(no subject)
There are bad days. And then, there are Bad Days. And Zechs Merquise is decidedly having the latter.
'Sir?' The knock at the door makes him jump, startling him from his almost brooding preoccupation. 'Sir, permission to enter?'
He sighs and pushes the half-finished paperwork on his desk to one side, attempting to at least look composed. Uniform straight, the spacious modern office a masterpiece of perfectly organised glass, steel and black leather. A place for everything, and everything in its place.
'Come.' He leans back in his comfortable chair, absently spinning a pencil back and forth over one thumb. The classic pose of detached interest, his mind supplies. Cool, composed, and with a slight air of superiority. He leans forward and arches an eyebrow both in acknowledgement and question when the uniformed agent enters and salutes. She's carrying a nondescript file folder, free of brightly coloured tags or stamps. In other words, something of actual importance.
'Vega. Is that the mission report from Sirius and Sagitta?'
'Aye, sir. You requested that it be brought to you upon its completion.' She brings it over to his desk and hands it to him, but the hesitation is quite perceptible. Zechs' brow furrows slightly in concern, but he doesn't ask any questions yet.
'Thank you, Vega, that will be all. Dismissed.'
She salutes and leaves, and as soon as the door closes Zechs opens the folder and begins looking through it. It had been a dangerous mission, to be sure, one that was necessary to complete successfully. Zechs' face is impassive as he reads; nothing seems out of the ordinary. Not until the second to last page, at any rate.
'Impossible...' He reads it through two times again, convinced he's misinterpreted something. But he has to admit that he's not, and he sits back in shock before opening a desk drawer and extracting another folder flipping through it. That had been done on his advice, ergo there was no possible way things could have gone wrong. He did not mistakes, and certainly not ones of that caliber. He never had. Finding the document he's looking for, he reads through it carefully.
'Oh, my God.' Zechs isn't a religious man by any stretch of the word, but sometimes it's the only suitable expression. He reads the sentence again and again, the one he missed and never should have, and never would have before. Then he looks back to the report Vega delivered to him, reading the passage aloud under his breath.
'...acting on advice from Vice Commander Merquise; situation did not go according to plan or prediction, though not to the detriment of the mission's success. However, Agent Sirius did suffer a chest injury from a weapon fired at close range. He is currently listed as being in critical condition at National Cross Hospital. Doctor Po has given her own medical opinion, and states that provided Agent Sirius survives the next week without serious complications or becoming comatose, his prognosis is...'
Zechs drops the report onto his desk. Sirius is one of their most experienced members, hand-picked for the mission, and he'd been critically injured. And it's Zechs' fault, for missing something that never should have escaped his notice. It's like the incident with Alex and Muller all over. Noin's two impulsive students, to whom he had offered to serve as an inferior officer for one mission out of sheer arrogance. They had attacked the Mogadishu Alliance military base, and though Zechs had offered the soldiers an opportunity to surrender, one that had been accepted and would have been honoured had he been in charge, Alex and Muller claimed superiority and destroyed the base, along with all of his occupants. And so he himself had no recourse but to kill them...
That had been years ago. But now here, again, he's made yet another mistake that's led to people being injured, possibly killed depending on how Sirius' condition progresses. Since the Mogadishu incident, he's never made a mistake like that again, because he had sworn that he wouldn't. Until now. And what's worse, is this time he can't explain it.
It's also more than he can handle right now. Zechs gets to his feet, collects a duffel bag from a closet and crosses to the small washroom on the far side of his office, closing the door behind him. A few minutes later he emerges, impeccable uniform replaced with black running shorts and a maroon t-shirt, boots traded in for a pair of athletic shoes. His hands and wrists are bound with tape, and the rest is hurled violently across the office in a fit of anger. The slam of the door when he leaves dislodges a few of the ceiling tiles in the hallway. It's a sight that's not wholly unfamiliar at HQ, and thus his way is unhindered as he makes his way to the basement and athletic facilities. Regardless of side and status, he's still Zechs Merquise and still viewed with a healthy measure of fear.
At another time, he might care. For now, he slams the door to one of the training rooms open so hard that the doorknob lodges itself in the wall, and crosses to a relatively innocent punching bag. It's rather quickly reduced to a pile of vinyl and stuffing before he moves on to a second.
'Sir?' The knock at the door makes him jump, startling him from his almost brooding preoccupation. 'Sir, permission to enter?'
He sighs and pushes the half-finished paperwork on his desk to one side, attempting to at least look composed. Uniform straight, the spacious modern office a masterpiece of perfectly organised glass, steel and black leather. A place for everything, and everything in its place.
'Come.' He leans back in his comfortable chair, absently spinning a pencil back and forth over one thumb. The classic pose of detached interest, his mind supplies. Cool, composed, and with a slight air of superiority. He leans forward and arches an eyebrow both in acknowledgement and question when the uniformed agent enters and salutes. She's carrying a nondescript file folder, free of brightly coloured tags or stamps. In other words, something of actual importance.
'Vega. Is that the mission report from Sirius and Sagitta?'
'Aye, sir. You requested that it be brought to you upon its completion.' She brings it over to his desk and hands it to him, but the hesitation is quite perceptible. Zechs' brow furrows slightly in concern, but he doesn't ask any questions yet.
'Thank you, Vega, that will be all. Dismissed.'
She salutes and leaves, and as soon as the door closes Zechs opens the folder and begins looking through it. It had been a dangerous mission, to be sure, one that was necessary to complete successfully. Zechs' face is impassive as he reads; nothing seems out of the ordinary. Not until the second to last page, at any rate.
'Impossible...' He reads it through two times again, convinced he's misinterpreted something. But he has to admit that he's not, and he sits back in shock before opening a desk drawer and extracting another folder flipping through it. That had been done on his advice, ergo there was no possible way things could have gone wrong. He did not mistakes, and certainly not ones of that caliber. He never had. Finding the document he's looking for, he reads through it carefully.
'Oh, my God.' Zechs isn't a religious man by any stretch of the word, but sometimes it's the only suitable expression. He reads the sentence again and again, the one he missed and never should have, and never would have before. Then he looks back to the report Vega delivered to him, reading the passage aloud under his breath.
'...acting on advice from Vice Commander Merquise; situation did not go according to plan or prediction, though not to the detriment of the mission's success. However, Agent Sirius did suffer a chest injury from a weapon fired at close range. He is currently listed as being in critical condition at National Cross Hospital. Doctor Po has given her own medical opinion, and states that provided Agent Sirius survives the next week without serious complications or becoming comatose, his prognosis is...'
Zechs drops the report onto his desk. Sirius is one of their most experienced members, hand-picked for the mission, and he'd been critically injured. And it's Zechs' fault, for missing something that never should have escaped his notice. It's like the incident with Alex and Muller all over. Noin's two impulsive students, to whom he had offered to serve as an inferior officer for one mission out of sheer arrogance. They had attacked the Mogadishu Alliance military base, and though Zechs had offered the soldiers an opportunity to surrender, one that had been accepted and would have been honoured had he been in charge, Alex and Muller claimed superiority and destroyed the base, along with all of his occupants. And so he himself had no recourse but to kill them...
That had been years ago. But now here, again, he's made yet another mistake that's led to people being injured, possibly killed depending on how Sirius' condition progresses. Since the Mogadishu incident, he's never made a mistake like that again, because he had sworn that he wouldn't. Until now. And what's worse, is this time he can't explain it.
It's also more than he can handle right now. Zechs gets to his feet, collects a duffel bag from a closet and crosses to the small washroom on the far side of his office, closing the door behind him. A few minutes later he emerges, impeccable uniform replaced with black running shorts and a maroon t-shirt, boots traded in for a pair of athletic shoes. His hands and wrists are bound with tape, and the rest is hurled violently across the office in a fit of anger. The slam of the door when he leaves dislodges a few of the ceiling tiles in the hallway. It's a sight that's not wholly unfamiliar at HQ, and thus his way is unhindered as he makes his way to the basement and athletic facilities. Regardless of side and status, he's still Zechs Merquise and still viewed with a healthy measure of fear.
At another time, he might care. For now, he slams the door to one of the training rooms open so hard that the doorknob lodges itself in the wall, and crosses to a relatively innocent punching bag. It's rather quickly reduced to a pile of vinyl and stuffing before he moves on to a second.