Primeval fic: Aphrodite Rising (Part 1)
Title: Aphrodite Rising Part 1
Author: knitekat
Word Count: ~2135 (of 9430)
Characters: Tom Ryan, James Lester, OCs and guest appearances from Fred's SFOCs
Rating: 18
Disclaimer: Primeval belongs to Impossible Pictures. Certainly not me. Writing for fun and will replace.
A/N: For my Primeval bingo card prompt: Rayguns (4/25). Prequel for my Unearthing An Anomaly Space AU series. Thanks goes to Fififolle for the beta and suggestions. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5
Ryan groaned softly as he slumped into the rickety chair in his sparse quarters. What a fucking day! He'd known this mission would be a fucking nightmare as soon as he'd read the mission brief but it was worse than he'd imagined.
Venus. He gave a wry smile as he remembered the advert for colonists back before he'd joined up and made the military his life. A world of opportunity. Where anyone could make their fortune.. He supposed that bit was the truth, even if it was stretched almost to the breaking point. Venus was full of valuable resources just waiting for someone to discover them and make a killing selling them to the highest bidder and that was what had lead to the current situation.
Much of the surface of Venus was hot and wet, a mixture of shallow seas, steaming tropical jungles, bogs, swamps and marsh under a perpetual overcast sky. The remaining twenty or so percent consisted of the marginally cooler, drier highlands, it was also where every permanent settlement was to be found.
The problem had been that all the riches were in the lowlands and so valuable that claim jumping had become rife, which had lead to self-protection groups forming which, in turn, became cartels and usually corrupt ones at that. Murder and accidental deaths had risen to an all-time high and when the authorities sent troops in to restore order, all hell had broken loose.
Now Venus was a patchwork of factions in constantly shifting alliances and sporadic overt and covert conflict. It was hell for those unfortunate enough to be at the bottom of society. Those too poor or weak to defend themselves often ended up as little more than slaves to those in power and usually didn't last long, between the disregard most overseers had for them and the dangers of the lowlands themselves. Life was cheap on Venus and everyone knew it, it was death that could be expensive.
Not that the authorities had given up on Venus, it was too bloody valuable - between the medical marvels and addictive drugs produced from a wide range of animal and plant life. They sent in cadre forces to train the local populace to fight the cartels; which was why he found himself on this miserable mud-ball excuse of a planet with orders to help train up the population of Nike, a ramshackle settlement on the eastern edge of the Aphrodite Highlands, until they could defend themselves from the cartels. If possible, they were to turn them into a guerilla group to help take back the planet from the criminal elements.
Ryan snorted, like that had worked over the centuries; they'd train guerillas only to find themselves fighting the very groups the previous soldiers had trained. He knew the guerillas would turn against them as soon as the authorities tried to exert any control over Venus, not wanting to lose their hard-earned freedoms. He shook his head, not that was any concern of his, he had his orders and would follow them, even as he watched his back for traitors. The cartels would pay handsomely for a Security Forces soldier, both for the information that could be extracted and for The Games.
Ryan rubbed his face and stifled a yawn as his thoughts continued. On top of all the armed groups running around - not literally, of course, running on Venus was a good way to die - there were all the other interested parties. The corporations eager for a slice of the biological bonanza and a variety of spooks infiltrating everyone. It was a bloody mess and he felt sorry for the poor bastards who'd believed that advert and didn't have the credits to get off-world again.
“Penny for them.”
Ryan glanced up to meet the concerned eyes of his CO, one Captain Fielder. “Just wool-gathering, sir.”
“Tough day, Ryan?” The grizzled older man held out one of the self-heating pseudo-coffee drinks for Ryan to take before he pulled the tab on his own drink.
“I think herding cats would be easier, boss.” Ryan paused to sip his drink, pulling a face at the familiar but not quite correct taste. “This shit doesn't get better.”
“Drink enough of it and it will,” Fielder murmured before assuming a serious expression. “What happened?”
“I had to head off a couple of hot-heads.” Ryan groaned at the memory. “They were convinced they were invincible now we've given them some training. They wanted to take a skimmer right into the Foster Cartel's main base.” He shook his head. “Took me half a fucking hour to talk sense into them and then only because the mayor showed up and agreed with me.”
“About what we expected.” Fielder ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Right, leave them to Brooks to worry about. I've got a new job for you, Ryan.”
“Boss?” Ryan would take anything over trying to knock sense into idiots.
“I need you to show a couple of spooks around Nike. Take them out on a couple of training missions so they can see what we're doing here.”
“Fuck!” Ryan groaned, OK, maybe not anything. “I should have known something was up when you turned up with this muck.” Ryan nodded at his pseudo-coffee.
“Lovely to meet you as well, Lieutenant,” a smooth voice almost purred from the open door.
Ryan glared at the intruder, noting the man's slight form and his unsuitable for Venus suit. Just what he needed, babysitting a bloody wet-behind-the-ears spook. At least, that was Ryan's opinion until he met the man's eyes - clear, green, intelligent and bloody calculating.
“James Lester,” the spook introduced himself. “My SO, Jack McKenzie, is getting settled in but he wanted me to report in.” Ryan bit back a snort - that meant bloody McKenzie was no doubt snooping around the base while Lester distracted them. Lester turned his attention back to Ryan. “And we're not here to interfere, our job is to observe and report back to SF Command.”
“And if you don't like what you see?” Ryan had to push, he had to know where they stood with the spooks.
Lester smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. “Let's just hope that doesn't happen.” He nodded to both men. “Captain Fielder, McKenzie will expect an itinerary by the morning. Gentlemen.” He turned and strolled away, obviously already knowing his way around the base.
“Fuck, Ryan, you do like to live dangerous,” Fielder remarked as he put his feet up and savoured his pseudo-coffee.
“Just like to know where I stand, sir.” Ryan sipped his own drink before remembering just how bad it was. “I don't trust spooks.”
“They are our spooks, Ryan,” Fielder murmured. “Now, sort out an itinerary and try not to get into a pissing contest with Lester.”
“Yes, sir.” Ryan wondered if McKenzie would tell Lester the same if and when he heard about the encounter.
***
Ryan had put the unlocked hatch down to someone being in too much of a hurry to get out of the rain to follow proper procedure. At least, he had until the pulser malfunction almost blew the hand off one of the trainees. Ryan had no proof that either of the events had been deliberate sabotage, but he couldn't shake the feeling they were, even though he knew it could be because he distrusted the bloody spooks. He started to look more closely at things, to pay attention to people and where they were and to anything which went wrong.
It was then he noticed Lester, of course, the spook could have made the same connection as he had but... he was a bloody spook. Trained in all dark arts and sabotage had to be one of those skills. Still, Ryan knew he couldn't just go to Fielder with his suspicions, his CO would need proof and for that, Ryan would need to set a trap.
Ryan smiled when he saw the dead generator. He levered open the access hatch and cursed when he saw the damage, he wasn't sure it could be fixed. Not that he was concerned about that right now, no, what he needed to do was to check the footage from the bug he'd set up and he'd have got the bastard responsible. He stood and pried the false cover he'd positioned to cover the bug and cursed when he saw it had been fried by a pulser blast. Fuck! If the saboteur knew someone was on to him... his gaze turned back to the generator and he frowned, if he'd known, why sabotage what was obviously a trap?
He crouched down and peered into its inners, his frown turning into a smile when he noticed the spot of blood on the casing. It looked as if his saboteur had grown cocky and hadn't been careful once he'd discovered the bug... unless he'd noticed the bug afterwards. Ryan shook his head and pulled the analyser out to take a sample, in a matter of moments he'd know the identity of the traitor.
His eyes narrowed as the analyser bleeped and he saw the name. Fucking typical. He needed to find Fielder now he had evidence of the traitor in their midst. He'd only taken five steps when bursts of pulser fire had him flattening himself against the wall. He was too bloody late to stop the attack. Fuck! As much as he wanted to take Lester down, revenge wasn't his priority. Standing orders in this situation were to evade and escape, to call in reinforcements and re-take the base.
He paused for a moment before holstering his pulser and drawing his Carbo-titanium combat blade, it could be just as deadly in the right hands and had the added bonus of being silent. Something he desperately needed if he was to escape undetected. He moved cautiously along the corridor, creeping from doorway to corner to shadow, his every sense alert as he sought to avoid the enemy.
Ryan froze when he thought he heard a noise, was that footsteps? He cursed silently before he moved back the way he'd come and lost the valuable feet he'd gain. He eased into one of the empty rooms he'd checked earlier and pulled the door shut. He held his breath as he pressed himself into a dark corner, knowing he could do nothing but hope the footsteps - if that was what they truly were - would continue past him.
It really wasn't Ryan's day when the door open and someone slipped inside, closing the door behind them. He smiled when he realised who the man was and drew his pulser to point at the man's back. “Security Forces not paying you enough, Lester?”
Lester spun around, his pulser raised at Ryan. “What the fuck are you on about?” He sounded genuinely confused and Ryan would give him that, well, if the man wasn't a spook and trained to lie.
“You knew I was on to you when you fried my bug. Is that why you called in your cartel friends?” Ryan's finger flexed on the trigger. “But you made a mistake, you left blood behind.”
Lester snorted, his expression one of amusement. “My dear Ryan, if I had sabotaged anything, do you really think I'd have left evidence behind? Someone is trying to frame me.”
“Or maybe you just didn't think anyone would check once they realised you knew about the trap. We're only stupid colonists and thick soldiers.”
“I can assure you, Lieutenant, that I don't think you are stupid,” Lester informed Ryan, before adding, “I didn't betray the base, Ryan.” Lester met his gaze unflinchingly before he sighed and lowered his own pulser. “I'm not the enemy but if you want to shoot me, do make sure you do it right.”
“Or?” Ryan asked, impressed by the spook's courage despite himself. Not that he relaxed his guard for a minute, the spook was just trying to distract him and he wasn't going to fall for it.
“You'll live to regret it if I live.” Lester's eyes flickered towards the door as more footsteps approached and he moved away from it, further into the room where he proceeded to ignore Ryan and began to rewire an internal hatch instead. “Either you believe me and we do our best to evade the cartel's hired thugs or you can try to shoot me, but that will just bring them running. I wouldn't advise the latter option, their hospitality is rather lacking.”
Ryan's finger caressed the trigger again as the sound of footsteps grew closer. “Planning on keeping me talking until your friends turn up?”
“For Fuck's sake,” Lester cried. “I don't work for the bloody cartel.”
The door slammed open and a hard voice yelled out, “Drop them weapons or die.”
Part 2
Author: knitekat
Word Count: ~2135 (of 9430)
Characters: Tom Ryan, James Lester, OCs and guest appearances from Fred's SFOCs
Rating: 18
Disclaimer: Primeval belongs to Impossible Pictures. Certainly not me. Writing for fun and will replace.
A/N: For my Primeval bingo card prompt: Rayguns (4/25). Prequel for my Unearthing An Anomaly Space AU series. Thanks goes to Fififolle for the beta and suggestions. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5
Ryan groaned softly as he slumped into the rickety chair in his sparse quarters. What a fucking day! He'd known this mission would be a fucking nightmare as soon as he'd read the mission brief but it was worse than he'd imagined.
Venus. He gave a wry smile as he remembered the advert for colonists back before he'd joined up and made the military his life. A world of opportunity. Where anyone could make their fortune.. He supposed that bit was the truth, even if it was stretched almost to the breaking point. Venus was full of valuable resources just waiting for someone to discover them and make a killing selling them to the highest bidder and that was what had lead to the current situation.
Much of the surface of Venus was hot and wet, a mixture of shallow seas, steaming tropical jungles, bogs, swamps and marsh under a perpetual overcast sky. The remaining twenty or so percent consisted of the marginally cooler, drier highlands, it was also where every permanent settlement was to be found.
The problem had been that all the riches were in the lowlands and so valuable that claim jumping had become rife, which had lead to self-protection groups forming which, in turn, became cartels and usually corrupt ones at that. Murder and accidental deaths had risen to an all-time high and when the authorities sent troops in to restore order, all hell had broken loose.
Now Venus was a patchwork of factions in constantly shifting alliances and sporadic overt and covert conflict. It was hell for those unfortunate enough to be at the bottom of society. Those too poor or weak to defend themselves often ended up as little more than slaves to those in power and usually didn't last long, between the disregard most overseers had for them and the dangers of the lowlands themselves. Life was cheap on Venus and everyone knew it, it was death that could be expensive.
Not that the authorities had given up on Venus, it was too bloody valuable - between the medical marvels and addictive drugs produced from a wide range of animal and plant life. They sent in cadre forces to train the local populace to fight the cartels; which was why he found himself on this miserable mud-ball excuse of a planet with orders to help train up the population of Nike, a ramshackle settlement on the eastern edge of the Aphrodite Highlands, until they could defend themselves from the cartels. If possible, they were to turn them into a guerilla group to help take back the planet from the criminal elements.
Ryan snorted, like that had worked over the centuries; they'd train guerillas only to find themselves fighting the very groups the previous soldiers had trained. He knew the guerillas would turn against them as soon as the authorities tried to exert any control over Venus, not wanting to lose their hard-earned freedoms. He shook his head, not that was any concern of his, he had his orders and would follow them, even as he watched his back for traitors. The cartels would pay handsomely for a Security Forces soldier, both for the information that could be extracted and for The Games.
Ryan rubbed his face and stifled a yawn as his thoughts continued. On top of all the armed groups running around - not literally, of course, running on Venus was a good way to die - there were all the other interested parties. The corporations eager for a slice of the biological bonanza and a variety of spooks infiltrating everyone. It was a bloody mess and he felt sorry for the poor bastards who'd believed that advert and didn't have the credits to get off-world again.
“Penny for them.”
Ryan glanced up to meet the concerned eyes of his CO, one Captain Fielder. “Just wool-gathering, sir.”
“Tough day, Ryan?” The grizzled older man held out one of the self-heating pseudo-coffee drinks for Ryan to take before he pulled the tab on his own drink.
“I think herding cats would be easier, boss.” Ryan paused to sip his drink, pulling a face at the familiar but not quite correct taste. “This shit doesn't get better.”
“Drink enough of it and it will,” Fielder murmured before assuming a serious expression. “What happened?”
“I had to head off a couple of hot-heads.” Ryan groaned at the memory. “They were convinced they were invincible now we've given them some training. They wanted to take a skimmer right into the Foster Cartel's main base.” He shook his head. “Took me half a fucking hour to talk sense into them and then only because the mayor showed up and agreed with me.”
“About what we expected.” Fielder ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Right, leave them to Brooks to worry about. I've got a new job for you, Ryan.”
“Boss?” Ryan would take anything over trying to knock sense into idiots.
“I need you to show a couple of spooks around Nike. Take them out on a couple of training missions so they can see what we're doing here.”
“Fuck!” Ryan groaned, OK, maybe not anything. “I should have known something was up when you turned up with this muck.” Ryan nodded at his pseudo-coffee.
“Lovely to meet you as well, Lieutenant,” a smooth voice almost purred from the open door.
Ryan glared at the intruder, noting the man's slight form and his unsuitable for Venus suit. Just what he needed, babysitting a bloody wet-behind-the-ears spook. At least, that was Ryan's opinion until he met the man's eyes - clear, green, intelligent and bloody calculating.
“James Lester,” the spook introduced himself. “My SO, Jack McKenzie, is getting settled in but he wanted me to report in.” Ryan bit back a snort - that meant bloody McKenzie was no doubt snooping around the base while Lester distracted them. Lester turned his attention back to Ryan. “And we're not here to interfere, our job is to observe and report back to SF Command.”
“And if you don't like what you see?” Ryan had to push, he had to know where they stood with the spooks.
Lester smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. “Let's just hope that doesn't happen.” He nodded to both men. “Captain Fielder, McKenzie will expect an itinerary by the morning. Gentlemen.” He turned and strolled away, obviously already knowing his way around the base.
“Fuck, Ryan, you do like to live dangerous,” Fielder remarked as he put his feet up and savoured his pseudo-coffee.
“Just like to know where I stand, sir.” Ryan sipped his own drink before remembering just how bad it was. “I don't trust spooks.”
“They are our spooks, Ryan,” Fielder murmured. “Now, sort out an itinerary and try not to get into a pissing contest with Lester.”
“Yes, sir.” Ryan wondered if McKenzie would tell Lester the same if and when he heard about the encounter.
***
Ryan had put the unlocked hatch down to someone being in too much of a hurry to get out of the rain to follow proper procedure. At least, he had until the pulser malfunction almost blew the hand off one of the trainees. Ryan had no proof that either of the events had been deliberate sabotage, but he couldn't shake the feeling they were, even though he knew it could be because he distrusted the bloody spooks. He started to look more closely at things, to pay attention to people and where they were and to anything which went wrong.
It was then he noticed Lester, of course, the spook could have made the same connection as he had but... he was a bloody spook. Trained in all dark arts and sabotage had to be one of those skills. Still, Ryan knew he couldn't just go to Fielder with his suspicions, his CO would need proof and for that, Ryan would need to set a trap.
Ryan smiled when he saw the dead generator. He levered open the access hatch and cursed when he saw the damage, he wasn't sure it could be fixed. Not that he was concerned about that right now, no, what he needed to do was to check the footage from the bug he'd set up and he'd have got the bastard responsible. He stood and pried the false cover he'd positioned to cover the bug and cursed when he saw it had been fried by a pulser blast. Fuck! If the saboteur knew someone was on to him... his gaze turned back to the generator and he frowned, if he'd known, why sabotage what was obviously a trap?
He crouched down and peered into its inners, his frown turning into a smile when he noticed the spot of blood on the casing. It looked as if his saboteur had grown cocky and hadn't been careful once he'd discovered the bug... unless he'd noticed the bug afterwards. Ryan shook his head and pulled the analyser out to take a sample, in a matter of moments he'd know the identity of the traitor.
His eyes narrowed as the analyser bleeped and he saw the name. Fucking typical. He needed to find Fielder now he had evidence of the traitor in their midst. He'd only taken five steps when bursts of pulser fire had him flattening himself against the wall. He was too bloody late to stop the attack. Fuck! As much as he wanted to take Lester down, revenge wasn't his priority. Standing orders in this situation were to evade and escape, to call in reinforcements and re-take the base.
He paused for a moment before holstering his pulser and drawing his Carbo-titanium combat blade, it could be just as deadly in the right hands and had the added bonus of being silent. Something he desperately needed if he was to escape undetected. He moved cautiously along the corridor, creeping from doorway to corner to shadow, his every sense alert as he sought to avoid the enemy.
Ryan froze when he thought he heard a noise, was that footsteps? He cursed silently before he moved back the way he'd come and lost the valuable feet he'd gain. He eased into one of the empty rooms he'd checked earlier and pulled the door shut. He held his breath as he pressed himself into a dark corner, knowing he could do nothing but hope the footsteps - if that was what they truly were - would continue past him.
It really wasn't Ryan's day when the door open and someone slipped inside, closing the door behind them. He smiled when he realised who the man was and drew his pulser to point at the man's back. “Security Forces not paying you enough, Lester?”
Lester spun around, his pulser raised at Ryan. “What the fuck are you on about?” He sounded genuinely confused and Ryan would give him that, well, if the man wasn't a spook and trained to lie.
“You knew I was on to you when you fried my bug. Is that why you called in your cartel friends?” Ryan's finger flexed on the trigger. “But you made a mistake, you left blood behind.”
Lester snorted, his expression one of amusement. “My dear Ryan, if I had sabotaged anything, do you really think I'd have left evidence behind? Someone is trying to frame me.”
“Or maybe you just didn't think anyone would check once they realised you knew about the trap. We're only stupid colonists and thick soldiers.”
“I can assure you, Lieutenant, that I don't think you are stupid,” Lester informed Ryan, before adding, “I didn't betray the base, Ryan.” Lester met his gaze unflinchingly before he sighed and lowered his own pulser. “I'm not the enemy but if you want to shoot me, do make sure you do it right.”
“Or?” Ryan asked, impressed by the spook's courage despite himself. Not that he relaxed his guard for a minute, the spook was just trying to distract him and he wasn't going to fall for it.
“You'll live to regret it if I live.” Lester's eyes flickered towards the door as more footsteps approached and he moved away from it, further into the room where he proceeded to ignore Ryan and began to rewire an internal hatch instead. “Either you believe me and we do our best to evade the cartel's hired thugs or you can try to shoot me, but that will just bring them running. I wouldn't advise the latter option, their hospitality is rather lacking.”
Ryan's finger caressed the trigger again as the sound of footsteps grew closer. “Planning on keeping me talking until your friends turn up?”
“For Fuck's sake,” Lester cried. “I don't work for the bloody cartel.”
The door slammed open and a hard voice yelled out, “Drop them weapons or die.”
Part 2