[Fic] A Fucking Greek Tragedy (M) - Part VI
Sorry this is short. Jim's POV is next, I just wanted to give this over to you now. I should have the next part out in a few hours.
( Part V)
Part VI - Daedalus
[ Olduvai - N.E. sewer system, pipe 41A ]
Reaper swore as he heard something other than him clanking through the ancient halls. It was another infected no doubt. The Marine raised the sights of his gun, sweeping the dank tunnel steadily. Unlike the last time he’d been down here, Reaper had no need for a flashlight. His eyesight had greatly improved after Sam had injected him with C-24, giving him superior night vision.
It was proving o be very handy now. He would be able to spot his targets without worrying about the light revealing his location. He tread carefully across the grating, trying to minimize the amount of sound he was making, hoping that the steady hum of the lights was enough to help cover his tracks.
Something clanked, the noise coming from the right of the junction just in front of him. He paused, just before rounding the corner, pausing to see if there would be any more noise to pinpoint his target’s location. His patience was rewarded, hearing a low growl up ahead.
Reaper moved to fast around the corner, gun raised, finger ready on the trigger. There was, however, no target around the junction.
“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath. There was an open hatch to the left a few metres down the tunnel, the stench of two hundred year old sewage making him wrinkle his nose. John stalked over to the hatch, slinging his rifle over his shoulder as he climbed down the ladder. It was quite possible that his target had escaped down a level.
Reaper had cleared out the main level of the research wing, going from hall to hall, room to room, systematically barring doors and locking sewage hatches behind him in an attempt to keep the coast behind him clear. Still, there was no sign of Sarge.
So, as he had been doing for the past thirty minutes, reached up to close and lock the hatch shut, eliminating the possibilities of creatures escaping up and sneaking back down right behind him.
His hand was half way to the open hatch when he heard two noises at the same time. One was the splash of displaced water, the other the scrape of flesh on metal grating. Faster than he could react, one clawed hand grabbed his extended wrist from above, another unforgiving grip fast on one of his legs, trying to drag him down. Each pulled with tremendous force, enough to pulled his arm out of its socket and strain his pelvic muscles.
The man howled viciously, his cry of anger and pain mixing with the demonic howls of the mutants doing their very best to tear him in two. Instinct and training took over. He was dangling in mid air, being pulled and thrashed about, hitting the ladder and the ceiling of the tunnel painfully several times. Reaper pulled out a pistol with his free hand, aiming and shooting at the creature above him, as that was the easiest target.
The creature shrieked and abruptly let go, sending John slamming back down into the tunnel with more than the simple force of gravity. He sunk easily below the water and crashed to the metal floor below, the landing painful due to the gun still at his back. The force of his impact drove the air out of his lungs in a spout of bubbles, winding him momentarily.
As the first creature tried to drag him away, the one from above landed on top of him, pinning him to the ground as its claws tore at him, searching for his throat. Reaper felt the snap of his shoulder popping back into place on its own, allowing him to reach up and grab hold of the thing that was drying to drown him and tear him to bits.
The other creature mustn’t have like the competition, as it let go of Reaper’s foot and all but shoved the other one out of the way, trying to sink its claws into his vulnerable gut. No longer so totally pinned to the ground, Reaper grabbed the mutated arms around his throat, pulling the creature over his head and back into the ground behind him. All the while he drove his knee into the other creature’s skull, dazing it enough that he could pull away from the things that were spearing him to the tunnel floor by his neck and his guts.
He yanked his rifle back into his arms as he stood, coughing up water and blood, wound healing instantly. Reaper executed the demons flawlessly, one shot to the head, one to the heart. Satisfied that the creatures were really good and dead, he climbed the ladder once more and sealed the hatch.
Tasting copper in his mouth, he spat out another mouthful of blood, rubbing the tingling new skin of his throat. It wasn’t his first time wounded either. Reaper had encountered a Hell Knight in the infirmary, gnawing on Destroyer’s dry bones. The beast had picked up a catheter stand, snapped it in two and had impaled him to the wall. With the creature so close, Reaper had dutifully turned the hulking thing into Swiss cheese. It had been a bitch to free himself of the wall, and hurt like hell too, but he just grit his teeth and moved on, healing in seconds.
This was why Jim couldn’t be here. This was why he had to be on the Enterprise, away from this death trap of a planet.
“Twenty-five minutes.” The computer reminded him over his comm. Shit, he had to get a move on. Twenty-five minutes wasn’t a hell of a lot of time to hunt down Sarge and haul ass off of this rock and back to Jim.
And he had to get back to Jim. He’d made a promise, one he fully intended to keep.
Snapping in another clip, he sloshed through the grey water, gun and eyes sweeping every inch with an unnatural efficiency. Sarge was here somewhere, in this wing. He could feel it.
\---\
Ten minutes later found him half way through the sewer system, with only one zombie to show for it. Still no Sarge. He had entered the sewers as close to the Weapons Lab as he could, as it was the point furthest from the Dig Airlock and the Atrium. He was working his way back there now, and was almost underneath the infirmary, and not that far from the washrooms. John recalled Portman being thrown around and beaten like a meaty piñata, The Kid’s fingers to the man’s neck long enough to pronounce him dead.
A low rumble snapped him back to the ready, turning towards to source of the noise. It had been a low, deep-throated growl. Whatever it was, it was big. It was coming from near the washrooms. Recalling the map in his mind, he knew that there was a huge junction of pipes there. He could hear the water pouring from all the pipes into that one place.
Reaper kept his movements slow and fluid, preventing the water from rippling loudly and being heard by the creature, the demon ahead. One step, two… his breathing was steady, his aim unshaking. Reaper was in his element, right now, a deadly hunter. Oh how John had missed this. As much as he loved being a doctor, helping people and saving lives, there was nothing quite like the thrill of a mission, the smell of gun oil in his nose, the tingle of adrenalin in his blood.
His comm. crackled to life.
“Bones! Bones are you there?” Reaper froze, praying that whatever was ahead of him hadn’t heard. “God dammit McCoy, do you copy?” There was a wicked snarl that sounded almost like a chuckle, the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. Reaper shouldered his gun and planted his feet.
“Shit,” he hissed, hoping that his comm. was still on.
“Bones!” It was Jim alright. What the fuck was that idiot doing back on Mars? Leonard swore that if they got out of this, he was going flay whoever let the Brat off that ship alive. “Come on, get the fuck out of wherever you are and let’s go.” The creature was almost there now, taking heavy, purposeful steps towards the ex-Marine.
“Jim,” the creature rounded the corner. Even after two hundred years of mutation, he would recognize his former CO anywhere. “Run.” Reaper opened fire. He may as well have been throwing stones for all the good it did. Sarge roared and knocked his gun aside, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him off of his feet, crushing his airway.
“Bones!” Oh shit, the Brat was listening to all of this. The sound started to tunnel, becoming farther and farther as spots began to dance across his vision.
“Welcome back, Reaper,” Sarge ground out the words around his huge yellowed teeth, foul breath invading his nose. “Glad to see you brought friends.” Another mighty squeeze crushed John’s spine, making his body go limp while his head, his brain was still alive and working. But only just. “I was getting a little hungry.” There was a vague sense of motion before his skull collided with the metal walls of the tunnel, crushing his skull.
Everything went black.
( Part VII)