Chapter Five - "NOT...a WORD!"

The Best Laid Plans O'Mice and Men

Chapter Five - "Not...A Word"

Evidently Meg and Tosh had not been as quiet as they would have liked during their nocturnal exercises and he'd received a raised eye-brow and a smirk from Harm when the two walked into the kitchen in the morning. "Not...a word...Captain." growled Tosh under his breath since it was all that Harm could do to stop from breaking out in a fit of laughter.

"Aye-aye, sir..." Harm said...his expression belying the respect that was supposed to be in those words. "Not...a single word will escape my lips...sir."

"You're pushing it, Rabb."

"Sir...aye, sir..."

Meg was beet-red with embarrassment, just grabbing her plate of lemon cobbler and heading to the table.

Ignoring the warning glance from Tosh, Harm forged ahead, "Sir. I trust that the CNO is aware of the situation?"

Knowing exactly what Rabb was beating around the bush about, the vice-admiral nodded, "Yes, CNO Pointer has had this matter brought to his attention. He is going to be asking the JAG to look the other way. This goes for the six of us. Captain." He inclined his head knowingly, "Should you choose to do so, the JAG will not level Article 133 charges against us for entering into a relationship with whomever you choose of our present company, present company excluded." the admiral indicated that Meg and he were an item by a sweep of his hand towards the dinner table. Harm grinned at the admiral.

...and then it was back to the tasks at hand. Meg trying her hand at creating potions. Presumeably there was a bladder flow potion in there which would be good at incapacitating occults at least for the temporary measure. It would at least give them a chance to flee the situation. Mac and Kimber took over the science stations and Tosh went to work out for four hours with the Universal Gym doing some bench press as well as pec presses. There was a lot to be said for being fit and muscular: it would give the opponent some pause to think about whether he wanted to do this or not - the intimidation factor was real. This was no ordinary war. The opponents they were up against were faster, stronger, and more lethal than any opponent that they'd ever faced in combat. These opponents could go toe to toe with Spetznaz and end up coming out the victor and Tosh wasn't about to let his women and men get into that situation. Unorthodox though the situation was, they were still his subordinates and still under his command and as such, he was duty-bound to protect them, even if they hadn't had the common bond of friendship.

Tosh had been out of the loop for a while, tied to a desk at the Pentagon and as such, his fitness level had suffered. When one was flying on a regular basis, g-tolerance was measured by how much muscle mass you had. If you had a bull-neck, you could crank out 6+Gs with no problem other than a minor graying out. You have to remember that 6Gs was 6 times the force of gravity pressing down on you when you yanked your Tomcat into a hard break while trying to evade a lock-on by enemy radar. That meant anything on your head...as well as your entire body weighed six times what it really weighed and if you weren't physically fit enough to yank the stick around, you'd be digging a hole and six men would be carrying your casket while taps played mournfully and your squadron mates would cluck their tongues somberly saying "what a great driver you were, but you humped the pooch; sure glad it wasn't me".

And if someone launched one of those telephone poles with wings and a high-explosive nose, you better be dam sure that you could crank out as many Gs as you can to break the lock or you and your aircraft would be reduced to a greasy blob of suet and spare parts expanding in mid-air.

Tosh was so into his workout he didn't even hear the small explosion at the potion table. Meg was certainly nonplussed to say the least. "Well, I guess I'd better not use THAT combination again." she said audibly while Mac and Kimber looked over at her wondering what that bang was. Luckily there was a shower there, so she was able to get all that soot off her.

Harm went fishing and wasn't there long before he ended up reeling in a black goldfish. That provided him with an opportunity called Say Hello to My Little Fish, those black goldfish were ornery as heck and kind of like that M4 with M203 grenade launcher that was in that Brian De Palma movie, they weren't the type of fish you'd want to make an acquaintance of. Let's just say a rabid Rottweiler would be friendlier than that fish. So it was over to the police department to drop off a decided brassed off black goldfish and the sooner he got it off his hands the better. Thank goodness that thing didn't have teeth.

Meg was, however, successful as she managed to create a mood enhancer potion, though it wasn't the Bladder Flow incapacitation potion that they were looking for. Maybe that Mood Enhancer potion might put a more pleasant twist on those ever-grouchy werewolves and thus prevent them from having to perforate said werewolf with hot lead.

And Tosh worked on his body. Yes, Meg was going to be very pleased with the results. ~smirk~

And Phil...well...Phil was up to his eyeballs in rotting goop. Wondering how the hell he always managed to get dragooned into these things. "I could be pleasantly sitting on a lanai in Pearl drinking a Mai-Tai while on liberty instead of inhaling rotting plasma fruit vapors and getting sick to my stomach. Did I ever mention I hate vampires. I hate vampires so much, I'm going to stake the next one I see." He popped his head out of the dumpster to shout to no one in particular. "Has anyone see that bloody Eddie, whatever the hell his last name is, around here anywhere. I've got a stick with his name on it!!!"

He snorted, "Figures that sparkly fruitcake won't make an appearance. Any of you other fanged rear-hole-munches wanna have a go at me?" Nope, evidently not.