AN: alright guys, another update. Sorry this one is short, but I'm going out of town tommorow, and not the good kind of out of town where it gives me a ton of writing inspiration, so I wanted to get something out for you all before I left for two weeks. Anyways, this isn't much, but it's important, and enjoyable I hope.

Have fun Spartans :)

"The only thing more acurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire,"

-excerpt from Murphy's Laws of combat operations

Location: slipstream space, in route to insurrectionist controlled planet Taurus VI, Taurus system, exact time unknown, exact date unknown, approximated date and time 12:30 hours standard military time, January 7th, 2558

"Stand by for deceleration," called Devereaux to Mal and Vaz as they geared up in the rear of the pelican.

"Copy that," they responded in sync.

At this point in their career both of them knew to always be strapped in while Devereaux was flying, and that went double for today. If Brandon and Alison had been captured, they didn't have long before the URF decided to kill them and be done with it. Holding UNSC prisoners was too risky, and if they weren't careful they could end up with a target on their backs with ONI's name on them.

What they weren't counting on was Kilo-5's single mindedness when it came to protecting their teammates. If Brandon and Alison weren't both alive and well when they got there, that station would have a MAC round put through inside the week, and the planet wouldn't fare much better.

Devereaux braced herself to come out of slipspace. She had over clocked the pelican's jury rigged drive to get them here this fast. If she had pushed it any harder it would have redlined, and that me at this was going to be one hell of a deceleration. She grabbed onto the sides of her seat and tried to hold herself in place as countdown on the jump clicked down to zero.

The pelican tore out of slipspace, it's improvised drive shuddering and shaking under the weight of the jump. If Dev hadn't seen Adj Install it herself she wouldn't have believed it would hold up, but it did, and without engaging the cloak she accelerated rapidly towards the refit station. At the speed she was going a cloak wouldn't have mattered, they could have seen the heat signature from her engine a parsec away.

"Lian, you may want to take evasive maneuvers to avoid the station's defenses..." said BB over her cockpit speakers, "or maybe you could let me fly?"

Devereaux did little more than roll her eyes.

The station's automated defenses activated and two thirty millimeter auto cannons began to fire explosive projectiles her way through the void. She ducked and dodged under the projectiles while she waited for the red indicator on her HUD to indicate she had missile lock on them. When she did, she let lose two anvil missiles and from the pelican's twin rocket pods and watched the hydrogen fuel trail they left behind as they streaked towards the station and impacted, creating a small flash of light as small pockets of air caught fire before the vacuum caused them to fizzle out into nothing and leave two destroyed turrets in their wake.

"Don't ever ask me to let you drive," quipped Devereaux as she completed the maneuver, but she wasn't done showing off quite yet.

Devereaux executed a hairpin inverted roll maneuver that brought them around to face the hangar doors of the station. She had already flipped on the master arm for her missiles and chain gun, and was ready to blow it's steel door to pieces, but what she found was quite abnormal.

There was no steel door. In it's place was an energy shield that covered the hangar entrance in shimmering blue light. Had she had time to reflect on it's significance she would have noted that, other than a handful of prowlers and the Infinity herself, no UNSC spacecraft had ever been fitted with energy shields on their hangar doors, and that obtaining the technology for a refit would be nearly impossible for a group of mid-level terrorists, but she didn't. BB was probably watching all this from her helmet cam anyway. If there was any relevant data worth looking at, he would find it.

She descended through the energy shield and landed the pelican hard on the hangar deck, dropping the boarding ramp so that Mal and Vaz could exit.

As soon as the ramp hit the ground she heard gunfire. Luckily, Mal and Vaz had already set up a rolling barricade in the middle of the pelican's troop bay in case they came under fire while boarding.

The bark of their two assault rifles and the turn fire from the URF was deafening. Dev grabbed her shotgun and moved to join them. She dove from the cockpit to cover behind the barricade and then immediately sprang up, lighting off her shotgun three times and filling the confined space of the hangar with lead.

Mal and Vaz followed, shooting down a few remaining URF troopers that attempted to enter the hangar from door on either side, before hitting a button the barricade that caused it to roll forward and position itself in front of the pelican. The two of them moved as one and grabbed a remote controlled defensive turret from where it was strapped in against the pelican's port side bulkhead and set it up so it could cover the pelican while they searched the station. Mal set up the tripod while Vaz grabbed the gun and fed an ammo belt into it. He booted up the dumb AI that controlled the gun and left it be as a red laser flickered to life and began to scan the hangar for targets. No one would get passed the hail of 7.62x39mm lead it could dispense any time soon.

"We need to sweep this place quick," called Devereaux to the two of them, "we don't know how long those two have. BB, keep it warm for us."

"Yes ma'am," responded the AI with uncharacteristic obedience. Maybe her showing off actually had been good for something.

The ODSTs nodded as well, and followed quickly after her as she took off to begin searching a nearby corridor. When they opened the door that lead to it, a hallway with a seemingly endless amount of doors branching off of it presented itself to them. It would take them hours to search them all throughly, and for all they knew they had minutes until Brandon and Alison were killed.

"Last time I stick my neck out for the Army," grumbled Mal.

The two ODSTs switched on their armor's thermal cameras that allowed them to see heat signatures through walls while Devereaux prepared a breaching charge to blow open doors. Then, with a single minded purpose, they began their search.

Location: Cradle class refit station Mechanical advantage, in geosynchronous orbit above insurrectionist controlled planet Taurus VI, Taurus system, 12:40 hours standard military time, January 7th, 2558

Lassiter and Ramirez sprinted through the corridor with a compliment of fifteen URF troopers making a B line towards where the station's alarms were blaring. The moment they had heard the automated defenses activate they had gathered the who ever they could find and prepared to repel whoever was boarding them. They hoped against hope that it was a just group of Kigyar pirates attempting to raid the station for weapons and ships, but when the automated defenses had been destroyed with a quick salvo of missiles both of them began to worry that this was the UNSC rescue party they had been hoping would never come.

Ramirez had a deep scowl on his face, but something about him looked all too satisfied. Lassiter hadn't seen him since he had started trying to pry information out of that Spartan two hours ago, but he couldn't imagine that there would be anything satisfying about that experience. Interrogating a soldier with that level of training was probably about as fruitful as talking to a wall. Then again, maybe he was crazy, but that didn't seem to be what he was mad about.

He had seen Ramirez when he was frustrated. Usually his expression changed little, with only a sharp change in the tone of his voice to show that his demeanor had changed at all. This was in stark contrast to the deep anger that showed in his expression now. Usually he only visibly looked this mad when he was interrupted from something important, or something he enjoyed. It crossed Lassiter's mind that maybe he wasn't mad because he had to interrogate the Spartan. Maybe he was mad because he had had to pause his interrogation.

He forced himself not to dwell on it. After hearing that Ramirez had trained that spartan during his time with ONI Lassiter had begun wonder what history Ramirez had that he didn't know about. He assumed that it was probably too twisted for him to every understand, and horrible enough to make him never want to.

The group's rounded a corner in the station's maze of hallways, and almost immediately one of the URF troopers fell to a shotgun blast. Lassiter looked to see where the blast had come from and found himself face to face with three UNSC Marines. One wore a pilot's uniform and was flanked by two others in ODST armor with blue stripes and the ONI logo emblazoned on their chest pieces.

Lassiter and everyone else in the group knew exactly what that logo meant for them. They had pissed off the wrong people by interfering with these two agents.

The group threw themselves back around the bend of the hallway and took cover against the wall, with one of them falling immediately to the ODST's gun fire. He screamed as a rifle round tore through his neck. He was dead before he hit the floor. Two of the troopers began to fire around the bend at the three Marines, but they were met with a barrage of gunfire and quickly ducked back into cover.

Lassiter and Ramirez drew their sidearms and hugged the wall. Two of the troopers grabbed them both by the shoulders and forced them down, shielding their superiors as they lead them back to a safer room further up the hallway.

When they ducked through the doorway Ramirez immediately pulled off the helmet he had donned and threw it to the ground hard enough to snap the external camera clean off, and shatter it to pieces on the floor. He grunted in rage at the situation.

"Dammit," he cursed, "if ONI's here it won't be long before this whole station is blown to shit. You need to grab what you can and leave."

Lassiter noticed the subtle hint in Ramirez's voice. Grab what you can. Did that mean he intended to leave him?

As of to confirm his suspicions he motioned for the two troopers to flank Lassiter while he picked up his helmet and placed it on his head. He turned to leave all too quickly.

No. This was just what he had been afraid of the whole time. Ramirez had no loyalty to this cause. Lassiter wasn't sure if his loyalty lies with himself, or some other power, but the URF wasn't near the top of Ramirez's list of concerns. Personally, Lassiter didn't care where Ramirez's loyalties were. He wasn't going to let his internal crisis take down the bastion of civilization he had built away from the UNSC.

"And just where the hell are you going?" Called Lassiter after him.

Lassiter reached for his handgun in case he had to stop Ramirez with force, but he was too slow. Ramirez spun around, and with reflexes Lassiter had never seen him display before, he brought his handgun to bear on Lassiter's chest. Lassiter's immediate reaction was to level his weapon as well, but he stopped himself. If he even tried Ramirez would drop him.

"I'm leaving," he said coldly.

He flicked the barrel of his pistol towards Lassiter, and instantly Lassiter felt the cold muzzles of the two URF troopers weapon's press into his neck. Their matte black visors were as unyielding as Ramirez's eyes as they stared him down.

Lassiter wanted to scream aloud. These were his men pointing weapons at him. Ramirez had no doubt used money and weapons to get to them, and a lot of them. His men were loyal. Whatever Ramirez was offering, it had to be pretty good to pull them away.

"You, on the other hand," continued Ramirez, "are going to secure the Lieutenant and what we came here for, and then you are going to leave with them and meet me at X50. Leave the Spartan. She's not important any longer."

Lassiter snarled at him in rage. He had known Ramirez was crazy and sadistic, but up until now he had at least been loyal. He should have never trusted anyone associated with the UNSC. The empire he had built was falling apart because of them right now. There was a million things Lassiter could have said to him in that moment, but he kept his mouth shut. It simply wasn't worth it.

Ramirez lowered his weapon and exited into the hallway, running towards the hangar at full tilt. The Guards that flanked Lassiter backed away, and then gestured for him to exit the room first. As he looked back towards them he noticed that both of them had removed their name tapes and polarized their visors completely so he couldn't tell their identities, and they didn't look to keen on talking. They had been prepared for this eventuality. Ramirez must have seen this going south from a mile away and made a plan to get out.

They gestured for him to exit the room, and he complied begrudgingly. He looked first to his left, towards where the ONI agents had been firing from. Nearly half the men that had started defending the hallway lay bleeding out and dying in the middle of it. The squad's corpsman lay with a hole in his chest, his helmet shattered and a dead look gracing his eyes. They weren't going to last much longer.

He ran for them. He didn't know what Ramirez's plan was, but he wouldn't help it any longer. He would die here with these men rather than see it to it's completion. Before he had made a full stride towards them, however, one of the guards grabbed him by his collar and slammed him to the floor. He met the ground hard, shooting pain through his body before his head cracked against the floor and sent him into a daze. They aimed their rifles at his back and ground their boots into his ribs before yanking him to his feet, his lip now broken and his face bruised and bloody.

Lassiter cried out loud in anger, and lashed out at the guards, punching one in the side of his helmet as hard as he could. His strike ricocheted, and Lassiter clutched his fist as blood began pour from his knuckles. The guard leveled leveled his weapon at him. He had him dead to rights. He made a demanding motion for Lassiter to head to the brig.

Lassiter starred him down for only a brief moment. He wondered, if he saw the look in his commanding officer's eyes, would he realize what he was doing is wrong? The answer came as a cold, matte black glare. Finally, Lassiter begrudgingly complied and headed for the brig. As he ran off with the guards at his heals, he heard a grenade go off behind him. The were no screams from his men as it detonated. They all must have died instantly.

As Lassiter continued to run, he couldn't help but but conjure up a memory of the a Spartans who had abandoned him and his family. Was it possible that they could have felt the same way? Watching so many die as he made his way to safety?

He tried hard not to think about it as he ran for cover.