Songfic: An Offering
Title: An Offering
Fandom: Primeval
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~ 900 words
Content notes: AU to VSX and definitely AU to Primeval itself. Song lyrics are from the Honor Harrington filk "No Quarter". No original characters have been harmed in the writing of this. Mayhem and crack in the vein of Babylon, my first contribution to last years songfic set.
Summary: Legend has it that the foes one slays are one's Honor Guard on the other side.
Grayson's lost its champion; to God she has returned,
To stand before the Tester, in the state her rank has earned.
Our Lady needs an honor guard, an escort, and a crew,
And if you're the best available, I guess you'll have to do.
Jess had held her back ramrod straight as the empty coffin was lowered into the ground. Fee had been called to the site of an EOD incident and had recognised the handiwork and the gods-forsaken construct at the centre.
Someone had accessed Connor's notes. Someone had done more than access Connor's notes - they'd rebuilt the gods-be-damned abomination that the stupid boy had built for Burton, and then they'd taken it one step further and tied it to the boy's date detector and were using a scratch built micro reactor to power the wretched thing. The notes spread around the room - hanging from strings spiked into the ceiling and plastering the walls described the damn thing in detail - including the bomb it had been built around.
And her stupidly brave lover had kicked every other EOD expert out of the room and called the ARC. She'd demanded a cordon and Lester had hesitated until she descried what she was looking at and exactly what she intended to do Connor after this was over.
Ancient legends say the rank a fallen warrior held
Depended on an Honor Guard of foes that one had felled.
And so in tardy tribute to the one we couldn't save,
We'll lay your fiery deaths like crimson flowers on her grave.
Her lover had been a pagan and some bright spark at the ARC raised the legend about warriors and their honor guards. Jess had tried half-heartedly to explain that wasn't the tradition of paganism that her Fee had belonged to but the concept had rippled through the units that cycled through the ARC, carried with the tale of what she'd done.
The police couldn't find the culprit themselves, but from the pieces recovered at the site Connor had redeemed himself; he'd managed to pinpoint the times that the components had come from. And then he'd gone one step further and mapped out the route, and handed it to her Valkyries.
We know what Honor's ending was, by all the tapes we viewed.
And now we reach the battle; we are in no gentle mood.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry--
Because they all knew how Fee had died. Had watched the footage from the cameras she's carried into that room. Watched her hiss and spit and claw, trying to prevent a deliberately triggered cascade. Wilder had shot her in the back. Or at least a man who looked like him.
And Fee had turned and spat her own blood at him, calling down curses on him in the names of gods Jess knew she only ever offered sacrifices to avert things to. She'd managed to defuse the bomb and then he'd grabbed her, while she coughed up blood and stepped back into a forming anomaly. The final sound on the recording had been another gun shot, and the consensus was Fee had lost too much blood to have survived.
The Steadholder's recruiting, so pray don't surrender, sir.
Dame Harrington surrendered--once--and look what that got her!
We owe a debt of honor we have finally come to pay
And as we look you in the eye, we find one thing to say--
There had been something of a mutiny at the ARC after that - in part because some one higher up had refused to add Fee's name to the memorial at the Arboretum.
Connor found the anomaly they'd need to start with and eight soldiers had gone missing on that call-out, carrying full combat lgear and a rather unusual set of maps. They had one goal; vengeance and now they had a chance to take it, and hopeful to stop the idiots trying to destroy everything.
Fee had become a rallying point for the ARC. A banner to carry into battle against a foe that had opted out of the Rules of War … and if Fee was waiting in the otherworld then she deserved the best honour guard they could muster for her.
Put your arms in order, shine your boots and get them laced
You just might make the muster, but you don't have time to waste,
For if you pass inspection and she deems you fit to serve,
You might yet meet an honor that you bastards don't deserve.
Eight men and women who had spent months traveling through the anomalies should have been no match against a prepared base that had had months if not years to fortify itself, but they'd never allowed for this. For a group of people who'd decided that they didn't care whether they lived or died. Only for vengeance and honor.
Nine men and women came back through the final anomaly. Behind them a base burnt and an incident that would trigger one of the great extinctions began. And each of them (except the injured woman they carried) wore an unreptent smile as they named the honor guard that would be waiting on the other side of the veil for them.
No Quarter, NO QUARTER! You damn well earned your fate.
Give Harrington our compliments; we're sorry you are late.
Fandom: Primeval
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~ 900 words
Content notes: AU to VSX and definitely AU to Primeval itself. Song lyrics are from the Honor Harrington filk "No Quarter". No original characters have been harmed in the writing of this. Mayhem and crack in the vein of Babylon, my first contribution to last years songfic set.
Summary: Legend has it that the foes one slays are one's Honor Guard on the other side.
Grayson's lost its champion; to God she has returned,
To stand before the Tester, in the state her rank has earned.
Our Lady needs an honor guard, an escort, and a crew,
And if you're the best available, I guess you'll have to do.
Jess had held her back ramrod straight as the empty coffin was lowered into the ground. Fee had been called to the site of an EOD incident and had recognised the handiwork and the gods-forsaken construct at the centre.
Someone had accessed Connor's notes. Someone had done more than access Connor's notes - they'd rebuilt the gods-be-damned abomination that the stupid boy had built for Burton, and then they'd taken it one step further and tied it to the boy's date detector and were using a scratch built micro reactor to power the wretched thing. The notes spread around the room - hanging from strings spiked into the ceiling and plastering the walls described the damn thing in detail - including the bomb it had been built around.
And her stupidly brave lover had kicked every other EOD expert out of the room and called the ARC. She'd demanded a cordon and Lester had hesitated until she descried what she was looking at and exactly what she intended to do Connor after this was over.
Ancient legends say the rank a fallen warrior held
Depended on an Honor Guard of foes that one had felled.
And so in tardy tribute to the one we couldn't save,
We'll lay your fiery deaths like crimson flowers on her grave.
Her lover had been a pagan and some bright spark at the ARC raised the legend about warriors and their honor guards. Jess had tried half-heartedly to explain that wasn't the tradition of paganism that her Fee had belonged to but the concept had rippled through the units that cycled through the ARC, carried with the tale of what she'd done.
The police couldn't find the culprit themselves, but from the pieces recovered at the site Connor had redeemed himself; he'd managed to pinpoint the times that the components had come from. And then he'd gone one step further and mapped out the route, and handed it to her Valkyries.
We know what Honor's ending was, by all the tapes we viewed.
And now we reach the battle; we are in no gentle mood.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry--
Because they all knew how Fee had died. Had watched the footage from the cameras she's carried into that room. Watched her hiss and spit and claw, trying to prevent a deliberately triggered cascade. Wilder had shot her in the back. Or at least a man who looked like him.
And Fee had turned and spat her own blood at him, calling down curses on him in the names of gods Jess knew she only ever offered sacrifices to avert things to. She'd managed to defuse the bomb and then he'd grabbed her, while she coughed up blood and stepped back into a forming anomaly. The final sound on the recording had been another gun shot, and the consensus was Fee had lost too much blood to have survived.
The Steadholder's recruiting, so pray don't surrender, sir.
Dame Harrington surrendered--once--and look what that got her!
We owe a debt of honor we have finally come to pay
And as we look you in the eye, we find one thing to say--
There had been something of a mutiny at the ARC after that - in part because some one higher up had refused to add Fee's name to the memorial at the Arboretum.
Connor found the anomaly they'd need to start with and eight soldiers had gone missing on that call-out, carrying full combat lgear and a rather unusual set of maps. They had one goal; vengeance and now they had a chance to take it, and hopeful to stop the idiots trying to destroy everything.
Fee had become a rallying point for the ARC. A banner to carry into battle against a foe that had opted out of the Rules of War … and if Fee was waiting in the otherworld then she deserved the best honour guard they could muster for her.
Put your arms in order, shine your boots and get them laced
You just might make the muster, but you don't have time to waste,
For if you pass inspection and she deems you fit to serve,
You might yet meet an honor that you bastards don't deserve.
Eight men and women who had spent months traveling through the anomalies should have been no match against a prepared base that had had months if not years to fortify itself, but they'd never allowed for this. For a group of people who'd decided that they didn't care whether they lived or died. Only for vengeance and honor.
Nine men and women came back through the final anomaly. Behind them a base burnt and an incident that would trigger one of the great extinctions began. And each of them (except the injured woman they carried) wore an unreptent smile as they named the honor guard that would be waiting on the other side of the veil for them.
No Quarter, NO QUARTER! You damn well earned your fate.
Give Harrington our compliments; we're sorry you are late.