Trinity

Burn

AN: explicit

"Colonel Quaritch, nice of you to join us." Ardmore greeted him coolly as he entered the command center. Wainfleet stood off to the side and rolled his eyes when Quaritch looked at him. "I expected you to be with the rest of your men, even the Paragon was with them."

She has a name. The thought bounced around in his head, doing its damndest to escape but he forced it down. Ardmore's head canted to the side as she took notice of the very prominent love bite on the side of his neck. Her eyes narrowed and any slight amusement drained from her face.

"I believe we spoke about her not being your wife, Colonel."

"And as expected, I have kept my distance, General." Her boots thudded against the floor as she drew closer to him.

"Then who gave you that?" He chuckled at the stares from the humans and from her.

"Not her." He's so very tempted to ask if she cares this much about anyone else's sex life but refrains. There's no point in making his life any more difficult than it already is. Apparently appeased by his answer, Ardmore returns her attention to the sloped hologram and he glances over at Lyle. His Lieutenant's eyebrows raise questioningly and he quickly turns to show off the mark on his left side of his neck.

God damn, Lyle mouths silently before nodding his head in approval.

"Lieutenant, catch up the Colonel." Lyle pushes himself off the wall and stands next to Quaritch.

"Long-range patrol picked up a radar hit, a rogue gunship at the eastern sea." Lyle gestured to the sloped hologram showing mostly empty sea. "Signal was intermittent, and they lost it over open water."

"And when you project the track, where does it end up?" Quaritch turns his attention to the human adjacent from Ardmore. He swipes away at the datapad in his hand and an archipelago comes into view on the hologram. The Colonel walks closer as his tail swishes in interest behind him.

"That's hundreds of islands." Quaritch turned to face Ardmore. "That's a big search box with lots of villages."

"This is our guy. You give me ships and aircraft, I'll bring you back his scalp." Ardmore scrutinizes him for a moment and ultimately nods.

"I'll hold you to it, there's a SeaDragon leaving soon, one that hunts Tulkun you can... commandeer. I doubt you'll need any aircraft with your banshees. Ship leaves in a couple hours, your banshees should be outfitted within the next hour."

Dismissed, the two Recombinants quickly exit the command center. Once out of the way from prying eyes and possible cameras, Lyle takes a good look at the side of his neck.

"God damn, Mansk is a fuckin' animal." Quaritch laughs and nods his head, yep, he sure is. "Waking up blue really did him some good."

"How long have you known?" He asks as they resume putting distance between themselves and the bitch supreme.

"Which part? You three idiots being in love with each other for years? You and Mansk hiding it from each other? Mansk chasing after her? Or the part where he claimed her yesterday?"

"Alright, fuck I get it." Lyle was just as bad as the disembodied voices. Hell he's surprised the Gaia bitch didn't use his Lieutenant's voice just to fuck with him more.

"I'm just glad he's alive and that you seem happy again." Quaritch's steps halted as the first part of that slapped him in the face. How many of them believed he would hurt them? "Boss?"

"He was terrified I was gonna kill him."

"Yeah, I convinced him otherwise. A couple weeks ago? I thought you might, hoped you wouldn't, but wasn't entirely sure."