[Fic] A Fucking Greek Tragedy (M) - Part IV
( Part III)
Part IV - Pandora
[ Olduvai - outside of Atrium Airlock ]
It didn’t take any time for the away team to get through the airlock this time as the airlock wasn’t sealed, a fact which served to put Reaper’s teeth on edge. Didn’t that thing lock behind him and Sam? Did he leave it open? Those few minutes between fetching Sam and jumping through the Arc was still all a blur, so he couldn’t feel sure. Regardless, it put his hackles up.
He was glad that most of the carnage was on Earth instead of on Mars. He didn’t think he could remain Bones in that situation. Then again, while it would have been bad for his cover, it would have been more likely to press the seriousness of their situation in the ‘infant Captain’.
“Hey Bones, check this out!” Bones tried (and failed) to repress an eye roll at Jim’s antics. Looking over, he saw that Jim had something in his hand. It was about the length of his palm, black, and vaguely cylindrical in shape. “I wonder what this is.” Reaper felt the blood drain from his face.
“Freeze!” The Captain stopped dead in his tracks, completely shocked at his CMO’s outburst. John almost ran to his CO, whipping the ST grenade from his hands, disarming and disassembling the weapon in a few quick, precise movements.
“What the hell Bones?”
“Are you trying to get us killed, Captain?” Shit. Reaper had called him ‘Captain’. He’s supposed to be Leonard Horatio ‘call me Bones’ McCoy. Bones doesn’t call him Captain. Bones calls him Jim, or kid, or an infant, or Brat (though that last one applies for both). He mentally backtracks, trying to salvage the situation. “This is an ST grenade, an old hand held explosive that would have blasted us all sky high if you’d activated it. My God man, how many times have I told you not to touch things?”
Jim is a bit more relaxed now that he’s falling back into his old spitfire tongue-lashing. He’s still slightly wary; he didn’t miss his slip up, he still knows that something’s up, but he’s willing to let it go. For now. As soon as they get back onto the ship, it’s going to be a good old fashioned Spanish Inquisition for him. That’s fine, he thinks. That’s fine, I’ll tell him. I’ll risk it. But not now. They don’t have time for distractions right now. Jim knows this too and gets back to work.
“Alright people, let’s move into the Arc Room and get some lights on!” They file in through the hole in the last airlock, crouching down in order to fit through the irregular quadrangle. The room is dark, except for the faint blinking light at one of the computer consoles.
It took the team twelve minutes of button mashing, wire crossing, and a lot of swearing before there was a faint groan as the generators came back to life. The emergency lights flickered on, casting an eerie glow on everything. The lights around the Arc itself stuttered and coughed before dying completely.
“Arc chamber is offline-offline-offline -“ A feminine voice crackled over the system. “System is dam-dam-damaged-d-d-d … commencing emergency p-p-proce-e-edures.” John couldn’t look away from the Arc, even as Jim started yelling at the team to override the system.
The area around the Arc was charred and warped from the grenade he’d tossed through. He found the odd melted lumps of plastic from Sarge’s comm. unit, even the slagged remains of his tags. But no physical remains of Sarge. There were stains underneath the ash, flaking away at his touch like old paint.
Or blood. It was too dark, too thick for human blood, but Sarge hadn’t been human when Reaper had tried to blast him back to hell. He saw the stain drag away from the center for a few feet before it disappeared. He wet his fingers and crushed the flaking blood between them, lifting his smudged fingers to his nose and inhaling deeply. It smelled of iron and death and infection.
“Activating R-R-RRTS kill cams,” the computer coughed. “Goat - terminated. Mac - terminated. Destroyer - terminated. Portman - terminated. Duke - no signal…..terminated. Reaper - active, locking onto position, please remain still. Linking communications unit and video surveillance to server.” John didn’t need to look at the terminal to know what the team was going to see in five, four, three, two, one.
“Staff Sergeant John Grimm now linked to system.”
“What the fuck?” The team had gathered around the console, glaring incomprehensibly as the screen showed their CMO, who was rifling through his oversized med kit, putting a low-tech comm. unit in his ear and pulling out another smaller duffel bag out and slinging it over his shoulder before joining them at the station. Their eyes were all on him now, but John had bigger problems now than his cover being blown.
“Computer,” John voice was sharp, commanding, losing all of Leonard’s Georgian drawl, his Bones persona subdued in the presence of Olduvai. “Locate Gunnery Sergeant Asher Mahonin, codename Sarge.” The terminal whirred as its dusty hard drive kicked in.
“Bones, what the fuck is going on here?” Jim was at his side, face close to him, stance unmistakably confrontational. John ignored him as he took off his blue science shirt, pulling out his old jacket and flack vest from the duffel bag. “God dammit McCoy, I order you to answer me!”
“Not now, Jim.” Reaper kicked off his shoes and slid his old fatigues over his Starfleet regulation pants and lacing up combat boots with well-practiced speed. He slipped on some fingerless gloves before stuffing his pockets with as much ammo and grenades as he possibly could.
“Don’t you fucking dare tell me that Leonard!” Jim’s eyes were dark, confused, and angry. “I am your Captain and I order you to explain to me what the hell is going on here. Who the fuck are you?”
“Jim…” John was cut off as the feminine voice echoed through the chamber.
“Confirmed. Codename Sarge is active. Research wing. Una-a-a-able to establish visual co-o-ontact or specific location.”
“Shit!” He was alive. Sarge was fucking alive and had had two hundred fucking years to mutate. He turned to the yellow-shirted Captain, grabbing his upper arms and forcing the two of them to make eye contact.
“I need you to listen very carefully to me Jim. I need you to take the away team with you and to get your asses back on the Enterprise as fast as you can, got it?”
“Fuck no!” he spat, prying himself out of the man’s grip. “If you want us to get the hell outta dodge, then you’re coming with us and that’s final.”
“For fuck’s sake James, we don’t have time for this bullshit!” He reached into his bag and drew out a 65mm pistol, tossing it to Jim to force him to grab it. “You get out of here and you get ready to blow this place sky high. Keep low, stay together, shoot anything that moves. Once in the head, once in the heart.” John touched his own temple and chest to show just how damned serious he was.
“I don’t know how phaser’s will work, but that SOB should do the trick. If you don’t hear back from me in an hour, don’t wait up for me.” He finally pulled his assault rifle from his gear.
“Handle ID: Reaper.” Reaper closed his eyes for a moment to enjoy the totally inappropriate feeling of coming home. He looked at Jim in the eye, electric blue glaring furiously at his own hazel ones.
“Don’t you fucking dare Bones,” he cautioned, hand tightening around the pistol he’d been given.
“I promise to tell you everything when this is over Jim.” He gave a small sad smile before turning to the airlock. He didn’t stop or turn around when he heard the familiar click of the pistol’s safety being turned off.
“Doctor McCoy,” the Captain’s voice was dark and full of warning. “Stop where you are and drop your weapon. That’s an order.”
“With all due respect, Captain,” he called over his shoulder. “Fuck orders.”
A shot fired and he stumbled a bit at he felt a biting pain in his thigh. It was brief, and his wound closed almost as fast as it had appeared and he finally turned back to Jim. His blue eyes were wide with shock, either from the fact that he had actually shot his long-time friend or because said friend wasn’t even bleeding he couldn’t be sure.
“I’m sorry, Jim.” With that, he whipped out the phaser he still had equipped and set to stun and shot Jim dead centre in the middle of his chest faster than was humanly possible. The man collapsed into an unconscious heap on the floor. John sighed as he heard the sound of four phasers charging and prepped to shoot him. Indeed, when he looked up, he saw that the rest of the away team had their weapons trained on him.
“The Captain has been emotionally compromised,” he stated bluntly, allowing some of his drawl to slip back into his speech, hoping to remind them of who exactly they were dealing with. “As CMO I hereby declare the Captain unfit for duty until he can be cleared by the medical staff back on the Enterprise.
“As I am now your new CO, your orders are to grab the Captain and get him and yourselves out of here and back on the Enterprise by any means necessary. You are to treat any unknown life forms with extreme prejudice and are to shoot to kill. When you return to the Enterprise, you are to relay my orders for the destruction of the Olduvai facility in one hour to First Officer Spock. Is that understood?”
The red shirts stood there for a few moments, dazed and confused before John barked at them again, asking if they understood. They did, and he left them to their own devices. He looked back at Jim’s unconscious form on the Arc chamber, wondering if he was making the right choice. At the sight of the young man’s face, he knew he was.
For Jim. Anything for Jim. Shouldering his rifle, he took a deep whiff of the air. He had unfinished business to attend to.
( Part V)