I waited until this was all posted before I gave it a read because I've never seen an ep of NCIS. I gathered what Ziva looked like from your icon, but I deliberately resisted searching out the other character online, to see the story as written only. It worked very nicely, detailed enough that even a non-NCIS fan could follow along and be absolutely riveted. I particularly enjoyed your characterizations of Lorne and Sheppard, the minutia and details it takes to make the day-to-day operations of that sort of military operation work. Definitely rang true to this casual observer. That, and your bad guy alien monster was classily done. All in all, a fun romp.