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 Submersible Witches Quest 4 - On Enemy's Wings
 	You are CPO Kuykendall, and you are in the middle of a jailbreak. You now find yourself in the middle of a gargantuan, underwater room, with a transparent ceiling. In the center, the floor opens to water and piers to which numerous small and agile alien submersibles are roped. Above, there are numerous vehicles that you fear might be Martian aerial fighters. Though you and your group are only at the edge of the room, you can easily see through the transparent ceiling at daylight streaming through the water above. What is most unsettling is the impression you're getting from that ceiling; it looks like you're moving.
 	You turn to look at Socks, your Martian turncoat and guide. You begin to ask him a question with your mind before you remember you're cut off by a rather large and oddly-shaped helmet. It's the only thing preventing you from succumbing to the vast waves of psionic energy flowing through the alien facility. Seeing your party's confusion, Socks turns and points. Miranda, fellow radio witch and the one currently linked to Socks, turns as well. "Um, over here," she says, not entirely confident that she's properly interpreting the information Socks is relaying via mental link. From what you can tell, her link is much weaker than yours.
 	The five of you run around the perimeter of the room for about 125m, spurred forward by the urgency of your escape. Socks guides you all into a room in the corner of the massive hanger, closing the door behind you. As you enter, you can see numerous bits and pieces of equipment strewn about, most alien in both form and purpose. Two things catch your eye as you scan the room. There are a few pieces of equipment that seem suspiciously like aerial Strikers, though obviously not of human make. Additionally, there are three Martians working at the benches holding the Strikers, and they've just turned to look at whoever just entered the room. They don't look happy...or armed.
 >Action?
-Caution, trust Socks
 	Henrieta jerks, swinging her gun towards the aliens not 3 meters away. Startled, you reach out and push her aim down towards the floor, trying not to focus on her poor trigger discipline. "Wait, Yetta," you say, "I think Socks can take care of this."
 	You look at Socks, wishing you could communicate with him. However, your look seems to be all he needs. Socks walks forward (as best as a Martian can), making noises no human mouth could without some serious training. The others answer back, trembling. Fascinated, you watch as they gesture and vocalize, audience to something very few if any other humans have ever seen. After a few minutes and what you think was some heated words, the others head to the far side of the room and rest on the Martian-equivalent of chairs. They make no more motions or sounds, though they watch your group closely. You breathe a sigh of relief.
 	And then Socks removes your helmet.
 	"What the hell are you doing!?" you yell, bracing for a sudden onslaught of psionic energy. Socks looks at you curiously, then rocks back and forth in place. He's laughing, you realize. 
 	[I'm sorry for being so sudden, but I didn't think you'd react quite so violently.] 
 	No torrent of thoughts, no emotional assault reaches your mind. There is only the familiar feeling of Socks' mind connecting with yours as he sets your helmet down on the table next to him. 
 	[What the hell, Socks!? That wasn't funny!]
 	[If you say so.]
 	"Cleo! Are you ok!?" asks Rae, worried. The distress on her face is only exacerbated by the scrunched look of fury on your face. 
 	"Yeah, I'm fine. One sec, I'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on." As you focus your efforts on Socks again, Rae begins to explain to the curious other two witches that you and Socks can communicate.
 	[Alright. I've got about a million questions for you right now. Let's start with the first: where the hell are we?] you ask.
 	[We're inside a psionic clean room, designed for maintenance work on sensitive components that need to be back up and running quickly. Right now it's also serving as a kind of test room for research into your pseudo-psionic qualities.]
 	Well, that explains why you're not in pain right now.
 >Questions?
-Escape, Strikers, Location, Endgame
 	[Alright,] you say, [next question: Where the hell are we?]
 	Socks seems confused by your repetition, but only for a moment. [Ah. Welcome to the latest foolish decision by the commander. This is his personal project, a great giant fortress residing beneath the waves of alien oceans. Its name is Martian, but I think...] he says, searching your mind yet again. [Yes. Harbinger is an appropriate name. It is a massive staging point, carrying untold military assets and traveling at depths beyond what we believe your own aquatic weapons cannot reach. The commander has invested much in the project, developing and implementing numerous technologies even we have yet to perfect.]
 	Though his tone is derisive, you can easily imagine how threatening a massive staging point capable of launching attacks anywhere on the planet could be. Add in its ability to dive deeper than any human military and...
 	[...Can we destroy it?]
 	[Destroy it? Are you making jokes now? Perhaps if you had Martian weapons, but as it stands there's nothing we can do but hope it was rushed too quickly and is sinking around us already.]
 	That's not good.
 	[Alright, alright. So you guys have an invincible supersub. Got it. Next question. What the hell are those?] As you gesture to the Strikers, you notice that your comrades and the other Martians in the room are staring at each other uneasily. They'll have to deal with the awkward silence for a while longer.
 	[...We're very confused by your...powers. They echo our psionics greatly, but besides the more obvious manifestations you are capable of, there are subtle differences. I wasn't involved in their creation, but I suspect that these are our latest attempts at understanding or copying your pseudo-psionic devices.] He turns to the other Martians, again speaking to them. After a few moments, his attention returns to you. [Yes, apparently these are a few different attempts. One is just a straight copy, testing to see if we understand enough of the engineering to replicate a working device. Another is an attempt at enhancing their performace. The other is incomplete, but an attempt at replacing whatever engine drives it with psionics.]
 	Interesting.
 	[...Did they work?]
 	Socks shakes his head. [No. The psionic version isn't working at all, and we haven't had anyone that could test the copies.]
 	[Any possibility of us using them to escape?]
 	[These are the only units. Unless you plan on leaving us behind, no.]
 	You frown. [So how the hell are we getting off this monstrosity?]
 	[As you saw out there, we have a few options. Being a massive carrier, we have numerous attack craft on board. The submersibles are large enough for all of us to escape on one craft, but we would be pursued by not only other submersibles but by the Harbinger itself. On the other hand, we have small aircraft we could commandeer. We might be able to fit all of us in two of them, but this is the commander's pet project; he has only the best of the best pilots here, and there are more than enough fighters for them to sortie in force.]
 	Damn.
 	You pause for a few moments, taking in this information. It's all good and relevant to your current situation, but even being pressed for time, you can't help but wonder.
 	[...Why did you guys start the war, anyway?]
 	Socks sighs. [There are more than you might think asking the same question. I believe it is a mistake by those in charge.] He stops, trying to focus on exactly what to say. You get the feeling he's trying to hold something back. [The war-]
 	Clang.
 	A sudden knock on the room's wall reminds you that you are in the middle of an escape. Hurriedly, you turn to Rae, Henrieta, and Miranda. "We've got two ways out of here, let's go!"
 	Jumping to your feet, you grab the Martian Strikers, shoving them into your bag as you ignore the protests of the alien engineers. "Move out of my way, squids!" you yell as you wave your gun at them. Unlike Henrieta, you maintain proper trigger discipline and have no intention to fire...but the engineers don't know that. They back down quickly.
 	Everyone scrambles to the opposite door, ready to charge out. "Cleo, what's the plan?" asks Rae. 
 >Take to the skies!
->Head to the depths!
>Other?
 	"We're hijacking one of those subs. Come on!"
 	The five of you burst through the bulkhead. You trip, just barely remembering to put the helmet back on in time.  Getting back to your feet, you find yourself on a walkway following the right side of the room relative to your entry point. As you run, you hear Martians get agitated. That can't be good, you think. Indeed, it is not. The Martians that were trying to enter the clean room spot your group and open fire. Rae opens up a shield, protecting the four ahead of you. You do the same, deflecting a few well-placed shots that would have ruined your day. Their rounds are carrying surprisingly large punches for this distance, draining your shield more quickly than you expected.
 	"There! Take the stairs!" you yell, pointing to a staircase that leads down to the subs. A quick glance shows that most of the workers have fled at the sound of gunfire, leaving them bare and unguarded. 
 	"Ow!" you cry as a bullet manages to break through your weakened shield. It lost most of its power, but it still stung. 
 	"Cleo!" yells a worried Henrieta, half-way to the submarines. Your shield isn't holding back the bullets anymore, and you're awfully exposed on the outer walkway. You need another plan.
 >Action?
-Strikers
 	Quickly, you duck behind a conveniently-placed control console of some sort. It's not much in the way of cover; a lucky shot could ruin your day by hitting your legs. Still...
 	As a few rounds ping off the metal console and your friends' shields, you glance around the hanger. It really is quite spacious. Almost spacious enough to... No. You don't know how. You're afraid of flying. This is insane. This is your only choice. You open your bag, pulling out the Martian copy Striker. Though you've never used an aerial Striker, you've seen them up close. This one is differently shaped, more smooth and rounded. Quite frankly, it looks like it was made by someone with better technology. Shaking your head, you put the untested Martian unit on your legs, blue light emanating from the top of the unit as the magic engine starts up. 
 	Suddenly, your magic is much more focused. Like when Socks controlled your healing, you feel little in the way of wasted effort as you project a test shield in front of you. You smile as you say "The hell with it," and leap off the walkway.
 	"Cleo!?" exclaims Miranda as you clumsily take flight inside the hanger. Martians that were trying to circle around from other positions in the hanger suddenly fire their weapons, finding a clear shot at you now as you dart through the enclosed space. Unfortunately for them, your shields again hold back their bullets, doing little to you. 
 	I hate flying I hate flying I hate flying I hate flying you think to yourself. Adrenaline rushing, you rush forward and plow into the original trio of Martians that were trying to break into the clean room. Your impressive acceleration combined with your sturdy shield leaves only a splattered mess behind as you fly back off the walkway, dodging some equipment attached to the ceiling. 
 	As you crash through equipment your assailants lunge out of the way, having learned from their now flatter fellows that shields tend to win in collisions. They panic, several accidentally dropping their weapons on the ground several floors below, if not into the water. You are a blur of havoc, no longer in proper control of your flight, smashing into equipment and walls that were not designed to stop a witch. They rush out of the room, several pointing to the ceiling of the hanger as they do. A few minutes later, exhausted, you manage to land next to your stunned group.
 	"Is...the sub...ready?" you pant, tired. 
 	"Y-yes. Socks set it all up," responds Miranda. "What were you doing?"
 	"Flying," you answer. "Or learning to."
 	Taking advantage of the lull in the fighting, you all stumble into the awkward Martian sub, ready to depart. You look at Socks, and he nods. Cautiously you take the helmet off. Only a faint psionic signal reaches your mind as the submarine starts up.
 	[Let's get out of here.]
 	The sub dives beneath the massive Harbinger, heading to the depths. As you escape, the force-field in the ceiling holding back the water fails, letting a rush of water flood the hanger.
 	"I guess you did a little more damage than we thought with your test flight, Cleo," laughs Rae. "Hopefully that'll stall their pursuit."
 	[Submersibles at...200m, behind us,] says Socks, once again linked to your mind. [They appear to be following us.]
 	"They're not the only ones here, Rae," you say. Rae's smile disappears.
 >Action?
 	"Well, do something!" Rae yells.
 	"Alright, alright!" you respond. You try to ignore Henrieta cowering behind Miranda.
 	[200m? Socks, that's practically on top of us!]
 	[Yes. I have no clue where they came from.]
 	[Well, do we have weapons? Can we fire at them?]
 	[Yes, but...I'm just a researcher. It's all I can do just to figure out all these movement controls.]
 	Dammit. You did not come this far just to get caught here. [Socks. How deep can we dive?]
 	He blinks. [Deep? These vessels can withstand pressures of several kilometers depth; they needed to be able to go wherever the Harbinger could, and seeing as we don't have accurate maps of your oceans, we planned fo-]
 	[How about here? How deep is the ocean?]
 	[Plenty. You want to try and out-dive them?]
 	[Exactly.]
 	He stops and thinks for a moment. [Well, if they're a standard submersible, then we can out-dive them and reach deeper depths...but if they're in a vessel like ours, we'll just be sealing our fate.]
 	[...It didn't look like any others launched from that hanger.]
 	[That's not the only hanger.]
 	This keeps getting worse and worse.
 	[Wait, wha-]
 	Boom! An explosion echos through the hull, though it doesn't rock the sub. Boom! Another explosion.
 	[New targets, they appear to be of alien origin.] You stare at Socks. [That means they're yours.]
 >Surface and greet your fellow humans; the cavalry is here!
>Dive and avoid the battle; you're still in an enemy ship.
->Other – attempt contact with human subs
 	"What was that!?" yells Henrieta. 
 	"Depth charges," you answer. "Our ships are attacking." You turn to Miranda. "I know the USN tries to keep at least one radio witch to a task force. Do you know about foreign forces?"
 	She shakes her head. "No, I don't. I imagine they'd try to; we make communications a lot simpler with submerged vessels." Raising her hand to her chin, she continues. "It couldn't hurt to try, though, could it?"
 	You nod. "No, it couldn't." You turn your attention to the general direction of the continuing explosions, concentrating. <Attention Human Vessel. Attention Human Vessel. Please respond.> You cross your fingers for a response. <This is CPO Kuykendall of the USN. If able, please respond.>
 	<CPO Kuykendall, this is Lt. Cmdr. Ito Naomi of the Yukikaze. Acknowledging message. What is your situation?>
 	"Oh thank god, they responded," you say.
 	"The Japanese, huh?" Miranda wonders aloud. 
 	<We are aboard a captured Martian submersible. We are four witches and one Martian turncoat. We are being pursued and request assistance.>
 	There's a brief pause and you wonder for one terrifying moment if you just imagined the response. Then Ito responds. <Requesting you repeat your message.>
 	<We're on a captured sub and we have a friendly Martian! We need help!> you say, exasperated.
 	<Please, believe us,> adds Miranda.
 	Again, there is a pause before Ito responds. <...Keep clear of the combat area until operations are completed. We will retrieve you afterwards.>
 	You nearly lose your temper. < WE ARE A COMBAT AREA!> you yell. <WE NEED HELP, NOW!>
 	<...Surface immediately. Approach our ships at a 45 degree angle. If you do not, you will be identified as a Martian target and attacked.> Ito pauses one more time. <Good luck.>
 	"What did they say?" asks Rae.
 	"Surface and do as they say, or they'll blow us up," you answer.
 	"Awfully kind, those Japs," Rae comments.
 	[Socks, they'll help us out, but we need to be careful or they'll target us as enemies.]
 	[Oh joy. Being shot at by both sides. This is not what I expected when I left Mars,] he complains. [What do I do?]
 	[Surface, and do it quickly. Those other subs are still on us. When we spot the friendly ships, we approach at a 45 degree angle. Don't screw this up. None of us want to die here.]
 	He grunts and takes the controls. A sudden pressure tries to force everyone to the floor and towards the rear of the small submersible. It's much more powerful than anything you've felt on a human sub before, reminding you of the remarkable performance of Martian technology, even in areas they're not familiar with.  As your sub breaks the surface, panels at the front of the sub slide open, revealing windows and a bright, sunny day. On the horizon, you can see several destroyers.