When Zimmy had set up this whole party-in-the-woods shindig, she had initially imagined a massive rager of at least thirty people. After all, they had spent ten years in harsh, endless training, so who in their right mind would anyone have an objection to having fun? Apparently everyone except the crazy bastards who had come along with her.

Okay, so it wasn't the huge turnout she was expecting, but it was still going to be a good time. Plenty of booze, some decent company. Setzer was a lugnut, but he was entertaining at least. Lee and Darryl and Theta were here too, and they were great. Galahad and Trent were fuckin' weird sometimes, but they liked alcohol as much as the rest of them, so she gave them a pass. Gideon was...well, he was definitely something.

Of course, now it was all absolutely pointless: a giant-ass fireball had just smashed into the ground near them, they were honor-bound to check it out, and to top it all off, half the alcohol was already gone. Of course she had probably drunk most of it, but that was entirely beside the point.

Setzer made the intelligent decision of going in first, sliding down into the crater of the ship before anyone could tell him what a stupid idea that was. Instead of following him down, Zimmy looked up to the top of the crashed aircraft. There were several metal spars sticking out of the rubble, higher up than the rest. That was much better than going down into the [i]pit of absolute death[/i] itself. She tugged the Mist into position around her, willing it to assume it natural form and hide her from normal human sight. Then she sucked in her breath, along with a series of sparkling fragments, and then leapt up, once again feeling gravity itself slip and slide off her body.

From up there, she'd be much better equipped to let them know if an attack was coming. She could see all sides of the wreck, and up into the sky as well. The only thing she wouldn't be able to warn against would be assailants in the bulkhead below her. And really, if the WARDEN couldn't handle that, then what the fuck were they doing in the program?

She arced up and over the metal spars, and for a moment she had a flash of fear that she had overshot her target. Then she started to descend with a lazy slide, and her feet touched the metal just wonderfully. She grinned: perfect landing. Hadn't even stumbled, which was remarkable, because she was pretty sure she was still very much drunk. It was amazing what adrenaline did for you in these strange circumstances.

Zimmy landed just in time to hear Setzer's warning--a live one?-- followed immediately by Gideon's maniacal grenade toss. [i]Hopefully[/i] is was just a bluff, but she was too far away to really tell. When she saw Gideon grab Setzer and drag him away, she knew it had to be fake. Setzer was a walking tank: he could probably stop a grenade from exploding just by breathing on it or something. At the very least, a grenade wasn't something that would dent the man's fortitude. Thus, a bluff. Now all that remained was to see if it worked.

In the meantime, Zimmy resumed scanning the horizon. Something in the sky had shot down this ship, and it was probably still up there. All it would take would be one bad twitch and they might have hellfire and grimdeath raining down on them. But man, the ship had been totaled. As she turned in a circle, there was just nothing but twisted metal and depressingly-ruined fabric. Mist buzzed in and out of existence around her, and Zimmy knew that was bad.

It struck her that this was the kind of thing that the Intelligence Division would have a field day about. That shadowy man had been her first and last point of contact with the organization, which was a real shame, because this was the kind of thing that she would definitely, absolutely report to them. All she had was some weird as fuck bracelet, though. Probably a one-way transmitter. Useless.

"Try not to kill whoever's in there, guys." Thanks to Setzer's wires, Zimmy didn't have to shout to get her point across. She tossed her hair back, trying in vain to get it out of her eyes. "Could be someone important, and we don't want to get court-martialed before we even start service."