why when a seemingly seven foot tall woman and raggedy ass looking man, both wearing what appeared to be bits and pieces of old UNSC fatigues, showed up and appeared to plan to stay, it was cause for concern.

They sure as hell looked suspicious, and posing as UNSC deserters was either a dead give away that they were spies or undeniable confirmation that they weren't. He couldn't tell.

He did have a man who could however, officer Daniel Ramirez. There was little about spies or the UNSC didn't know.

As if on cue he heard a single footstep behind him. Daniel rarely allowed anyone to know he was approaching until he was right on top of them.

"What do you think of them sir?"

Lassiter turned to find officer Ramirez standing not two feet behind him. As a former ONI agent turned URF defector Ramirez was a man of many talents, and Lassiter was sure that being able to scare the shit out of anyone at any time was one of his fairly benign qualities. He had probably killed more people than Lassiter cared to think about, and collected more intelligence than any worthless UNSC spy they could throw at them. It made him an extremely cold and efficient man, It was also why he had made him his head of intelligence.

"I can't honestly say. Their alibis seem airtight, then again we haven't really checked them throughly. What have you found out so far?"

"I couldn't tell you anything either. I ran the UNSC database for Army personnel matching the names David Brandon and Alison Lawson. we found at least a dozen matches and several more that could have been made into anagrams of those names, but that was to be expected from an Army as large as the UNSC Army." If Ramirez felt any disappointment about lack of results he didn't show it. Ramirez's face remained as stone cold as one would expect from anyone who had associated with ONI. His demeanor unnerved even Lassiter himself, who was shaken by little.

"It doesn't matter. I've already sent them their first assignments. They'll be escorting supplies from the refit station tomorrow, it'll give us plenty of time to monitor them. We'll figure out who they are and if they're telling us the truth soon enough."

Ramirez nodded and turned to leave, "I have no doubt of that sir. I'll keep you posted"

Ramirez's footfalls were absolutely silent as he left and shut the door behind him.

Lassiter breathed a sigh of relief once he was convinced Ramirez was gone. That guy had always creeped him out. If he wasn't absolutely essential to the running of his department he'd have appointed someone else in his place long ago, and probably killed him just to make sure he didn't pull some ONI shit on him for revenge.

Hopefully Brandon and Alison's story would check out and he wouldn't have to talk to him for a while afterwards.

Location: UNSC Murphy's law, standoff distance from forerunner installation X50, zero dark thirty standard military time, January 6th, 2558

Admiral Osman sipped her ONI brand coffee as she sat in her chair on the bridge.

It was getting late but she elected to stay awake, but there was still a little more work to do. Mal and Vaz were still on the surface of the innie occupied planet, and they had recently sent her a quick message saying that activity had ramped up at the base they were scoping out.

Osman wanted to see this activity for herself and had had BB project a live feed from Mal's helmet cam onto the bridge's view port. The feed showed a view from Mal's perspective of the enemy base through his sniper rifle's scope. She watched as the base's alarm sounded for the fifth time that day while a warthog dashed for the base's airfield and offloaded yet another cannon barrel shaped piece of forerunner technology that the URF appeared to be massing quite a few of. It was loaded into a pelican and BB tracked it as it traveled to an unmarked civilian freighter ship the innies had either captured or bought. She assumed the former.

Osman knew that the disappearance and reappearance of all of the ships the URF had stolen from under the nose of the UNSC and brought to X50 was some how related to that very piece of technology, and she was going to get to the bottom of it.

"Tell the boys to take a load off," she said to BB.

The monotony of the rebels actions really struck her. Normally they were so disorganized that it was impossible to detect any semblance of a pattern in their activities but as far as Osman could tell this base had been set up by the URF for the sole purpose of loading and transporting what ever those devices were. It made her wonder whether this was a typical rebel op in which the sole purpose of the entire mission was to steal as much as they could and make off with a profit or if a more destructive plan was in play.

"Yes admiral," responded BB, "Also you should know that while you were monitoring Vaz and Mal you received a communique from Spartan 065 and Lieutenant Brandon. It's waiting in your inbox."

"Thank you BB," she said before closing the window displaying Mal's helmet cam and switched to the message from the Lieutenant.

She read the report and was surprised that the URF had contacted him so quickly. She decided it was probably time she broke her strict radio silence and sent them a message about the forerunner technology the rebels were taking from X50. She sent a detailed description of everything they knew about the device along with detailed pictures and strict instructions to figure out what it was ASAP. She closed the window which left nothing on the ship's view port but X50 and Dratheus V floating in the distance. She reached down to the side of her chair and pressed down a button that allowed her to communicate with any crew on the ship directly.

"Devereaux to the bridge."

"Yes sir," came her response and within a minute Devereaux was standing before her on the bridge. She snapped to attention and gave Osman a crisp salute, which she quickly returned.

"What's the plan admiral?" She asked in a very relaxed tone, one that only an ODST could feel comfortable using around her.

"I need you to extract Mal and Vaz from the surface, I have a plan to get some fast Intel out of one of the URF supply ship crews. I'll brief you on return."

Devereaux smirked. "Oh I can't wait to hear this one," she said before saluting once again and dashing off to the hangar bay.

Osman sat for a moment, deep in thought. Despite having barely started two days ago this op was going fairly well all things considered. On Sangheilios it had taken less than two days for Philips to get into trouble, and Naomi had had to be pulled from her op on Venezia only a couple of hours after she had seen her father, but this mission seemed to be taking a better direction. Maybe she was counting her chickens before they hatched, but the fact that none of her crew had come under fire yet put this mission leagues above many other stealth ops she had run in the past.

Maybe we'll finally be able to pull off one of these fake deserter ops without a hitch, Osman thought as she stared into the blackness of space.