X-Com's Finest (An X-Com 2 play through)

Operation Dragon Shield

With just the slightest smirk, she responded again, "Have you checked your locker?"

"OF COURSE I'VE CHECKED MY LOCKER!" He marched over to his locker and furiously opened it up, only to find his axes neatly stowed away. "THEY WERE NOT HERE EARLIER!"

Svagerko just shrugged. "Somebody must have put them in there for you. That was awfully nice of them. If it were me, I'd have 'accidentally' dropped them in flight." Now that she was up, she might as well get her day started and she dragged herself out of bed and headed to the showers.

The Ranger just glowered at her the whole way.

For the first time in quite awhile, Svagerko smiled.

****

Pubentz sat there, absent-mindedly stroking the GREMLIN in her lap. It hadn't moved, but it almost purred as Pubentz studied the seat across from her from which Zalewski sat. HIS GREMLIN 'purred' with an irregular grind that kept everyone on edge.

"Can't you just turn the blasted thing off until we're off the Skyranger?"

"Why don't you turn YOURS on!"

Pubentz stared at him. "It IS on..." Pubentz lifted her hands and the GREMLIN floated noiselessly above her before descending back into her lap. As the GREMLIN settled back into position, a thought occurred to her.

"What a second....where's the box?"

Everyone turned to look at her but Zalewski replied back, "What box?"

"The box! The box that sat right where YOU are sitting!"

"There's not a box here!"

"EXACTLY! WHERE IS THE BOX? IT HAD OUR MEDS IN IT!"

Zalewski looked around and then it dawned on him. "Oohhhh. THAT box! Yeah. I moved it so I could sit here." He was rather proud of himself. Bastion crooned warmly.

Pubentz's face began to redden. Then reddened some more. Halverson, who drew the short straw and was assigned to sit next to her, tried to scoot over as far away as possible. At this rate, Pubentz was bound to blow a hole straight through the Skyranger. Zalewski finally stopped smiling and scratched his head, finally realizing that he just might have done something wrong here.

Pubentz looked around at the rest of crew before finally throwing her hands down in frustration. "BISCUITS!"

Day gasped and leaned over to Gunner, "Did....did she just say..." he lowered his voice to a conspirator tone, "biscuits?" Gunner just looked at him like he'd grown a third eye. "Are you SERIOUS? You've never heard of BISCUITS?"

Day drew back and pointed at her. "You....you said it too!"

At this point, everyone had stopped watching for the inevitable implosion of Pubentz and were now all looking at Day, who seemed to blush under the sudden scrutiny.

Ranger Van Dyke broke the sudden silence. "So, seriously Pubentz, what's the deal?"

Pubentz started off, "Well...GENIUS here...decided to touch things that weren't his, and in the process, managed to 'misplace' a certain box of meds that were always on the Skyranger. So, NOW we're heading deep into enemy territory into WHO KNOWS WHAT, and we are medically, oh how shall we say this? Oh, I know WOEFULLY UNPREPARED!"

Zalewski looked up, "I..."

Pubentza just glared at him and he instantly quieted. Bastion even managed to shut himself down.

She sighed and sat back in her chair. It was too late to pull back now. "Alright people, we'll just need to be extra careful on this mission. I don't want to lose anyone out of a certain person's stupidity...." She turned and stared hard at Zalewski who simply sat back and pretended Pubentz didn't exist.