As Ali walked back to the Faraday through the Endeavour she wasn't sure if she wanted to go and punch stuff or go and join Spud drowning her frustrations and sorrows.

Suffice to say their report to HQ had not gone over well. Not only did they receive the usual bollocking for taking initiative but Security Core joined in to berate them for risking undercover work. Though it confirmed that Petra had been able to file at least a basic report. Despite the fact that Ali explained - repeatedly - that they were in no danger of blowing Petra's cover until she approached them. Even then Petra had been able to walk away and no one would've been any wiser. Both Grey and Ali also reminded HQ that all they had required was some kind of assurance that Security Core were dealing with it, no details, being assured someone was assigned to the case would've been enough to dissuade them from their actions.

Banging her head against the wall would be more productive than trying to get anything across to HQ or Security Core.

She was dimly aware of someone shouting her name. "What?" She snapped as she whirled to face whoever it was.

Wood stopped as he appraised her current state. "That good, huh?"

Ali relaxed as she rubbed at her head to try and stave off whatever headache was coming her way. "Yeah," she confirmed, pretty certain he was familiar with how she was feeling. He had been at the rally after all. Luckily for him he got out of having to deal with the fallout, or at least the official side of it. Everyone had fallout from a bad mission. "How are you faring?"

That took him by surprise and it took him a moment to regain his impassive façade before shrugging. "Got off lightly, you and Rila were in the thick of it."

"That doesn't mean you had it easy," Ali reminded him. "Thanks for keeping an eye on Pixie."

"For all the good it did."

"Hey, you're not responsible for her brother stabbing her. You caught the bastard."

For a moment he didn't say anything, before finally saying, "I almost didn't. She had to tell me to chase him."

"Sometimes the only wrong decision is indecision," Ali said gently. "Staying to help her or chasing him down are both valid options, not doing either would've been wrong." Wood nodded as he took that in.

"Yeah, true," he agreed, before straightening up. "Anyway, I was going to say that you looked like you needed to punch something."

Ali deflated with a resigned sigh. "That obvious?" Wood nodded. "We just finished briefing HQ and S-Core. They are… not happy with us," Ali explained tiredly.

"Having watched it unfold in real time, I can't say I am either."

Ali glared at him. "If I wanted to continue to be belittled I'd have stayed on the line with S-Core," she said before turning to continue walking.

"Wait!" Wood called, making her stop and turn expectantly. "I… I think I know of something to make you feel better." Ali raised an eyebrow at him. "Go find some gym clothes and I'll meet you on the Faraday."

Ali chuckled despite herself. "You sure you want to give me home advantage?"

"Maybe I'm feeling kind."

Soon enough they were both in the Faraday's gym and warmed up. "So, what new wisdom do you plan to impart, oh wise and powerful master," Ali asked with a far too cheeky grin. She was well aware that he was a much better fighter than her, even ignoring the fact that it was pretty much in his job description. He had physical strength on his side and a plethora of tactical knowledge. She had dexterity and ingenuity that allowed her to hold her own against him when they'd sparred before. Though she doubted she'd win if they ever fought for real. That didn't mean she had to let him know that though.

"I'm going to ignore the sarcasm -"

"But it was such an integral part!"

Wood made a point of rolling his eyes but he couldn't quite stop his smile. "Okay, what do you know about tackling an opponent?"

"To not do it unless I absolutely have to because it opens me up to further attacks," Ali said after a couple of moments' consideration.

"If you do it right, you should either stay on your feet or be able to jump back up and start running," Wood corrected before launching into an explanation of the basics on how to tackle safely. Such as head position and that you had to control the opponents legs because you couldn't just rely on your own momentum.

"So were you a rugby guy or an American football guy?" Ali smirked as she folded her arms after he finished his lesson.

"What does that matter?" Ali shrugged in response, so Wood decided to ignore her. "Okay, you're just trying to distract me. But you can't always rely on your normal tactics."

"There's nothing wrong with a trusty elbow to the jaw."

Wood frowned at her cheeky grin. "Just try and tackle me," he said exasperatedly.

Ali shuffled her feet as she unfolded her arms. "Most guys buy the girl dinner first."

"What -" Wood barely had time to finish the first word before Ali slammed a shoulder into his gut as her arms squeezed his thighs, and sent him tumbling backwards. Exactly how he'd explained to do so moments earlier. He managed to catch his landing on his shoulders but before he had a chance to do anything else - such as retaliate - she had a forearm across his throat and her cheeky smirk was in his face. He glared and she laughed. "You can get off me now."

Ali laughed some more as she jumped to her feet. "You mean this whole exercise wasn't an excuse to get me on top of you?" She offered him a hand up. He didn't immediately take it and she raised an eyebrow as if to dare him to try and turn it against her.

Instead he accepted the help up and once he was on his feet he turned his head towards hers. "What's the point if you aren't naked?" He asked in a low voice as he strolled past her. She could only hope he hadn't paused long enough to hear her breath catch. Oh yeah, he was definitely messing with her. Ali felt strangely proud, and annoyingly hot and bothered.

"I mean, this whole exercise was about stress relief, was it not?" She retorted, making him blush as he stopped in surprise. She couldn't help but laugh. "Too easy."

~-x-~

"Okay…" Ali decided as she rested her head on her hands, elbows resting on the table in front of her. "It's perfectly simple, I hunt Touchard down and relieve him of various body parts until he talks."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"You'd be better off staging a coup and taking over S-Core," Rila retorted in kind.

"Hacking them would be easier," Olkant said.

"Please don't tempt her," Wood warned. "Though I am on board with hunting down Touchard." Ali looked up just enough to throw a quizzical eyebrow his way. "He's the best lead we've got."

"I hate to encourage this, but we'd actually have to go after both Touchard and Zychene," Narla agreed. "We can't assume they'll be together."

"Wow, things must be bad if Narla is suggesting we go rogue," Claire said with a low whistle.

"It's not 'going rogue'," Narla refuted, "it's following a promising lead."

"Semantics."

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Grey decided. The meeting had clearly gone off the rails as they attempted to find some kind of way forward. It had dissolved pretty quickly because the first thing they did was explain why all their current data sources wouldn't provide anything new. Or at least nothing that was specific. Not even the data they'd taken from Eoin, though Ali had known at the time that it was a long shot.

"Our only real option involves getting S-Core involved," Ali said, "and they have made it clear that we are not to be involved in this."

"I know I'm going to regret asking this… but do we have any contacts in S-Core to exploit?" Grey asked unhappily.

There was a moment where everyone exchanged slightly awkward glances with each other. "None that would actually help," Narla summarised.

"Then the way I see it is that we have two options," Ali agreed, "we either give up, or we keep pushing - which admittedly will probably have all the effect of banging our heads against the wall."

"But if we sit back and do nothing…" Wood let that scenario hang in the air. They all knew what would happen, and none of them wanted that.

"Then I hope you're ready to play nice," Grey decided as he looked at Ali.

"But we do such a wonderful good cop bad cop routine."

~-x-~

"We have already been over this ground. S-Core are handling the situation, and frankly we're far better equipped to do so than either of your crews."

"Handling it? Our only lead to the terrorists who have blown up two embassies are Cosmos' Champions. Not only do you have an undercover operative within their organisation but we helped you complete a deal that saw trackable weapons supplied to that same group! Yet somehow they have been able to commit these atrocities despite being on your radar!" Ali argued.

"Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that we keep having to put so much effort into preventing people from jeopardising our work."

"Oh, that's rich. Might I remind you that it's one of your operatives that jeopardised us during a recent fact-finding mission."

"She had no idea why you were there -"

"And thanks to your operative's actions Cosmos' Champions now know we're honing in on them and have the ability to enter their events," Grey snapped. Ali just about managed to catch her surprise before it registered on her face. Normally it was her who lost it at Security Core and not Grey. He had a far better temperament for diplomacy whereas she was just about able to talk her way out of the trouble she usually landed herself in.

"You dare -"

"I think what Rear Admiral Grey meant to say was that your operative drastically misread the situation," Ali quickly interrupted in a desperate attempt to play peacemaker. "She acted rashly without any attempt to ascertain why a USEP officer would be present and jumped to conclusions. I assume she communicated her intended end game to yourselves? I must admit I am curious as to what she planned on doing with my life after outing me to Touchard."

The Security Core official fell silent as he glared at her. Ali simply tilted her head a fraction inquisitively, feigning innocence as she held a perfect poker face in front of him. "Are you questioning the loyalty of our operative?"

"Of course not, I am simply inquiring how she intended to get an ally out of life threatening danger after putting them so quickly into it."

"If I am not mistaken you put yourself into life threatening danger by entering that rally in the first place."

"That is true, though I didn't expect the danger to come from a supposed ally."

"She was undercover."

"She didn't have to admit that she recognised me."

"We all agree that hindsight is a wonderful thing, but this doesn't help us move forward," Grey redirected before Ali got herself in trouble for questioning superior officers, repeatedly. "If we pool our resources -"

"And we have already denied that request. You said it yourself, these terrorists know that we are hunting them now, we cannot waste time in bringing you up to speed. In fact I don't really have time for this ridiculous conversation." With that he terminated the connection.

"Well, what do you think?" Grey eventually asked after a dumbfounded silence.

"I think it's not going to be too long before the next atrocity," Ali sighed as she looked at his image on the screen.

~-x-~

Ali had spent the rest of her day in the data lab pouring over what they had until it felt like her eyes would bleed. She planned on taking a break to get some dinner, but after bumping into Rila and Waarlm in the mess hall she ended up quitting on the data for the day and unwinding with her crew in the lounge.

Pixie and Ed were already sat at a table with their heads together, Ali made a note to check that Pixie was on strictly non-alcoholic beverages as they ordered their own drinks. Afterwards Waarlm happily plonked himself at Pixie and Ed's table causing Rila and Ali to share an amused look over their drinks as they followed. "Hi, skipper. I hear S-Core won't budge."

"Unfortunately."

"I don't remember them always being this incompetent," Rila agreed.

"I think it's obstinance. They can't admit they're wrong because they'd be admitting we're right," Ali corrected.

"You mutinied once before, could always do so again," Waarlm suggested after a pause in which he appeared more focused on his drink.

Ali chuckled, thankful she was still sober and therefore not even tempted to correct her crew. Though she was starting to wonder if it was worth unsealing her court martial records out of spite. Though a little voice in her head warned her against it. She knew it would only spectacularly backfire into her own face. "Well, I think we've got till the end of the night and then we'll be ordered back to the Forum to await whatever HQ plans for us next," Pixie grumbled.

"Okay, we're screwed if Pixie isn't the optimistic one," Rila observed.

"I think you'll find that's my role!" Etsile's booming laugh sounded from behind them as he joined them.

"No, when you stop being the voice of optimism then the apocalypse is here," Rila corrected as she sipped her drink through her straw.

"Fair," Etsile agreed. "Now, as your doctor I advise all of you to relax while you can - Pixie, no alcohol - worrying won't do any of us any good."

"You do remember who our captain is, right?" Pixie asked.

"I'm starting to think I've lost all respect here," Ali pretended to object.

"What're you gonna do? Make us run drills until our ears bleed?" Pixie challenged, "I'm exempt."

"Good idea, Pix," Ali agreed, causing everyone else to groan. "We need to put Endeavour back into their place after all." Everyone brightened considerably at that. "Though I expect to beat them more decisively this time," she warned. Last time they'd only just won at the war games they'd played, and that was only because she'd spotted Wood working out Pixie's plan and so she had literally jumped him on a staircase. They'd both been bruised from the spar that followed, but it had been totally worth it.

A few drinks in and they quickly descended into various dice games - for reasons Ali still hadn't been able to fathom, and had never once got a straight answer about, Ed always carried dice on him - in which Ed and Etsile became particularly competitive. The Faraday crew had quickly learnt not to play cards with Ali, so they often traded it in for dice. There were two or three games they tended to cycle between, depending on who got to pick or how drunk they were. Ali and Etsile had a particularly competitive run of balut going (Ali was winning 47-44). Though once they'd had enough drinks all any of them tended to be able to cope with was bunco.

Olkant had joined them by the time they had settled into bunco, mainly to see Pixie get more and more competitive with it the more frustrated she got with the maths. "Why do you waste your time on games of luck rather than skill?"

"Because you kick our butts at chess as comprehensively as Ali does in poker. Where's the fun in that?" Ed asked though it was mostly in good fun. Olkant stared at him and blinked with his bottom pair of eyes - in the same way a human might wiggle their eyebrows - as if to challenge the pilot.

Pixie had finally gotten onto a winning streak in bunco when Ali's comm chimed. She was still laughing at her crew's antics as tapped it open, getting up to find a quiet nook somewhere. It was Grey. "Have you heard?"

Ali almost instantly sobered from his tone. "Heard what?"

There was a pause as he considered how to word it. "They've hit Eskaar. They've claimed it's retaliation for S-Core and USEP interfering in their affairs and have increased their demands."

Ali swore as she glanced over her shoulder to her still relatively happy crew. She'd have liked them to be able to stay happy for just a little longer. "I guess I don't need to ask what you plan on doing."

"You can bow out. I wouldn't blame you."

"You've finally gone senile if you think I'm going to give up on this," Ali retorted, before adding, "sir."