Rating: T for language

Characters: McCoy, Kirk, Spock, Sulu, Chekov, Chapel, Rand, Riley and mentions of Cupcake, Uhura and minor OCs.

Summary: Kirk and the rest of the Gold shirts don't know it, but scientists can kick ass too...

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or anything associated with it. I'm doing this for fun, not profit.

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Blue Shirts are BAMFs!

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"Come on, Bones! This'll be fun." Jim says, slapping Leonard's shoulder from across the table.

"Really?" He snaps. He's dropped his fork into his mashed potatoes and isn't at all pleased about it. "What part of running around on some random planet, shooting each other with florescent paint, all in an attempt to steal a God-dammed flag sounds fun to you?"

"It's recreational." Jim smiles up at him, not at all put off by Leonard's lack of zeal for the idea. "It's good for moral. Right, Giotto? Spock?"

"Friendly competition helps improve teamwork and cohesion between groups." Giotto nods, cutting up his steak. "It gives people something to talk about with crewmen they wouldn't normally interact with."

"I concur. The precedent for such 'Team building' exercises is well documented in Earth's history." Spock adds. He arches one eyebrow slightly, the muscles around his eyes relaxing in a rare show of enthusiasm. "I look forward to participating in the activity and observing the resulting shifts in social interaction."

"Of course you do." Leonard drawls, fishing his fork out of his meal. It's covered in potatoes and gravy and really good gravy is a terrible thing to waste. He sticks the handle in his mouth and sucks it all off, switches his grip and does the same to the prongs.

Jim clears his throat. "Anyway, Medical's a part of the Sciences so you should ask some of your people to sign up. Team Blue is a little short on bodies."

"I would appreciate your participation, Doctor."

"What, so we'd have to stitch ourselves up as well as you crackpots?" Leonard scoffs. "No thanks."

"It's not dangerous, Bones!" Jim laughs. He looks up, eyes twinkling, and winks. "Besides, we'll go easy on you."

It's the way he says it, as though it's a forgone conclusion that the Science department is going to get their asses handed to them, that does it.

"Okay. Med-bay's in."

Jim doesn't respond. He's spotted his most persistent yeoman, Janice Rand, stalking down the aisles of tables with a stack of PADDs and an expression of bureaucratic fury plastered on her face. He's trying to hide himself behind Spock's thin shoulder, which means he can't see the look on Leonard's face.

Giotto can.

"I think Operation's will ref the first game, Captain." He catches Rand's eye and rubs his finger under his nose, pointing out Jim's location in a spectacularly obvious fashion. "Give Mr. Scott and his team some extra time to finish up their diagnostics before our game, yeah?"

"Ha! Don't think I don't know that you're going to be running rekon on Team Gold while you're at it, Giotto." Jim's voice drifts up from his new hiding place under the table. "I can see right through you!"

"Something like that." Giotto concedes. He throws Leonard a conspiring smile and sits back to watch as Rand drags Jim out by his ankles.

~*~

"I've studied the interactions of Asteronavalis aurariatunicae closely and have made significant observations regarding their behavioral tendencies." The blond XenoBiology ensign says, looking earnest and eager. Very bad signs in Leonard's opinion. "They're highly territorial and governed by a strict group hierarchy. They have no natural predators. Their only competition coming from solitary, older members of their own species and other packs of unmated juveniles. Younger, less experienced members of the group will be sent out to engage us while the older, higher ranked members stay behind with the flag. Waiting to claim the choice picks of a successful kill."

"Don't be a dunce, Worthington!" Another ensign, a green eyed spit-fire from XenoAnthropology, snaps. "They're a sub-culture within the greater community of the Enterprise, not a different species! The object of this ritual is to gain possession of the other group's totem; the flags in either camp. The Gold Shirts are highly ethnocentric and don't consider other groups as a threat to their superior placement in ship society. They'll keep their younger warriors in camp because they think our capabilities are inferior. We aren't considered a threat to their totem. The more experienced warriors will be sent out to pillage us, seeking honor and glory for themselves. They'll burn our fort, desecrate our totem and paint their clan rune on our faces, effectively destroying any worth we might claim as our own sub-culture."

"Oh. God." Leonard groans, burying his face in his hands.

He's already regretting doing this. It's early morning on Ananse, their chosen planet for shore leave, but Leonard's internal clock is on ship's time, insisting that it's mid afternoon. He should be making his rounds through the periphery Sick-bays right now and it's making him fidgety. That, and he's noticed that the sun is traveling in the wrong damn direction entirely. It doesn't even have the decency to screw with him subtly by rising in the west and traveling east, instead it's rising from the south and slowly making its way northward.

It's going to be a long day. Or a short one, if Jim's inclinations towards total domination surface at all.

"Oh, geeze guys..." A crewman from XenoBotony sighs. He glances back and forth between the two, biting his lip, then throws up his hands. "Nope! I can't decide, it's a tie. Those were both way too awesome!"

Leonard looks out from between his fingers. The two ensigns are looking pleased with themselves. They engage in an elaborate handshake involving wiggling fingers and fist bumps and finish it off with double high fives.

Thompson, one of Leonard's best surgeons, starts chuckling beside him. His voice is so deep that Leonard can feel the vibration where their shoulders touch.

"What the hell was that?" Leonard asks.

"We're hyping up for the competition, sir!" The green eyed ensign grins, pumping her fist in the air. Leonard's seen her kind before. All enthusiasm and no common sense.

"Getting our game faces on." Worthington adds. He pulls his lips back away from his teeth in a snarl and squints at the rest of the group, belting out, "Come on! Let's see those game faces, people! You too, Doctor!"

Most everyone makes an effort. Despite himself, Leonard can feel his face pulling into something vaguely unpleasant.

"That's your 'What the fuck, Jim' face, Leonard." Chapel remarks while situating her bag of extra paintballs around her hips. "Not your game face."

"This is insane." He mutters.

"Hardly, Doctor." Spock replies, damn Vulcan hearing. Their motley crew of scientists and medics turn to give the Commander their undivided attention. "Though Worthington and Russel's intent was jovial in nature, they have each contributed a valuable analysis on our opponents' motivations. I'm interested, as you've known the Captain longer than I, to hear your assessment of his likely mindset."

Leonard blinks. His first thought is that Jim will approach this the same way he approaches every challenge, with a singular focus, using all of his tactical genius to his advantage. But that isn't really right. This isn't exactly a competition to Jim. For the crew it is, but for Jim it's an opportunity.

"Jim always wins. Always." Leonard starts. The younger members of the group look disheartened at this. "But what Jim considers to be a win depends on what his goal is. His goal here isn't to beat us-"

"Of course it is." A crewman from Hydro-Agriculture cuts him off, looking incredulous.

"Not for Jim" Leonard continues. "The game ends when one team gets beat, sure, but that's not the purpose. He's doing this to get the crew excited and involved. If one group gets disheartened because they get plowed into the ground, that's not a win for him. Don't get me wrong, he wants to get our flag and win that way too, but it's not his focus. He'll play it smart but not hard, if that makes sense."

"Your reasoning is sound, Doctor." A high compliment coming from Spock. "Given all that we've concluded, I anticipate that the Captain will leave a few competent individuals to guard the flag, taking the rest with him on the offensive. It is likely that he will send them in small groups, each employing different tactics as a practice exercise. We will gain some confidence through defeating earlier assaults while the last groups, employing what the Captain has determined to be the most effective methods, will defeat us soundly ending the game in their favor. Any attempts we make at their camp will be used as object lessons on what should not be done under similar circumstances."

Silence follows this brief and depressing analysis.

"Wow, Spock," Leonard drawls. "That was really inspiring. I feel real excited to kick ass now."

"I was merely extrapolating on the Captain's likely course of action." Spock quirks an eyebrow. He looks Leonard in the eye and almost smirks. "Now that we have an understanding of our opponents' motivations, their assessment of our own capabilities and have predicted the intended course of the engagement, we can better prepare our own strategy."

"And what's it going to be, fearless leader?" Leonard asks, genuinely intrigued by the look of mischief in the Vulcan's eyes.

"As our Captain once argued, when your enemy already knows what is going to transpire the only logical course of action is to be unpredictable."

"Play by their assumptions and then yank the carpet out from under them?" He's grinning now, about as big as everyone else. There's excited whispering going around the group and Leonard's thinking, as their single geologist pulls out a map of the area and starts comparing it to the false-color scans the botanists brought with them, that Jim has no idea what he's up against.

"Indeed." Spock replies, quirking an eyebrow.

"The sun's risen about four degrees since we beamed down," A lieutenant from Astrophysics says, lowering his polarization lenses. "At the planet's rate of rotation, I'd say we've got about an hour and a half to prepare."

"You've got an hour and forty five minutes." Cupcake, the designated ref for Team Blue's base camp, calls down from his perch up an evergreen-like tree. He takes a sip of hot chocolate from a thermos and salutes them with his other hand, DQ signal phaser held in a loose grip.

~*~

Riley shoulders his paintball gun and takes in the strange tree about thirty feet in front of him. It sorta looks like a willow, if willows were a violent shade of purple and moved with malicious intent instead of with the wind.

"What do you think happened here, Riley?" Jacobson whispers. He's crouched under an overhang a couple feet away from the pillar like tree Riley's pressed against, eyeing the giant willow-thing suspiciously.

Riley looks at the swaying branches, then at the exposed roots below. They raise above the ground a good five feet, would probably make a good site for an ambush if you dug under behind the thicker roots. Maybe that's what Team Blue had been planning but it hadn't worked out that way.

"Looks like our scientist friends got outsmarted by their subject." Riley says grinning. There are ammo belts held tightly by the branches, ripped down the sides from thorns probably, barely holding their contents. A shirt too, up a little higher. Riley laughs, not bothering to stay quiet now. Team Blue is long gone from here by now, tails between their legs. "They lost a lot of paintballs trying to set up an ambush under that thing!"

They make their way out from their cover, looking the tree up and down and laughing together. This'll be a funny story to tell when the match is over. Riley wonders what Sulu will think of it.

"That's so hilarious!" Jacobson says as they start heading around the tree. It flexes menacingly at them. "You'd think the botanists would have briefed everyone on the flora before they started setting up traps and things."

A single shot fires from somewhere to their right. Riley brings his gun up, hoping to catch the paintball on the shaft instead of on his chest. But the blue sphere doesn't hit him.

It doesn't hit Jacobson either.

It hits the tree.

A few moments later Riley blinks up at the sky. He can hear the tree's limbs thrashing wildly, the last of its ammo hitting the trees and ground with loud splats around them.

"Riley?"

"Yeah, Jacobson?"

"I think we just got pawned by a bunch of geeks."

"Eat that, Asteronavalis aurariatunicae!"

"Woot!"

~*~

Jim moves silently through the forest, placing each step carefully, testing the ground before he puts his full weight down. He's headed toward a short drop-off not too much farther ahead. His team had examined the map carefully before they'd even started to setup their own camp, making note of the most likely locations Spock might use for Team Blue. The drop-off looks over the most likely choice and has plenty of brush and weeds to hide in.

He's beginning to wonder if some of the task groups have gotten off course, or maybe if Spock had his team setup camp somewhere else, because Riley and Jacobson should have made their assault half an hour ago, the rest following every fifteen minutes on their mark.

The actual impact of a paintball doesn't make a very distinct noise but the shot from the gun carries really well, especially in the quiet serenity of an environment like this one. Jim's heard a few shots from his post along a nice, clear and easily spotted animal track while waiting for the scientists to make an attempt to sneak up on his camp. But not the kind of firing barrage he'd expect from a group defending their base from a head-on assault. Which is what Riley and Jacobson were supposed to be.

It's a little strange and set's his time table back, which is a bit annoying. He'd told his team that he wanted to have this all rapped up in time for dinner. A warm meal after a hard day kicking ass would make everybody feel better.

Jim's getting closer now. He takes a quick glance around, looking for movement or anything out of place. His eye catches on a poorly hidden trip wire.

He stops, looking at it, a little bemused. It's made from some local fiber, a stringy looking dried vine, and partially concealed by some leaves. He follows the vine with his eyes, up a tree with vertically striped bark, the vine just a tad too straight to really blend in, and up into the canopy.

Jim blinks.

There's a mess of vines up there and a couple wide strips of bark propped up, with a pair of someone's shoes tied at the bottom to weight them. A half dozen blue paintballs are glued to each strip with what looks like sap. He's not even sure the sorry, tangled looking booby trap would hit him if he had managed to trip the line.

He's trying to stay quiet because he thinks the Blue camp is just beyond the drop-off but the laughter bubbles up anyway. Jim clamps a hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking and daintily steps over the trip line. After a few more steps and some wheezing, he crouches and extends his arms, easing his weight from the balls of his feet out toward his hands and elbows. He needs to go the rest of the distance at a crawl if he wants to avoid being spotted.

He's half laid out when he hears someone whispering.

"Two degrees laterally... minus three vertically..." It's Lieutenant Gomez from Astrophysics, somewhere up in the trees ahead and to Jim's left. Setting up another booby trap by the sound of it. "A tad more... perfect."

He's just wondering how to go about sneaking up on the poor guy when he gets shot.

From behind.

In the ass.

"Ow! Holy fuck!" Jim yells, jumping to his feet.

"Sorry about that, Captain!" Gomez shouts, leaning out to look down at Jim from an over sized branch. He's got a couple vines clutched in each of his fists. "I thought I'd got it right this time, but it really is much harder to operate a gun via guide wires than I'd anticipated!"

"Via what?" Jim hisses, rubbing at the sticky paint on his ass. Gomez pulls the vines back and forth, nodding back the way Jim came. His eyes follow the movement back through the canopy.

There's a paintball gun suspended between a couple of branches, using the previous "booby trap" as camouflage. The barrel is swinging back and forth, almost looking disappointed in him.

"Holy fuck." Jim says again, because it bares repeating.

"You can head down to camp if you like." Gomez offers. "Nurse Chapel has a lovely salve that'll help with the stinging." He pauses for a moment, considering. "'Course, you'll have to wait in line behind Bailey and Ping. I got them in the ass too, I'm afraid."

"Holy. Fuck!"

~*~

"This is weird." Sulu mutters, looking out over the light brush and meadow grass separating their base from the line of trees. It's been nearly half an hour since their last contact with anyone else from their team. "What are they up to?"

"I am wonder why we have no prisoners." Chekov states from his spot kneeling behind their deadwood barricade.

"Maybe they haven't left their base yet." Patil throws out. She takes a drink from her water bottle and offers it around. Sulu declines but Chekov accepts, taking a long swallow. Patil glances through a sniper hole. "Maybe they're playing defense, trying to draw us out."

"Could be," Sulu concedes, scanning the trees for movement. "But that still doesn't explain why we haven't heard from anyone- wait! There's someone in the trees."

Sulu spreads his stance and lowers himself down until he's just peaking over the top of the barricade. Chekov whips around to get a look, handing Patil's water bottle back. She twists the cap on and picks up her paintball gun, taking a step back and turning to face the rear.

It takes a couple seconds before he spots it again, a rustling among the smaller trees at the forest's edge. He waits, sighting down the line of his gun. They'll make a move eventually and when they do, he'll get them.

There's a loud crack from the right and the whistle of a paintball flying over their heads.

"Diversion! Duck and sight!" Sulu shouts, pulling himself down. Chekov scampers past, moving to the adjacent wall. Patil raises her gun, still standing. Another crack sounds and blue paint blooms over her chest and shoulder.

"Shit!" She curses, dropping down. "Sorry! They're aim was such crap-"

"I get it." Sulu cuts off her explanation. He starts moving to kneel next to Chekov but glances back toward the initial sighting, in case something's changed. And something has. There are two guys from Team Blue already half way across the open expanse of ground. "In coming at forward!"

"Got you!" Chekov exclaims. Sulu can hear a shout from the right and then Chekov's next to him.

"Double diversion?" Patil mutters behind him.

Sulu pegs one guy in the stomach and winces in sympathy as he plows into the ground. He sees Chekov jump up out of the corner of his eye. A little too high for comfort but he gets a shot in before the second man can react.

"Yah, good shot!" He grins, pumping his fist into the air. Sulu grabs his friend's shirt and pulls him back down. Chekov looks at him sheepishly. "Oops."

"Yeah, oops." Sulu admonishes but he can't help laughing at Chekov's enthusiasm. "There could have been more of them. You could have got blasted doing something like that."

"I don't think there's any more, Sulu." Patil offers. "Chekov gave them a great target and there weren't any shots."

"I told you this wouldn't work!" One of the men in the field yells, getting to his feet.

"You didn't have any better ideas, Harrison!" A women calls from the tree line to their right, the snipper Chekov took out. "Ick! The paint's soaking through my shirt."

"What're we supposed to do now?" Sulu looks up over the barricade, just high enough to see what's going on. The second man is a guy from Xeno-botany, Stevens, who has specimens housed in the same lab where Sulu keeps Gertrude. "Oh hey, Sulu! Was that Chekov that got me?"

"Da! It was a good shot, yes?" Chekov calls, popping up again. Sulu rolls his eyes and tugs him back down.

"I suppose so." Stevens answers, sounding amused.

"We're supposed to sit around inside their base as captives or wherever we fell until the paint stops glowing and turns brown." The woman snaps. "You didn't listen to the briefing, did you?"

Sulu takes mercy on Stevens and Harrison, the poor guy Sulu pegged in the gut. He stands up to address them, figuring if no one's made a move by now then there isn't anyone to make one. Chekov follows, tsking at him. "We've got water if you'd like. Sorry about the – "

Sulu spots someone rising up to the left, just barely in his field of vision, so close to the barricade that they could reach out and touch it. He whips around and fires, adrenaline making his heart jump and skip. A second shot, fired from Chekov only a few inches from his head, makes his ears ring.

"Shit!" He gasps out, stunned. "I can't believe we nearly fell for that."

The barrage of paintballs that hit him from behind nearly send Sulu crashing to the ground.

He stumbles and manages to turn in time to see one last ball explode on their flagpole, raining blue paint down on Chekov's hair.

"That's more than adequate, Ensign." Spock takes long strides out of the trees, followed by an older woman, she's on of the regulars working in the hydro-gardens used by the mess, and another woman about his own age. She bounds ahead of them, jumps the barricade and extracts Team Gold's flag from its stand. She waits for her teammates to catch up to her, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Sulu looks over at Chekov. His back is plastered with blue paint and he's rubbing at the drops in his hair, looking a little deflated. Sulu's sure, if the oozing sensation between his shoulder blades is any indication, that he doesn't look any better.

"Aren't you going to start running?" Sulu asks the Ensign holding their flag in her hands.

"No point." She chirps, grinning at him.

"What do you mean, no point?" Chekov is still trying to get the glowing paint out of his curls. Only succeeding his spreading it further.

"There's no point because the rest of your team's already been captured." McCoy answers, levering himself up off the ground. There are two golden splotches covering his chest. "So there's no point running the flag back when there's no one who could win it back."

"Everyone?" Patil gasps, unbelieving.

"Indeed." Spock says, reaching the barricade. The woman from Hydro-Agriculture is looking particularity smug. Spock looks around at his gathering team then up at the flag. "Ensign Russel. I believe there was a particular set of activities which we are supposed to engage in at this time. What were they again?"

The ensign beams at the commander and salutes. "The customary ritual is to burn their fort, desecrate their totem and paint their faces with our clan's rune, sir! Destroying any claims of worth they might have as a unique sub-culture, sir!"

"Then we should proceed." Spock says, checking his chronometer. "If we are particularly efficient we will make it back to the Enterprise in time for the evening meal."

From her perch in a nearby tree Uhura, designated ref for Team Gold's camp, starts laughing with joyful abandon at the irony.

~*~

Rand shows up around the time Leonard's starting in on his pie. He smirks and raises his arm to point down at Jim, who's got his head resting on the table, still complaining about his ass.

"You're fine, so stop your whining." Leonard chuckles. Rand nods at him and drops her stack of PADDs next to her Captain's prone form. "Evening, Miss Rand."

"Evening, Doctor." She puts her hands on her hips and glares down at Jim, utterly unsympathetic. "Looks like you won't be playing that match with Operations, Captain! But that's okay, I've got lots of reacquisition forms to keep you busy."

"Janice, have mercy." Jim lifts his head up and gives the yeoman his most pathetic expression. "I've got a swirly, glowing, blue ball painted on my face."

"Good. Maybe next time you'll think twice before sassing the brains of this operation." She snaps, grabbing the first PADD off the stack and a stylus.

"I thought I was the brains of this operation." Jim whines, looking at the pile of paperwork.

"No, sir. Sciences is the brains. Operation's is the brawn and you are, on your better days, the balls." Rand smiles sweetly, holding out her preferred method of torture for Jim to take. "Now sign here, here and here."

Leonard offers her a slice of pie.

~*~

Team Blue gets absolutely slaughtered by Team Red the next day.

But it's worth it.

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END! :D