The Rebel Frontier

Jacob ran down the hall as fast as he could, not even pausing to fire back at the several marines at the end of the hall firing full auto with their MA5B’s into the corporal’s squad. It wouldn’t have mattered anyways as his pistol’s ammo counter read only one bullet.
He turned the corner just in time to dodge a grenade explosion that sent two of his long time friends flying, covered in blood, and most likely dead… If Jake could survive this engagement he would mourn their deaths… but now wasn’t the time for that.
“Get down behind cover!” yelled his squad’s sergeant as the footsteps of the UNSC marines could be heard rushing toward the rebel’s small barricade of a few shipping containers and some barbed wire. Jake hopped on top of one of the containers where three other soldiers had taken refuge… rifles pointed down the hall.
“Nice to see you Jake!” said his life long friend Mark.. Who had grown up on Spiron along with over three quarters of the ex-marines. Jake greeted him and was able to grab some extra ammunition for his pistol.

The complex that they were in was a strange one…. It had been build long before 2463 when the first colonists had found the planet… this single entrance was the only one of its kind that had been discovered on the planet in the 62 years since its initial colonization… fluid halls of a blue/green metal stretched endlessly in al directions once inside the large cavern door that had once been abandoned in the jungle. Now the entrance was the center of a large city that coincidentally was home to the SRF, or the Spiron Rebel Force.

Right now Jake and his squad were about 30 meters below the city… which about 4 hours ago had been taken by the UNSC in an overwhelming display of force…. A display normally not shown for small rebel factions like the SRF… there were 2 UNSC destroyers and a cruiser in orbit above the planet… and rumor had it that Admiral Cole had been given command of a much larger force for action against a nearby planet. But that was just rumor.

All Jake knew was that right now he was in danger.


The shooting had stopped, but the Marines were definitely still out there. This bottleneck was one of the passages that was the deepest that any of the exploration crews had ever ventured to… an any that had gone without a team farther than this junction had not returned.

The 30 rebels tensed as several loud pings could be heard…. The sound of a grenade pin dropping to the floor.


An instant later hell had arrived in a series of flash bangs and smoke grenades.





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“GET YOUR HEADS DOWN!” yelled the sarge at the rebels as 5 of the UNSC marines rushed the rooms wearing gas masks and firing at the barricades that protected the rebel soldiers…

“we wont win in a fire fight” said Jake calmly to his squad mates “follow my lead and we may survive this shit.” there were nods from the 4 other rebels crouched behind their small crate… Jake jumped up and charged.


The UNSC marines were carrying the brand new MA5B assault rifles… able to carry almost 4 times the ammunition his small pistol carried he would have to be dead accurate…

One of the Marines noticed his charge… which was being followed by his four confused friends, who had obviously not expected Jake to do something as crazy as rush 5 fully armed marines with a pistol that carried 16 bullets in its extended clip.

Jake jumped as high as he could, launching himself off of a crate into the center of the circle where the marines stood. In the process he pulled out his pistol, clicked off its safety, and aimed it into the faceplate of the lead marine before firing 2 shots into its head.

The unexpected attack had caught the now remaining 4 marines off guard… but that disorientation lasted only a second before their training kicked in. 2 of the marines swept the rest of the rebels with their assault rifles to keep them pinned down while the other two tried to handle the rouge in hand to hand combat. The only problem there was that Jake’s pistol was a bit better for fighting close up then a rifle was…

5 loud bangs later and one marine lay dead… 3 pistol shots ripped through his neck… and the other marine lay screaming in pain blood dripping from his upper leg.

With that the rest of the rebels finally rushed… taking the 3 surviving marines hostage.

One man walked up to the wounded marine and whipped his rifle butt into the man’s now unprotected face… there was a loud crunch and the marine fell unconscious in a pool of his and his dead squad mates blood.


5 of the rebels were left behind to guard the prisoners while the other 25 went up…. To retake their city and force the UNSC off of their planet.


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“Incoming Transmission from groundside forces” said an ensign who had been commanded to carry all of the transmission equipment.

A voice crackled over the speaker that the lone rebel was carrying… the signal was bad this deep underground… but what was being said was clear “WARN… City has fal….. UNSC forces have deployed….. Have air support…. Only a few of us left…… any help would be appric…..”

The signal was lost

“send a reply message saying that we can get to the underground armory and provide support” said the sarge “let em know that the calvary is coming!”

“YEE HAW!” yelled several of the less disciplined soldiers… the underground armory is where the warthogs were kept… as well as a single “Python” tank…. The Python may not have been the best armed tank on the battlefield…. But if they could reach it they would have many more tactical options…. But it was the warthogs that they really needed to get to…


The group walked cautiously for about 30 minutes before coming to the beginning of the main area where the tunnels had been converted for use as residential or storage areas for the rebels… this was also where the UNSC had decided to stage their troops it seemed…. Because in the room were well over 10 marines…

After a brief firefight in which all of the UNSC troops where killed and 13 of the rebel troops had been killed they were able to move on to the armory…


On the wall of the armory was just over half of the SRF’s weapons… everything from pistols to light machine guns lined the walls of this room…. And from what it sounded like there were lots of Marines to be killed out in the city….

Every rebel there packed as many guns and ammo as they could into pockets, sleeves, bags, some of the less fortunate rebels were forced to stick their favored weapons down their pants so that they could carry ammo…

The team then made their way to the hidden garage…. Luckily for the group none of the UNSC were down in the tunnels any more…. It seemed actually that something big must have been happening topside… because whenever a UNSC staging area was passed their radio’s seemed to be going crazy


The group finally made it to the warthogs and loaded up…. They set out… the garage letting out directly below a waterfall to keep the entrance hidden… 6 warthogs… and a tank… a force to be reckoned with….


In the distance there was definitely fighting going on in the city… gunfire could be heard blasting at regular intervals…. Sometimes the sound of a grenade or rocket would break the staccato rattling of small arms fire….

Some planes screamed over head and hit some part of the city with a rocket barrage before streaking out of sight… Jake had to wonder what it would be like once they reached the city….. And soon he found out…..

As they reached the suburbs of the city they soon found themselves under attack by hundreds of trained soldiers…. Not only were they sweeping every house for the rebels…. But in the distance cargo landers could be seen bringing in large amounts of metal and other building materials….

The convoy kept speeding down the streets… occasionally drawing some gunfire… when suddenly a rocket streaked out of one of the larger 4 story buildings and connected with the lead vehicle….. It flipped end over end ejecting its already dead passengers and landed in the road in such a way that the other vehicles in the convoy couldn’t get past….
The 3 warthogs that they were lucky enough to be equipped with chain guns opened fire from where the rocket had come from….. And soon they found themselves pinned down taking fire from what seemed to be an entire squad of marines that had taken refuge in one of the buildings…


“KEEP FIRE ON THEM!” yelled jake…. “GET THOSE SPANKER MISSILES UP HERE NOW!”

With that 2 SPNKr rocket launches were let loose toward the building…. But now at the window where the marines were…. But at the support beams holding the building up.
After 3 of the rockets hit the building swayed dangerously… and fell… crushing 2 of the smaller buildings next to it.

The rebels had finally caught the attention on them now…. And Jake realized that the gunfire had stopped… he looked up realizing that there was something above him…. 4 pelicans hovered above his squad…. And over the loudspeaker came the words “Drop your weapons and you will not be killed”

Jake did the only thing that seemed to make sense, he dropped his gun laid on the ground, and prepared for the bullets to start flying. Praying to someone that he would survive this.

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“On behalf of the UNSC I officially conscript you into the United Nations Space Command marines!” yelled some officer at the 13 rebels who had only hours ago been trading shots with the UNSC soldiers “if you have any problems you will be shot… as rebels of the UNSC you can be punished with life in a secure prison… or death… but if you help us here today we will let you back to your planet when this mission is over…

Jake looked up…. Mission? Were they crazy!? They wanted him and his squad to help them now?… this didn’t make sense… “SIR!” he yelled…. Not as respectfully as he could… “Why the hell would we help you with anything… sir?”

Apparently it was a bad question… because a few seconds later there were 3 marines on him wrestling him to the ground….. One pulled out a knife and whispered “apologize to the captain… or ill cut out your tongue for that disrespect!”

Jake didn’t know if he was serious or not…. But he apologized anyways….. And the “captain” came over and looked him in the face….

“That’s classified son… but ill just tell you that what’s going on is a threat to all of humanity.. If it were up to me I’d conscript all of you damned rebels and save some of the lives of our marines”

He paused for a moment before continuing

“The planet Harvest has recently come under attack by an alien race… and this fleet is set to meet with Admiral Cole’s fleet at harvest one day from now… these aliens have weapons and defenses that our scientists wouldn’t even think of right now…. We know that you have a stockpile of Nuclear weapons on this planet…”


Jake was so surprised by this statement that he nearly cried out…. Nukes?! They didn’t have nukes…. They may have been a rebel group but killing civilians and using nukes wasn’t part of their mentality…


“we know that there are nukes here because we put them here over 60 years ago” continued the admiral “we put security systems in place in the tunnels below your city to make sure that they wouldn’t be found… and all of the teams that we have sent in to get them havn’t returned… your squad will be responsible for retrieving those nukes… do this and we will leave your planet and your SRF alone…”


It was an offer that Jake and the other rebels couldn’t refuse




(chapters 1-3)