Battle Lines

Chapter 5: Into the Maelstrom

Azkaban Prison

10:30:00 to deadline

Cho sat in a dingy cell, tied to a chair. Around her strolled a Death Eater with long hair and an expression so upper class that it was on the verge of being constipated. In a corner stood another dark wizard, this one was shorter with a silver arm.

'Miss Chang.' said constipated, 'It would appear that your friends have deserted you.'

Cho looked up at him through swollen eyelids. She would have spat at him, but that was a waste of precious body fluids.

Constipated turned to Silver. 'I believe we should leave her to mull over things for now.'

Silver nodded, they left the room, locking the door behind them, the cell went dark. For the umpteenth time Cho tested her bonds, still no good. She slumped in her chair.

Come on guys, where are you?

* * *

USS Wasp, 200 miles off Azkaban

10:00:00 to deadline

Natalie tightened the straps on her breast plate and slipped the black dry suit over the top of the whole lot. All the rest of her gear was in one of the waterproof cases strapped to a mini sub that was currently being loaded into the back of a CH-46 "Sea Knight" helicopter. The big twin rotored machine would transport the little party to its destination. On either side of it two AH-1W "Super Cobra" attack helicopters were being readied to escort it there.

She looked up to see Harry waving her and the rest of the party over.

'Ok people listen up,' said Harry. The humor was gone from his voice, this was the man that he had to become when he went into combat.

'When we get to the island you do not use names. Those of you who are pilots will use you numbers. If you want to talk to us you use call signs. Ron is "Demolitions", Hermione is "Braniac" and I'm "Seeker". The names also correspond to our jobs. Hermione is our Tech and Medic, you get yourself shot or have trouble with your equipment she's the person to see. Ron is our demolitions expert, that's fairly self explanatory. Now do what you have to do and be on the chopper in fifteen minutes, good luck.

Twenty minutes later the massive aircraft elevator carried a single CH-46 with two Super Cobra escorts to the deck, already manned. Their engines rumbled to live, filing the air with thunder to accompany the dark clouds already smothering the moon. As they lifted from the deck a loud peal of the ship's foghorn sounded out as a final salute.

* * *

CH-46 Sea Knight, 10 miles from Azkaban

8:10:00 to deadline

Natalie pulled down on the straps that secured the LABA gear onto her back. Commonly known as "Stealth Tanks" LABA stood for Low Audibility Breathing Apparatus. Normal SCUBA tanks let out a loud hiss when they are used that is picked up clearly by sonic sensors placed in the water. Hence the Stealth Tank was developed, it is all but silent. Natalie checked the mouth piece, goggles and took up her place on the front of the mini-sub. They'd drawn straws to see as to who would get to ride the sub, and Nat had come out on top. The loadmaster on the chopper checked the gear one last time and gave her the thumbs up. The rest of the force took up positions. Around them the Sea Knight slowed to a halt and turned so it was directed outwards and the rear ramp dropped. Below them, virtually touching the bottom of the ramp was the ocean, above them, massive cliffs towered toward the sky. Natalie whipped down her goggles and set the mouthpiece in her mouth.

The little light above the ramp went green and Natalie felt herself rush forward.

SPLASH!

Silence.

Around her there were bubbly sounds as the rest of their force entered the water. One of the figures gave her the thumbs up and made a motion to move forward. Natalie guided the little submarine forward, around her the rest began to move, grasping small propulsion units. Within five minutes they had found the grate, firmly rusted shut. One of the party, apparently Demolitions moved forward, then motioned for them to cover their eyes. The magnesium coated cord that he had placed burst into brilliant white flame, burning so hot that it ripped oxygen molecules from the water to fuel itself. It went through the rusted latch like a hot knife through butter and the grate fell away. A hundred meters up the pipe they came to the maintenance area. Harry and Ron surfaced first, scanning the little space with their weapons. When they confirmed it clear the rest of the part surfaced and unloaded the sub. Nat stripped off her dry suit, replacing the flippers with combat boots and the goggles with a Kevlar helmet. Around her the others were doing the same; checking the functioning of MP-5s, or in Ron's case, a tactical twelve gauge shotgun. From her trunk Hermione extracted a large metal backpack.

That explains why she's wearing less armor than the rest of us; she's got to carry that.

The backpack just screamed ULF transceiver. ULF or Ultra Low Frequency radio has a very special effect that none other has, it hugs the ground. Where normal LF or HF radio departs the earth after a distance, ULF waves are "heavy" meaning they hug the earth's surface and therefore can be transmitted over much larger distances. Hermione hoyed the thing onto her back and made it secure.

Harry looked around, 'Ok, lets move it on out.'

He swung down the hatch leading to the maintenance cover above him, the tube to the surface was pitch black.

'Right, go green,' said Harry, as he did so he snapped a set of Night Vision Goggles down over his face.

The others followed suit, fitting their own NVG's. Natalie's world was immediately illuminated in an eerie green glow.

'Beats Lumos for this sort of thing.' whispered Hermione, 'No-one else can see it.'

By now Harry was at the top of the shaft. 'All clear.'

One by one they came up the shaft and out onto the surface of the island. Natalie ran a few meters to the right, taking up a covering position. When they were all out, Harry closed and locked the hatch. In front of them lay Azkaban Prison; towering above it was a light house, its beam sending a warning for all not to come to close.

'Ok kids, move forward, carefully now, the entrance hatch is on the far side of the roof.'

They ran forward in a sort of semi crouch, low to the ground without warning the gravel of the island gave way to the stone roof of the prison. Running across Nat looked up at the light house, Damn, she couldn't see a thing up there, it was to bright.

* * *

Deep within the bowels of Azkaban, the one Cho had named Silver looked up at the Death Eater who had just disturbed him.

'Well?'

'Sir, light house reports that there is activity on the roof, Sir.'

'Good.' Peter Pettigrew steepled his fingers together. 'Like a bird toward the cage. Are we all set?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Good,' said Peter, 'let them get right inside first.'

* * *

Through her NVGs Natalie saw a deserted hallway. The end they'd just dropped in was dead, finishing where the wall did the other end was also dead and about half way down was a T-junction where their passage joined into another corridor. With the hatch now closed behind them they set off slowly. Nat saw Braniac reach the junction and peer around it. Hermione reached down into her boot drawing out two blades.

Zing THACK! THACK!

Nat came around the corner to see Hermione drawing the blades of her throwing knives out of the two Death Eaters' necks that they were embedded in, and wiping them off on the men's robes. The door they'd been guarding opened easily to Harry's touch.

Something's not right here

Ron was the last one through, closing the door be hind him; pulling off his night vision goggles as he entered the light. The room they'd just entered was medium sized. Two corridors ran off either side. Next to the door they'd just come through were to annexed rooms and across form them a ramp leading down to a large armored door.

Nat looked at the tactical map on her wrist.

'That's where we want to go,' she said pointing at the door.

'Then that's what we've got to open.'

'So,' said Mike, 'What is the first thing to do when you come to a massive armored, unguarded door?'

'Uh,' said Fred, 'check for locking spells?'

'No,' retorted Mike, 'You see if it's open...'

He walked boldly up to the door and pulled a ring.

'...it's open. Nah, just kidding.'

* * *

'They're in the anteroom,' said the Death Eater across form Pettigrew.

'Good, you may begin.'

* * *

Hermione stood back from the door. 'The spells locking this thing are way to complex for us to handle, it'd take weeks to open it that way.'

'Well,' said Ron, 'we don't open it that way.'

'Then how,' the sarcasm showed in Hermione's voice, 'do you propose we open it, Ron?'

Ron "Demolitions" Weasley grinned evilly. 'We knock, real loud.'

'Ron, not all the explosives in the world will open that door; it's been made stronger with magic.'

'Yeah,' Ron grinned more, 'but the walls around it aren't.'

Harry interrupted them. 'Demolitions, lay the damn charges, the rest of you take up covering positions on the two tunnels and the door.

Ok, Harry thought to himself, this place is big. Those doors lead to the low level security area. Cho's not likely to be there, so we get in there and we go down.

'Uh, Seeker.' Aaron's voice jolted Harry back to the present. 'We've got company, and I don't think it's the valet parking!'

Down the corridor, six fully armed Death Eaters had appeared, wands already out.

'Oh fuck!' said Harry, just as he turned around five more of the enemy appeared in the other passage. 'Oh really fuck! Marines, open fire, buy us some time! Demolitions, get those charges down!'

As he said it Harry dove for the relative safety of a doorway, spraying fire form his MP-5 down the corridor. One of the Death Eaters went down as his buddies swung into the cover of the alcoves lining the passage. He looked around, Ron was still in the pit laying charges, Hermione, Fred and Mike were on the other doorway, with him, Aaron, Katie and Nat to deal with the others. Hermione was firing down the passage with her MP-5. Sparks flew off the walls where her bullets hit. Suddenly the heavy puncture like noise of the German made submachine gun was drowned out by a shout form one of the Death Eaters.

'INCIENDO!'

The snap hiss of the spell being released and the whine as it cleaved the air in two filled the space around them. Aaron and Nat looked up to where the spell had left a two inch deep gash in the wall, and then at each other, grimacing. More blasts followed, digging holes in the solid stone walls. Rock melted and sprayed out, peppering the marines with red hot shrapnel.

'Ok, I'm ready!' yelled Ron, vaulting out of the pit in front of the door. 'Hold onto your underwear people!'

With that he brought his finger down on the trigger held in his hand. Five pounds of C4 may not sound like much, but it does a hell of a lot of damage.

BOOM!

Bits of debris went flying everywhere, the massive doors, magically hardened didn't even get singed, not so the walls round them, the doors rocketed into the room beyond, flying over the catwalk and into the abyss.

'Whoa Mamma!' exclaimed Aaron.

Nat didn't say anything, she just gritted her teeth and leveled her gun back down the passage, squeezing off another burst as she did so. Ron signaled for them to move down to where he was. Fred and Katie went first, straight through the door and along the catwalk. Aaron, Mike and Hermione went next, leaving Harry and Nat on the passages.

'Ok.' said Harry into his mike, 'Lob them a couple of frags and then we run like hell.'

Nat nodded her affirmative, taking one of her fragmentation grenades off her belt and pulled out the pin.

'Right, on the count of three; one, two, three!'

They lobbed the grenades down their respective passages. Nat fired a quick burst down hers and then dived for the ramp.

One thousand, two thousand, three thou...

BOOM! BOOM!

The two grenades went off in almost perfect synch. Metal shards flew down the halls, spraying out the ends where the two fighters had been just moments before.

Fragmentation grenades, or frags, when they explode send thousands of tiny metal shards flying through the air. These shards are specially designed to be as difficult to remove form the human body as possible; that is if the target survives the first onslaught that is.

'There'll be more along soon!' shouted Harry, 'Lets get out of here.'

Nat was up and running. From the smoke a line of red magical energy lanced out, some of the enemy had managed to avoid the blast then. Nat dove for the cover afforded by the ramp cut into the floor. Another blast hit just above her, the shockwave sent her sideways, rolling clumsily down the ramp.

CLANG! She came to rest against the catwalk guardrail. Through the stars she saw Hermione standing in the doorway, covering Harry's exit. As she watched the lieutenant went dry and hit the release catch on her MP-5 and the empty clip clattered to the deck. Hermione rammed a new magazine into the gun and re-trained it on the entrances to the passages. Nat looked right to see Ron covering the other passage with his 12-guage. Nat looked around the room. it wasn't so much as room as a space. She was on a catwalk, suspended high above the ground. Across the chasm, fifty of so feet away were three levels of cells, lined along the wall. A small room was placed about half way along the catwalk, giving it's occupants an unrivaled view of the cells opposite. A moving bridge allowed the guards to access the cells. A ladder ran all the way to the floor on her side of the chasm. The others had already headed off down the catwalk, suddenly, a beam of bright red light flashed out of the other room, lighting up the smoke around it. The enemy's backup had arrived. The first Death Eater appeared through the haze. Natalie whipped up her MP-5, jamming her finger on the trigger, nothing. Frozen ammo, Shit. The Death Eater had seen her, he leveled his wand at her head...

Nat dropped and rolled, the spell splashed against the guard rail, reducing it to molten slag. Nat looked desperately around, she'd never make it to the alcove in time, nowhere to run. The enemy was readying for another shot, nowhere to run...

...So don't run.

INCIENDO!

For the second time the Death Eater's spell hit thin air. Nat was already out over the same thin air, falling. Everything went into slow motion. More spells flew through the air around her, as she fell she pulled the maghook out of its shotgun holster on her back and fired. The bulbous head flew through the air, grappling hooks springing out of it. It thundered into the cells on the other side of the chasm and stuck fast. Nat hit trigger again, locking the line and swung across toward the cells, time caught up with her. She hit the deck, dropped and rolled, leaving the maghook hanging. Her hand dropped to her side, retrieving the wand hanging there. More fire scythed across the void, bits of stone exploded around her. Nat closed her eyes.

LUMOS FORTE!

Instead of the usual small point of light, a massive explosion of super bright light flashed out of Natalie's wand, temporarily blinding the enemies above her on the catwalk. By the time they could see again Nat was behind a metal sheet welded into the rail.

'I'm going over to help Two.' Harry's voice crackled through her earpiece, 'Need covering fire in five seconds from, now!'

Nat put down her wand and drew her Beretta M9, it was better for high rates of fire. Five seconds later the marines popped up in perfect unison. SMG fire scattered the Death Eaters, forcing them to take cover. Harry was already running, MP-5 slung across his back and maghook out as leapt into space. The head thundered out of its launcher, tethering him to the cell doors. He hit the deck, giving the trigger of the launcher a quick double tap.

Snick, snick, snick. The claws of the grappling hook retracted and the gun wound in the head. Above him, one by one the Marines went dry, but Harry was already beside Natalie, D'eagle out

'Sorry I'm late.'

Nat favored him with a half smile. 'Don't worry, party's just getting started.'

The hiss, snap or spells being released was drowned out by the sound of Ron's 12-guage.

Hermione's voice crackled over the radio. 'This is Braniac, we can't hold this position much longer.'

'Roger that Braniac, fall back.'

Nat reached to where her MP-5 should have been, nothing. She swore, it was still on the cat walk where she'd dropped it down when the feed jammed. She put the M9 away and drew her wand again, single fire from here.

At that moment Hermione was organizing her troops. Ron was still on the door, Reilly was attending to a bit of shrapnel that had slipped in under Katie's armor and the other two were re-loading.

'Okay,' she said, 'It's simple, Ten, Nine and Demolitions will hold here, then retreat to the exit at the end of the catwalk. Seven, Eight and myself will head down to the floor and exit from there. We'll go across one at a time and down the ladder. Everyone got that?'

A chorus of affirmatives let her know that they did.

The first lull in the action came a few seconds later. Phannan was up and running, he swung onto the metal ladder and slid down, not a moment to soon, as a blast form the enemy super-heated the air above his head. Aaron was across next, following in his wingman's footsteps. Hermione was last. She waited until the others could lay down suppressing fire. As the Death Eaters pulled back she dashed out, a blast hit the wall behind her. Molten rock burned through her sleeve, scolding her arm. By now she was at the ladder, shunting the pain aside she grabbed the sides and slid below the catwalk to safety.

* * *

Natalie saw Hermione and the rest land and sprint away and out of the area.

'We'd probably better get going to...' she said.

Harry poked his head out from the plate they were sheltered behind. A blast of magical energy vaporized the deck next to them, Harry was back behind cover.

'...Or, not.'

Another voice crackled over the radio. 'This is Demolitions, we're pulling out, we can't hold here, Seeker you're on your own, sorry Sir.'

Nat flicked her wand to her other hand and drew the Beretta. She popped up and loosed off two quick rounds and ducked back behind the paneling before the Death Eaters took her head off.

'I think they know we're here.'

Harry gave her a scathing look. 'Oh, you think?'

'Any bright ideas?'

'Nope, you don't happen to have a sixty-six on you by any chance?'

Nat patted her pockets, 'Sorry, must have left it in my other set of combat webbing.'

Harry pointed his wand along the catwalk. 'Accio Maghook!' and handed it to Nat.

'Thanks.'

Harry smiled, 'No worries I have an idea.'

'This ort to be good...'

* * *

Hermione crashed through another door, MP-5 high. They were at the top of a darkened stairwell.

'I guess we go down,' said Aaron.

'No shit Sherlock.'

'Ok.' said Hermione, 'Go green, Eight, take point.'

They descended, their own personal worlds lit up green around them. Aaron ahead, followed by Phannan and Hermione bringing up the rear. Two flights of stairs down was the first landing.

Phannan leaned over to Hermione. 'I wish these dark wizards would put signs on their doors, like in our installations.'

'What?' said Aaron, 'Like, "High Priority Prisoners of the Dark Evil Overlord Held Here"?'

'Shut up.'

Hermione eased her NVG's down around her neck and opened the door a crack, the corridor beyond was lit by torches, to much light for the goggles.

She turned back to the pilots. 'What do you recon?'

'I hate stairwells,' replied Mike, that settled it.

They crept out into the passage, NVG's off. The passage turned out to be more a wide descending spiral ramp with cell blocks on the outside. Occasionally, the spiral was cut by heavy wooden doors, allowing areas to be sealed off. The stairwell they'd come down intersected this spiral at points. It was just as they passed one of these intersections that they made their next contact. The first Death Eater came barreling out from the stairwell, slamming Phannan into the cell bars opposite. The puncture type noise of Hermione's MP-5 signaled the arrival of another enemy. The first Death Eater lashed out at Mike's shin, or at least, where Mike's shin used to be, and met only the titanium alloy of his prosthetic. The dark wizard looked confused; it was all that the pilot needed. He punched his assailant hard in the stomach, then landed a knee in his windpipe as the Death Eater doubled over.

'Seven, fall back!'

Phannan didn't need telling twice, he grabbed his gun and ran for it, down the spiral along with the others. Magical energy flew around them, hammering into the stone walls and floor. Red hot shrapnel ricochet around them. Another blast made Phannan's hairs stand on end, to close.

Another set of wooden doors was ahead of them, they looked more solid than the other sets, then they were through.

'Seal them shut!'

'Colloportus!'

'Colloportus! That's the best you can come up with?' exclaimed Hermione.

'I'm a pilot not a bloody spell book!'

A thunderous banging came form the other side of the door.

'Better find somewhere to hide,' stated Aaron.

He turned around and his jaw dropped.

'Where,' said Phannan levelly, 'do you expect to hide.'

They were standing at the top of a flight of steps. The steps descended a story to a low bridge that lead to a circular platform in the middle of a large body of water. Above them a high domed ceiling stood without pillars. In a semi-circle separated form the middle platform by the water were a number of cells, each with a small landing in front of it. The cells were arrayed up the walls and disappeared into the gloom above.

'I think we just found the high security.'