Hey everyone. So, I had a burst of inspiration, and as such decided to get this chapter done. It's relatively short, but I hope everyone enjoys it. So, please sit back, enjoy, and please review.

So without further ado, I give you chapter 11.

(1,000 feet above Louisiana)

Agent Garner found himself fiddling with the silencer on his rifle as he tried to ignore the bobbing and weaving of the chopper. Outside, the wind and rain, though better than before, continued to hammer the chopper. The drone of the helicopter was broken up by the frequent blast of thunder. More than once the inside of the helicopter was lit up as a streak of lightning shot down near them. The crew did their best to act casual, however the occasional bout of swearing from the cockpit gave away their nervousness.

"Five minutes to drop," the pilot finally called, "We're going dark."

Agent Garner watched as the crew chief flipped down his night vision goggles. In the same moment, all of the lights went out. Taking the hint, Agent Garner flipped down his own set, quickly gave the silencer one last twist to ensure it's tightness, and slung the rifle behind him. After that he got up and made his way to the back of the cockpit.

Looking out, he could see the orange and red glow of the city… or at least what was left of it. By now the droids and Marines had spent a week going back and forth. Each round of defense and counterattacks involved the liberal use of heavy munitions, which left the city completely raised with only a handful of half destroyed, flaming structures and two bridges left standing. The battle had gotten to the point that the Marines were forced to napalm a large chunk of the eastern half of the city just to hold onto what was left, and fall back across the river.

In contrast to all of this, the CIS cruiser in question ominously sat in silence above the city completely untouched. Ther cruiser was all the more intimidating now that all one could see was the marker lights on the hull and the orange glow on the bottom. It could almost be said that the ship's psychological effects were greater than the actual damage that the ship could inflict. Agent Garner felt his stomach knot at the thought of having to sneak his way through it.

That was when an idea hit him.

"Hey, pilot," he called.

"Ya?"

"Instead of trying to put me in the city, why not put me on that cruiser's portside wing?" Agent Garner asked.

He knew it was quite a change in plans, but he felt it was for the best. There was a moment of silence as the pilot rolled the question around in his head.

"We could do it, but if we get lit up by one of those marker lights or a droid sentry craft we're done for," the pilot finally answered.

"Ok. Let's make it happen," Agent Garner concluded.

"You got it."

For the next couple minutes they stayed their current course. Then Agent Garner felt himself tense up as the helicopter banked hard to the right before coming back around to the left.

"Hey, give me a view, would you?" Agent Garner asked the crew chief.

With a silent nod man pulled open the door. Looking out, Agent Garner was forced to remove his night vision goggles due to the two flashing marker lights on the wing. It quickly became clear that the pilot was trying to use them as a reference but avoid them at the same time. The result was the chopper moving at an angle that Agent Garner didn't know it could do.

"Alright, here we go," called the crew chief.

He held his right hand out in a signal to wait. Agent Garner braced himself in the doorway. After a couple seconds, the crew chief firmly tapped his shoulder. Upon seeing that he had the agent's attention, he counted down with his fingers.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1

"Go! Go! Go!" he yelled.

Willing himself not to think about it, Agent Garner stepped off the side of the Blackhawk. His stomach dropped as he jumpedonto the wing. He had barely hit the ground before he heard the helicopter pulling away. Shaking off his sudden wave of nervousness, Agent Garner pulled up his black balaclava, drew his silenced Saber 4 and walked down the length of the wing. The wind and rain made for slow going. More than once he slipped on the wet, and smooth metal. After what felt like forever, he stepped onto the main part of the ship. He was almost instantly met with the sight of a droid patrol. After a series of nuclear attacks on the ships, the CIS started having droid patrols pace the outside of the ships.

Agent Garner quickly hit the deck do to a lack of actual cover. Quietly, he planted his crosshairs on the lead droid's head. The gun let out a cough as the bullet sailed into the B1. The results were ugly as the droid's head was shredded by the round. Immediately the droids went on alert, but it was too late. He made quick work of the rest of the squad before they could find him. Rising, he quickly hid the bodies of the droids before moving down the length of the deck, while avoiding a couple other patrols. The less droids that went missing meant that there was less of a chance that they would notice anything wrong.

After what felt like forever, Agent Garner found the access point he was looking for. Mentally he rehearsed the number that he needed to put in. He would have one shot, and it was a long number. With a sigh, he quickly punched the number into the control pad. The response was instantaneous as the blast door snapped open. After using a flexi cam to check for patrols, Agent Garner dropped into the passageway. He quickly moved into the shadow's before pulling out what looked like a really small, concave tablet. After strapping it to his arm, Agent Garner called up a map of the ship before trying to orientate himself. He quickly set a waypoint for the bridge and got moving. Using the map as a guide, he worked his way through the ship. Despite attempts not to, Agent Garner was forced to kill several droids. Luckily most of what found were B1s. He knew it was a long shot, but he hoped that all of the other droids were deployed to the surface.

After what felt like forever, he reached entrance of the bridge. This is where his luck with droids ran out. Standing at the blast doors were a couple B2s. Their blaster arms were folded back at the moment, which would give him a couple extra seconds when he rounded the corner. However, that still wouldn't be a lot of time. Agent Garner quickly stowed his flexi cam and drew his Saber 4 as he mentally rehearsed his moves. Without warning he stepped out into the middle of the passageway, rifle leveled. The rifle bucked three times as a burst of rounds tore into the center of the droid. Without waiting to see the droid hit the ground, Agent Garner adjusted his aim to the next droid. The droid had just enough time to light off two inaccurate shots before three bullets killed it. As he punched in the access code, Agent Garner unclipped a couple flash-bangs. He swung to the side as the doors snapped open. The same instant, Agent Garner tossed the flash-bangs. They wouldn't be as effective with droids as they are on humans, but they would still work well enough.

BAM! BAM!

Agent Garner immediately strode onto the bridge. He immediately shot the tactical droid in the chest multiple times, killing it. Then moving right to left he cleared the bridge. There were a series of muffled pops as he killed the first few droids. He leapt down the access steps just in time to avoid a couple lasers that were aimed at his head. However, he was quickly greeted with an angry commando droid. In one fluid motion, he ducked under a slash from it's sword, slung rifle on his back, and came back up behind it. Upon snaking his arms around the droid's neck, he wrenched it really hard before slamming its head into the bulkhead as hard as he could. That move would've normally broken everything (from the windpipe to the spine and arteries) inside a human before having their head bashed in due to said bulkhead. However, Agent Garner noted with worry that it had barely been enough to kill the droid.

Shaking it off, he blitzed forward. Throwing himself at the next droid, he quickly disarmed and killed it, before turning the droid's blaster on the rest of the droids in the bridge. Moving from cover to cover, he cleared the bridge while killing everything from B1s to a few commando droids.

Seeing the droids were all dead, Agent Garner quickly went to work. If the droids didn't already know something was wrong, they soon would. Working quickly he first tapped into the internal systems and locked down the bridge and turned the automated defenses against the droids. If they tried to get in the bridge before he was ready, they would get a nasty surprise. Once he was done, it would take them a while to regroup, let alone cut their way through to the bridge. After that, he quickly turned to the steering and fire controls. After struggling to figure out how they worked, Agent Garner opened up his comms.

"This is Phantom to Baseplate. Do you copy?" Agent Garner asked into his comm.

"Roger. This is Baseplate we copy," crackled a response.

"I'm sitting at the fire control center of a separatist cruiser. Give me a target, and I'll give you a crater. Over," Agent Garner stated with a thin smile.

"Roger. There's a large concentration of droids moving up off your starboard side. I'll sent you coordinates," the man stated.

There was no mistaking the joy in the man's tired voice.

"Copy that. Send me two different sets. I need a place to land this heap," Agent Garner stated.

"Understood. I just sent them," the man answered after a minute.

"Roger. Phantom copies all. Hold onto your hats down there," Agent Garner acknowledged as he turned the ship and her guns toward the first target.

After a little over a minute, the ship's batteries began to open up on the droids below it. Agent Garner almost felt sorry for them as he went to work grabbing what info he could off the ship. Suddenly, a muffled blast echoed through the bridge. A brief look at a control panel confirmed his suspicions. The droids had regrouped and were blasting their way toward the bridge. As it was, Agent Garner really didn't want to be there when the droids got to there. After another minute and muffled blast, he decided that the show was over. He went over to the forward viewport and planted a series of shaped charges. After making sure they primed and ready to go, he shoved the tactical droid's head in his pack, plugged the second set of coordinates into the steering controls, and ducked behind the durasteel lip of the upper observation platform.

"This is Phantom to Baseplate. Show's over. Sorry. I'm going for exit, plan B. Over," Agent Garner reported.

"Roger. You got them good. I don't think there's anything left down there. A recon team will meet you at the drop site. Over," the man replied.

"Copy that. See you soon."

With that, Agent Garner covered his ears and pulled the trigger. Due to the nature of the mission, he had decided to bring a parachute with him, not expecting to use it. However, he had left himself with no other viable option.

BOOM!

The entire bridge shook as a large chunk of the forward viewport was blown out. All that was left in its wake was a gaping hole into a stormy oblivion. Again Agent Garner forced himself not to think too hard on what he was about to do. It was dangerous and quite frankly, most would label it as stupid and suicidal. Parachuting into an active warzone was bad enough, but doing it in this weather was asking for trouble.

"Oh well. As long as the winds don't shift…" he mumbled to himself as he dove out of the hole.

Almost instantly the wind and rain tore at his body, threatening to throw him into an uncontrollable tumble. Agent Garner, gritted his teeth as he reached for the cord. After what felt like forever, but wasn't even a second, he found it. He pulled it as hard as he could and felt himself jerked up as his parachute deployed. For the next several minutes he was too busy trying to stay alive to watch as the cruiser dove, nose first, into the ground ripping itself apart as it did.

After several more minutes Agent Garner hit the ground. However, it was a ways from where he wanted to be and it took over an hour to get to the drop site. It wasn't until early the next morning that he was finally behind friendly lines again.

(Military Command Center: Southern Oregon)

Anakin poured himself a cup of lukewarm coffee before walking into the small town hotel across the street. Due to the fact that it was still pretty well intact, but hidden in the trees, Command had decided to make this their command center. He nodded to the MPs guarding the door, as he walked down to the basement. Having been an old Cold War era bomb shelter meant that it was relatively well protected and as such became the communication center. It was cramped but it did it's job. Waiting for him was General Morrison. While he held an unnerving poker face, Anakin could feel in the force that he was a very worried and tired man. As if to prove the fact, Anakin watched as the man polished off his fifth cup of coffee.

"Well, I guess. Ready to get this over with?" Asked the General as he set down his empty cup.

"Yes. Let us begin," Anakin answered as he clasped his hands behind his back.

"Good," concluded the General before turning to one of the techs that were off to the side, "Thomas, if you will, please."

"Yes sir."

As if on cue they were greeted by President Damian

"Good afternoon Gentlemen," Began the President, "I'll keep things simple. What's your situation?"

Anakin quickly threw a look at the General.

Taking the hint, the General cleared his throat before answering, "We're combat effective. The line has held. However, with the Droid's taking Portland and pushing south we're slowly getting caught in an oversized pincer maneuver. Unless we have some unknown ace up our sleeves. We may need to begin assessing our options for pulling out."

"I see. If you can have a few more days, we have a possible ace up our sleeves. Operation Tombstone is finally coming together. It's not a ton but I would imagine that the ability to make it rain 16 inch shells on coastal targets may help," the President explained.

The General took a moment to connect the dots, but when he did his eyes lit up.

"Yes sir. However, if I may, where are those being fired from? We haven't used that ammo in years," the General pressed.

"Sorry General. Classified. You'll know soon enough," Damian answered with a smirk.

"Yes sir."

It was at that point Anakin decided to speak up.

"How is Operation Warlock going?" Anakin asked.

Being on the front line, he wasn't privy on all of the facts, but he wanted to know where they were with getting word out.

"It's proceeding. There was a delay due to the shift in the situation. We were forced to change targets. Our asset on the ground is moving on to a target up North. JTF 2 will get him behind the lines. From there he'll give us our comm signal," President Damian answered.

"I see. Best of luck to him," Anakin answered.

"Thanks. He'll need it," the President concluded.