Federation Marine Corps Military Intelligence Section
"The Puzzle Palace"
Shanghai, Republic of China
Earth
─•~:~•─
Mark opened his eyes, painfully.
At first, he thought he was dead.
But he looked around and realized he couldn't have been dead. For one thing, he wasn't in Hell, he was still in Virnas' dirty office.
For another, he wasn't drunk.
And for the third, Kitty was poking his face, "I know you're not dead, all my sensors are telling me you're alive. Wake up…I want my hoodie."
Mark, slowly and painfully, sat up.
His head was pounding, and his ankle might have been broken, but he was very much alive.
And just to be sure, the first words out of his mouth were, "What the fuck happened?"
Virnas, standing next to the door and not looking any worse for wear replied in his usual nonchalant tone, "The office was fired upon by a plasma torpedo. Fortunately, the ablative armour plating I had installed on the exterior of the building was able to absorb the impact, since this Red woman managed to somehow disable both the primary and secondary shielding grids."
"Before I inject Benzedrex into each of her internal organs individually over the course of the next coming weeks to ensure that her death is as prolonged and painful as possible, I will ask how she was able to bypass a 1921-Bit Hex Key encryption protecting my isolated shield generators."
A wave of panic suddenly washed over Mark, "Where the fuck is Jack?!"
Behind him, Jack replied also in pain, "I'm good sir. Just a broken left arm, maybe a cracked rib. I can still shoot though."
Reacting on instinct, Mark reached for his assault phaser, but Kitty held both her holographic arms up, "Please don't try to move too much Mark! My biosensors are saying you have a level three concussion! I'm not sure how bad that is, but the medical encyclopedia I have open says your head could pop off or something like that!"
With the pain in his head overriding his better instincts, Mark didn't reach for his assault phaser and instead stretched his legs out on the floor in an equal amount of pain.
His left ankle was definitely broken.
He looked at Kitty and both painfully and angrily asked, "Do your god damned bio-sensors know who was stupid enough to try to drop a torpedo on me?!"
Kitty frowned, "Don't be rude Mark, that's my job."
"Yes, or fucking no, Blue Shark Girl?" Mark replied.
She pouted, "No. They fired through a cloak that managed to evade both Home Fleet's detection systems and 2186 sensor drones of my own. I've alerted Home Fleet and Beaufort, but so far, we haven't found the enemy vessel. It's likely they went to warp as soon as they fired, and I can't find any warp trails or Ion signatures to trace."
"And you said it was a plasma torpedo, right? At least that rules out Dougie being the asshole that just shot at-owww," Mark said, again trying to sit up but being defeated by the broken left ankle
"Please remain still, Most excellent General sir. Medics from 3 Assault Brigade are just touching down in the city now, they should arrive in 5.76 minutes, and if you should expire it will lower this quarter's anticipated profit margins by 18.4%. A most distressing proposition," Virnas added, picking up a terminal to start working once again.
"I'm okay too, guys, don't worry," Jack replied before coughing up a wad of blood from his broken rib.
"Your death would only have a.13% impact on profit margins, S1 Marshall. But I am, glad, that you are reasonably undamaged," Virnas said, not looking up from the terminal.
"Asshole. But I guess on the bright side, if Red is trying to kill us, it means we're on the right track," Jack fired back.
"None of you are funny right now, and I need a fucking drink," Mark said angrily, before finally giving up and deciding to preserve his strength for the medic's arrival.
Kitty could always beam down the half-open bottle of Captain Mo's on Alesha's desk anyway.
─•~:~•─
Elsewhere
"You're sure he's dead, Red?" Blue asked, his feet resting on top of the helm console.
"Blue, I dropped a thirty isoton Plasma Torpedo on his office. It was the last run from the Romulus Weapons Consortium before Hobus turned their factory into dust. Trust me, he's dead," Red replied, annoyed that her clean helm console was stained by Blue's boot prints.
Suddenly, Gold all but threw a PADD at her face, "Is that so? Did you know that Virnas ordered Type 3 Plating for the exterior walls two days before you completely fucked everything up Red, you stupid fucking bitch?!"
Red looked at the PADD and saw the Starfleet requisition orders for twenty inches of Type 3 Ablative Armor Plating, in 8"x12" sheets, ordered by FMC-MIS and approved by Starfleet Requisitions.
"Oh you're shitting me?! After all the trouble I went to weaving through Home Fleet's tachyon detectors and dodging little Miss Hoodie's fucking drones? God, I hate fucking Romulans!" Red replied angrily.
Blue was on his feet, staring down Gold, "Hey, you don't need to curse her out like that, how was she supposed to know about the AA?"
Gold pointed a finger at his face, "You are on the absolute thinnest of ice as it is Blue, sit fucking down. Thanks to your own fuckups, Tirpitz found the Iron Star, and our guy on board says that whatever it was inside of it is not only the Q on fucking steroids, but it just so happens to be friends with Ginny Tatum!"
"Between Risa and your plan with the Tholians going tits up, you've somehow made fucking Red look competent!"
Blue meekly sat back down at his chair, this time taking his feet off the helm console. Both himself and Red were completely silent.
Gold rubbed his temples in desperation to clear his throbbing headache, "Just what is it with this new crew?"
"Between Reams fucking the dog on his little hearing, the stupid bible monsters getting both my only Nadion plasmatic disruption wave device and my best tachyon generator blown to hell by Kaimeao…not to mention you two fucking idiots somehow failing time and again to kill either Jack Marshall or Mark Castle, you'd almost think we were trying sabotage ourselves. This never would have happened under Sloan, let me tell you that!"
Red was now on her feet, "Hey! There's no need to get personal! And don't forget that your precious little idol Sloan royally fucked his own game plans up chasing after Julian Bashier. I'd swear he was in love with the guy if I didn't know any better."
"Red, you're in love with an Augment too, don't forget, or are you still pining for that three-way with Rain and Mark at the same time?" Blue added with a snicker.
"ENOUGH! Both of you. This is going to do my head straight the fuck in!" Gold screamed.
"Look, I do have one practical question, what's our next step?" Blue asked.
Gold calmed himself with effort, "We proceed as discussed. We still have plans C and E looking viable. And it looks like our cloak is still holding up, if there is only one positive to come out of this absolute fucking catastrophe. The return signal is almost ready for broadcast as well, even if the Romulan cracked White Noise."
Red looked concerned, "We're really going with plan E? Gold, all those people on Europa…"
Gold scoffed, "Little late for the girl that fired a thirty isoton Plasma Torpedo at downtown Shanghai to start growing a conscience. It's a sacrifice that will pay off once Castle gets shot and Mitchell is in jail. Just make sure you're ready to do your little weaving act with Home Fleet again. I paid a lot of money for this flying Rommie claptrap."
"What do you want me to do?" Blue asked innocently.
"First, I want you to go fuck yourself, Blue. And when you're done that, fuck yourself once more. And once that's done, you can figure out how to deal with Mor once and for all," Gold replied angrily.
"Now, if there's nothing else, I'm going to find a plasma grinder to stick my head into. You two fucking idiots get an extra shift on the bridge today as punishment for being completely fucking useless," Gold finished as he turned and all but stomped out of the bridge.
Red and Blue both turned back to their respective stations and sighed. After a long moment, Red finally spoke up, "I'm not in love with her, alright?!"
Blue scoffed, "Whatever Red, I'm not the one with her poster hanging in my quarters."