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fredbassettTitle : Tracks in Time (6/7)
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Cutter, Connor, Lester/Lyle, Ryan/Stephen, Abby, Stringer, Blade, Ditzy, Finn, Dane, Kermit.
Disclaimer : Not mine no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : An anomaly opens, leading to a problematic incursion of the present into the past.
A/N : Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
munchkinofdoom for the beta.
“Jon, keep moving!” panted Lester, struggling under his lover’s weight.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Lyle’s voice was ragged with shock as Abby’s scream alerted the rest of the group to what had happened.
Stringer spared a brief glance up at the tanker and then snapped, in a voice which had carried easily across numerous parade grounds, “Keep moving!” And move they did, even though their hope of escape had now winked out of existence, leaving nothing behind but a faint shimmer in the air and a growing pool of milk on the ground.
Minutes later, they were all grouped next to the tanker, with Dane, Kermit and Blade forming a defensive half-circle around the group as, down on the shore, the two allosaurs were now concentrating their efforts on their attempts to bring down the young diplodocus.
Stringer stared up at the neatly severed metal of the tanker’s sides and declared, “That’s us right royally fucked.”
Ryan stared at his fellow captain and nodded grimly. “Where’s the Professor?”
“He went through to check with Temple how long he thought we had,” answered Blade, the soldier’s voice as calm and steady as ever, reminding Ryan that this wasn’t the first time the man had been stuck in the past. “I guess we’ve got the answer now.”
And it wasn’t an answer that any of them had wanted to get, but it looked very much like they were stuck with it.
James Lester looked round the shocked group, taking in expressions varying from horrified to resigned, and dropped a hand to his lover’s shoulder.
“If any of you think I’m sanctioning overtime payments, then you’re very much mistaken.”
* * * * *
Two hours later, the herd of diplodocus had finally moved out of sight along the lakeshore. The two allosaurs had been foiled in their attempt to bring down the juvenile by a protective, and extremely large, adult, and the predators had contented themselves with prowling menacingly behind the herd, clearly affected enough now by the tranquilizer from Stephen’s darts to have slowed them down, but not enough to make them give up the hunt.
Lester was sitting with his back to the front of the tanker, Lyle’s head resting on his shoulder. Ditzy had strapped the lieutenant’s ankle up tightly, pronouncing it badly sprained rather than broken. He’d had to take slightly more dramatic action on Lyle’s right knee, which had been dislocated by the weight of the car. Lester had held his lover’s hand tightly while Ditzy had slid the kneecap back into place. Lyle had gripped his fingers hard enough to bruise, but hadn’t uttered a sound. Painkillers appeared to have helped a little, but the soldier was still hollow-eyed and pale under his tan.
Ryan and Stringer had expressly forbidden anyone to leave the group. The remains of the tanker gave them some measure of protection at their backs, which was better than nothing in what was now an entirely hostile world. The cab had been picked clean of anything useful, including a six pack of cola and a melted chocolate bar, which Ditzy had insisted on Lyle eating. The soldier had grumbled, but it had brought a small amount of colour back into his face, for which Lester had been grateful.
For what seemed like the millionth time since the anomaly had closed, Lester checked his watch. It had opened after three hours, the last time, but now, three hours came and went, leaving a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth, which the small group studiously ignored.
The heat was fading now, as clouds drifted lazily over the sun.
With the diplodocus herd and the allosaurs gone, smaller creatures ventured out of the undergrowth, making their way down to the lake to drink. Small, agile animals, no more than a metre tall, with long necks and tails, skin banded yellow and green. Meat-eaters or herbivores, it was impossible to tell, and Lester simply hoped they didn’t find out the hard way. Stephen didn’t have Connor’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the creatures and had simply counselled caution.
Eventually, it was the turn of the stegosaurus herd to meander down to the water, the massive plates on their back standing upright, displaying a mix of colours in reds, yellows and browns.
By now, Lester was watching with a calm detachment that surprised him. He thought back to the soldier’s suggestion that he should take a trip back in time almost with amusement. If he’d known what he knew now, would he still have come? Strangely, the answer appeared to be yes. He was seeing creatures that had last walked the earth longer ago than he could even begin to imagine, seeing sights that he’d never in his life thought to see, and even as the sun started to sink slowly down over the horizon and the first pangs of hunger started to make themselves felt, he felt strangely exhilarated.
He looked down at where Lyle’s head rested on his chest and reached up to brush the hair back from his lover’s forehead. Lyle looked up, his hazel eyes questioning.
Heedless of their companions, Lester leaned down and pressed a light kiss onto the other man’s lips. “Did you really think I’d bugger off and leave you?”
Lyle smiled. “No, you’re too bloody stubborn for that.”
Lester smiled and rested his head against Lyle’s. “I’d prefer to know what’s happening, rather that torment myself with guesses. I’m sure we can rely on the ever-resourceful Mr Temple to think of something useful to do and in the meantime, I intend to make the most of what is, quite probably, the most spectacular sunset I have ever seen.”
“You’re a bloody romantic at heart,” chuckled Lyle.
James Lester swatted his lover lightly on the head, but didn’t deny the charge.
To one side of the group, he could see Ryan and Stringer talking in low voices, clearly debating what to do next. He knew their priorities had to be shelter and food, he’d been graced by the presence of a Special Forces boyfriend long enough to be aware of the basics, but if he was reading the situation correctly, even the two captains had been – consciously or unconsciously – pinning their hopes on the anomaly re-opening within a relatively short space of time.
The idea of being stranded irretrievably in the past was simply too big a concept to get to grips with and so, like the others, Lester just pushed the thought to one side. He wondered how long it would take for that course of action to become untenable.
The air remained warm, in spite of the loss of the sun over the horizon. They had shared out what they had by way of food and drink, which had consisted of the ration bars the soldiers carried with them, and Ryan had sanctioned a trip to the lakeside to collect water in the cola cans, but that had been all.
There had been little or nothing by way of conversation.
To his surprise, Lester had even managed to get some sleep. He’d been woken eventually by the need to empty his bladder, just as the last of the light was fading, with an abruptness which made Lester wonder where they were in relation to the equator. Lyle had muttered about needing to take a piss as well, and he’d helped his lover limp around the tanker, making their way no more than a few feet into the vegetation. Ryan had been most emphatic about not going out of sight, no matter what the reason.
A rustle in the undergrowth made Lyle reach for his pistol, but whatever it was scurried away without venturing any closer.
“I never did like camping,” Lester remarked, as they made their way back to the others.
“It’s warmer than the Brecon Beacons,” commented Lyle. “Look on the bright side.”
“Must we?” sighed Lester, theatrically. “I was rather hoping for a good old-fashioned whinge, but I suppose that would be considered unmanly.”
He felt the warm breath of Lyle’s laughter against his cheek as his lover slid an arm round his waist. “We’d better save the whinging for when things have really buggered up, sweetie,” the soldier told him. “Now get some sleep.”
* * * * *
The sound of gunfire brought Lester awake in the space of a heartbeat. For a second, his brain struggled to come to grips with reality. Then memory crashed back with the force of a tidal wave.
“We’ve got company!” shouted Ryan. “Sir James, Miss Maitland, get inside the cab! It’s the most defensible thing we’ve got.”
At Lester’s side, he heard the click of the safety coming off Lyle’s rifle, and a grunt of pain as the soldier hauled himself to his feet, then a bellow from something large and almost certainly unfriendly sounded from the edge of the forest of ferns.
Knowing it wasn’t the time or the place to dispute an order, Lester pulled himself up into the cab and held down a hand to help Abby as the girl swarmed up beside him. The pair of them had already been armed with pistols at Ryan’s insistence, and he knew Abby was perfectly proficient with hers. He was less certain of his own skills in that area. Something he resolved to ask Lyle to remedy, when – if – they found a way out of their current predicament.
The beams from the soldiers’ rifle-mounted torches cut through the darkness, illuminating the source of the noise. The creature stood half a body length taller than the soldiers, with the all-too-familiar powerful jaws of a meat-eater, set in a head as long as a man’s arm. It was more lightly built than the allosaurs which had menaced the diplodocus herd, and had the large eyes of something which hunted by night.
The seven soldiers and Stephen Hart had taken up a defensive stand close to the remains of the tanker. Stringer was doing his best to repeat the trick with the laser flare, with some success, and for a moment, Lester thought the creatures were going to slink back into the ferns, but then an even larger animal barrelled its way past the others, lunging forward, impervious to the sudden burst of automatic weapons fire. Lester heard a cry of pain, and the flare fell to the ground, trampled under the powerful hind legs of the predator.
Beside him, Abby stiffened, “Joel!”
Before she had a chance to try and clamber down from the cab, Lester had his hand on her arm. “Abby, no! Let them handle it!”
Below them was a scene of rapidly unfolding chaos. The charge had scattered the soldiers into the darkness, making it impossibly dangerous to fire at anything other than extremely close quarters without running the risk of hitting their comrades. Torch beams jerked in the darkness and from what Lester could make out, at least half a dozen of the creatures had hurled themselves into the fray.
“We should have had one of the flares!” Abbey’s voice was brittle with fear.
She was right. Lester leaned out of the broken window and yelled into the darkness, doing his best to make himself heard above the bellows of the predators and the noise of gun fire, “Flares! Someone get me a flare!”
At first he thought his words had gone unheard then, from below, Ryan’s voice answered, with the single word, “Catch!”
Something clattered on the floor of the cab and Lester scrabbled on the floor at their feet, bringing up something closely resembling a relay race baton.
“Twist the base!” Abby commanded, urgently.
Then the red beam of the laser illuminated the inside of the cab.
From below him, Lester hear Ryan’s yell of, “Face outwards!”
That was all he needed to know. Feeling rather incongruously like a kid playing at being Darth Vader, he swept the beam from side to side, the way he’d seen Stringer do earlier. A second cry of pain sent a jolt of fear up his spine. They were taking casualties and their attackers showed no signs of backing off.
He could feel Abby’s small body pressed up against his side, her breathing quick and irregular, and the realisation dawned that he wasn’t the only one with a soldier for a lover.
“They’ll make it,” he muttered, wondering whether he was trying to convince her or reassure himself.
Then, as suddenly as it started, the attack ended, and in the bright red laser light, he saw the creatures backing off, shaking their heads as though blinded by the light. A surge of adrenaline washed through him as he continued to target their eyes with the beam. It was working, it was fucking working!
Lester could hear harsh, laboured breathing in the darkness as the soldiers regrouped. Ryan’s voice, calm and authoritative, demanded a roll-call. At his side, Abby tensed, waiting for Stringer’s reply when Ryan called his name. Her body started to shake in the silence that followed.
The voice that answered was Ditzy’s. “He’s unconscious,” said the medic. “Someone give me a hand here.”
The roll call continued. The only one who didn’t answer was Dane. After an uncomfortable silence, they heard Stephen announce, “I’ve got a pulse, but he’s bleeding. Ditz!”
The medic swore violently and started rapidly giving orders.
In the absence of any directed at him, Lester simply continued to flash the laser beam into the darkness, over the soldier’s heads, simply grateful beyond measure that Lyle had spoken his own name in the hastily conducted head-count.
“I’m going down,” announced Abby, and without waiting for an answer, the girl scrambled past him, dropping lightly down onto the trampled ground.
He scanned the darkness as best he could, sweeping the beam from side to side. It didn’t provide light the way a torch did, but he could tell when the laser light hit one of the predators, the flash reflected back from their eyes. They’d retreated a little way along the shore and appeared to be bending down to tear at something on the ground. It looked like their desire for food was being satisfied by one of their own number. A shiver hit him as he realised how close they’d come to one of their own being the victim.
Lester was concentrating so hard on the task of keeping the laser trained on the predators busily feasting on one of their own that he almost missed the first scrape of claw on metal from behind him, but then it came again, followed by a low, snuffling sound.
He turned his head, staring out of the other shattered window, to find two very large and unblinking eyes staring straight back at him. His heart made a very creditable attempt to leave his body via his throat as he watched the creature poke its jaws through the empty space where the window had once been, blocking out the faint, grey light that had been seeping in from that side.
Lester was close enough to smell the sickly sweet odour of fresh blood on the beast’s breath and to hear the spluttering of mucus in its nostrils as it sniffed the air. Some long-forgotten nature programme came incongruously back to mind, with Sir David Attenborough talking about how animals which hunted at dusk and dawn relied on their sense of smell. He was all too aware of the fact that it wouldn’t take a specialised sense of smell to detect the reek of sweat and fear that he was no doubt giving off.
He struggled against the natural desire to scream. If he yelled, or moved, it could almost certainly reach him before he could even try and scramble out of the other door. His right arm still held the laser flare out of the other window. He had no idea how the hell he could attract anyone’s attention without attracting unwelcome attention somewhat closer to home, so he did the only thing he could think of in the circumstances and dropped the flare.
A sudden yell of, “It’s opened!” came from outside the cab, making him jump in shock as hope suddenly flared as brightly as the laser had done a moment ago.
The creature lunged forwards, jaws snapping no more than an inch from his nose. Fetid breath gusted over him, and saliva splashed on his face, hot and rank.
His yelp of horror was lost in the ragged cheer that had gone up from the soldiers. The anomaly had re-opened and he was about to get his head bitten off by one of the star attractions in Jurassic Park. Great, just fucking great! He plastered himself as far back against the door of the cab as he could get, praying it was far enough.
It lunged again, but this time its head slammed against the top of the metal surround of the window, bringing it up short. A bellow of frustration followed its abortive attempt to embed its fangs in Lester’s face. Outside the cab, the cheering suddenly fell silent. The creature roared again, covering him in droplets of snot and blood.
Behind him, Lester heard hands scrabbling at the door of the cab, attempting to yank it open, but Lyle’s unmistakeable cursing told him that it remained obstinately stuck. A second lunge forward saw the metal surround of the window start to buckle, and this time he felt the actual brush of a fang against his face.
The staccato rattle of automatic fire filled the air. The huge head jerked, but didn’t withdraw. The creature was too intent on its prey to even register the bullets tearing into its flesh.
Lester twisted in the seat and tried to jack-knife out of the window, feeling broken glass tear at his stomach. His legs thrashed wildly and he felt teeth graze his ankle. Expecting any moment to feel teeth in his flesh and to be dragged backwards, he felt strong arms grab his as he was heaved out, to tumble in a heap onto the soft ground. A pain-filled roar followed him, rapidly drowned out by rifle fire.
Hand grabbed him under the arms and hitched him up and he heard a voice he recognised as Kermit’s say, “Come on, sir, time to go!”
With an arm round the young soldier’s waist he limped up the slope toward an anomaly that flickered and shone like a beacon. He could see one of the soldiers being half-carried, half-dragged through it, then they disappeared from view, lurching through the break in time. He could hear Ryan’s voice, still shouting orders, and Ditzy demanding assistance.
He hesitated, pulling back from Kermit, scanning the chaos on the slope for any sign of Lyle. The grey light of dawn had replaced the darkness that had prevailed even a few minutes ago. He watched Ditzy and Abby stagger towards them, struggling with Stringer’s weight. Stephen appeared and bent down to assist Abby, grabbing the man’s feet to help the diminutive but determined girl.
A final burst of rifle fire sounded from close at hand. He saw Ryan and Blade, supporting Lyle between them, coming up the slope towards him.
“Don’t just stand there, James!” yelled Lyle, limping heavily. “Ryan, I’m OK, do a sweep for the rest, it’s fucking bedlam here!”
Lester closed the gap between him and his lover as Ryan broke away, scanning the ground with the beam on his torch, doing a rapid and no doubt impossibly difficult job of checking that his men and their civilian charges had made it to safety.
As he hitched one of Lyle’s arms around his shoulders, another rifle shot echoed out in the silence, muffled by distance.
“What the fuck?” Blade’s head whipped round, green eyes scanning around him. “Boss, that wasn’t one of ours!”
Ryan came to a halt next to them. “I know.” He pointed out across the lakeshore to where the long line of hills in the distance stretched darkly in the dawn light. “There was a muzzle flash over there.”
The four men hesitated, then Cutter’s voice, urging them to hurry, galvanised them back into action and, without needing any further urging, they struggled the rest of the way up the slope and hurled themselves breathlessly back into the present.
It still smelt of a mixture of petrol and oil.
They were back in the Brynglas Tunnel.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Cutter, Connor, Lester/Lyle, Ryan/Stephen, Abby, Stringer, Blade, Ditzy, Finn, Dane, Kermit.
Disclaimer : Not mine no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : An anomaly opens, leading to a problematic incursion of the present into the past.
A/N : Thanks to
munchkinofdoom for the beta.“Jon, keep moving!” panted Lester, struggling under his lover’s weight.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Lyle’s voice was ragged with shock as Abby’s scream alerted the rest of the group to what had happened.
Stringer spared a brief glance up at the tanker and then snapped, in a voice which had carried easily across numerous parade grounds, “Keep moving!” And move they did, even though their hope of escape had now winked out of existence, leaving nothing behind but a faint shimmer in the air and a growing pool of milk on the ground.
Minutes later, they were all grouped next to the tanker, with Dane, Kermit and Blade forming a defensive half-circle around the group as, down on the shore, the two allosaurs were now concentrating their efforts on their attempts to bring down the young diplodocus.
Stringer stared up at the neatly severed metal of the tanker’s sides and declared, “That’s us right royally fucked.”
Ryan stared at his fellow captain and nodded grimly. “Where’s the Professor?”
“He went through to check with Temple how long he thought we had,” answered Blade, the soldier’s voice as calm and steady as ever, reminding Ryan that this wasn’t the first time the man had been stuck in the past. “I guess we’ve got the answer now.”
And it wasn’t an answer that any of them had wanted to get, but it looked very much like they were stuck with it.
James Lester looked round the shocked group, taking in expressions varying from horrified to resigned, and dropped a hand to his lover’s shoulder.
“If any of you think I’m sanctioning overtime payments, then you’re very much mistaken.”
* * * * *
Two hours later, the herd of diplodocus had finally moved out of sight along the lakeshore. The two allosaurs had been foiled in their attempt to bring down the juvenile by a protective, and extremely large, adult, and the predators had contented themselves with prowling menacingly behind the herd, clearly affected enough now by the tranquilizer from Stephen’s darts to have slowed them down, but not enough to make them give up the hunt.
Lester was sitting with his back to the front of the tanker, Lyle’s head resting on his shoulder. Ditzy had strapped the lieutenant’s ankle up tightly, pronouncing it badly sprained rather than broken. He’d had to take slightly more dramatic action on Lyle’s right knee, which had been dislocated by the weight of the car. Lester had held his lover’s hand tightly while Ditzy had slid the kneecap back into place. Lyle had gripped his fingers hard enough to bruise, but hadn’t uttered a sound. Painkillers appeared to have helped a little, but the soldier was still hollow-eyed and pale under his tan.
Ryan and Stringer had expressly forbidden anyone to leave the group. The remains of the tanker gave them some measure of protection at their backs, which was better than nothing in what was now an entirely hostile world. The cab had been picked clean of anything useful, including a six pack of cola and a melted chocolate bar, which Ditzy had insisted on Lyle eating. The soldier had grumbled, but it had brought a small amount of colour back into his face, for which Lester had been grateful.
For what seemed like the millionth time since the anomaly had closed, Lester checked his watch. It had opened after three hours, the last time, but now, three hours came and went, leaving a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth, which the small group studiously ignored.
The heat was fading now, as clouds drifted lazily over the sun.
With the diplodocus herd and the allosaurs gone, smaller creatures ventured out of the undergrowth, making their way down to the lake to drink. Small, agile animals, no more than a metre tall, with long necks and tails, skin banded yellow and green. Meat-eaters or herbivores, it was impossible to tell, and Lester simply hoped they didn’t find out the hard way. Stephen didn’t have Connor’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the creatures and had simply counselled caution.
Eventually, it was the turn of the stegosaurus herd to meander down to the water, the massive plates on their back standing upright, displaying a mix of colours in reds, yellows and browns.
By now, Lester was watching with a calm detachment that surprised him. He thought back to the soldier’s suggestion that he should take a trip back in time almost with amusement. If he’d known what he knew now, would he still have come? Strangely, the answer appeared to be yes. He was seeing creatures that had last walked the earth longer ago than he could even begin to imagine, seeing sights that he’d never in his life thought to see, and even as the sun started to sink slowly down over the horizon and the first pangs of hunger started to make themselves felt, he felt strangely exhilarated.
He looked down at where Lyle’s head rested on his chest and reached up to brush the hair back from his lover’s forehead. Lyle looked up, his hazel eyes questioning.
Heedless of their companions, Lester leaned down and pressed a light kiss onto the other man’s lips. “Did you really think I’d bugger off and leave you?”
Lyle smiled. “No, you’re too bloody stubborn for that.”
Lester smiled and rested his head against Lyle’s. “I’d prefer to know what’s happening, rather that torment myself with guesses. I’m sure we can rely on the ever-resourceful Mr Temple to think of something useful to do and in the meantime, I intend to make the most of what is, quite probably, the most spectacular sunset I have ever seen.”
“You’re a bloody romantic at heart,” chuckled Lyle.
James Lester swatted his lover lightly on the head, but didn’t deny the charge.
To one side of the group, he could see Ryan and Stringer talking in low voices, clearly debating what to do next. He knew their priorities had to be shelter and food, he’d been graced by the presence of a Special Forces boyfriend long enough to be aware of the basics, but if he was reading the situation correctly, even the two captains had been – consciously or unconsciously – pinning their hopes on the anomaly re-opening within a relatively short space of time.
The idea of being stranded irretrievably in the past was simply too big a concept to get to grips with and so, like the others, Lester just pushed the thought to one side. He wondered how long it would take for that course of action to become untenable.
The air remained warm, in spite of the loss of the sun over the horizon. They had shared out what they had by way of food and drink, which had consisted of the ration bars the soldiers carried with them, and Ryan had sanctioned a trip to the lakeside to collect water in the cola cans, but that had been all.
There had been little or nothing by way of conversation.
To his surprise, Lester had even managed to get some sleep. He’d been woken eventually by the need to empty his bladder, just as the last of the light was fading, with an abruptness which made Lester wonder where they were in relation to the equator. Lyle had muttered about needing to take a piss as well, and he’d helped his lover limp around the tanker, making their way no more than a few feet into the vegetation. Ryan had been most emphatic about not going out of sight, no matter what the reason.
A rustle in the undergrowth made Lyle reach for his pistol, but whatever it was scurried away without venturing any closer.
“I never did like camping,” Lester remarked, as they made their way back to the others.
“It’s warmer than the Brecon Beacons,” commented Lyle. “Look on the bright side.”
“Must we?” sighed Lester, theatrically. “I was rather hoping for a good old-fashioned whinge, but I suppose that would be considered unmanly.”
He felt the warm breath of Lyle’s laughter against his cheek as his lover slid an arm round his waist. “We’d better save the whinging for when things have really buggered up, sweetie,” the soldier told him. “Now get some sleep.”
* * * * *
The sound of gunfire brought Lester awake in the space of a heartbeat. For a second, his brain struggled to come to grips with reality. Then memory crashed back with the force of a tidal wave.
“We’ve got company!” shouted Ryan. “Sir James, Miss Maitland, get inside the cab! It’s the most defensible thing we’ve got.”
At Lester’s side, he heard the click of the safety coming off Lyle’s rifle, and a grunt of pain as the soldier hauled himself to his feet, then a bellow from something large and almost certainly unfriendly sounded from the edge of the forest of ferns.
Knowing it wasn’t the time or the place to dispute an order, Lester pulled himself up into the cab and held down a hand to help Abby as the girl swarmed up beside him. The pair of them had already been armed with pistols at Ryan’s insistence, and he knew Abby was perfectly proficient with hers. He was less certain of his own skills in that area. Something he resolved to ask Lyle to remedy, when – if – they found a way out of their current predicament.
The beams from the soldiers’ rifle-mounted torches cut through the darkness, illuminating the source of the noise. The creature stood half a body length taller than the soldiers, with the all-too-familiar powerful jaws of a meat-eater, set in a head as long as a man’s arm. It was more lightly built than the allosaurs which had menaced the diplodocus herd, and had the large eyes of something which hunted by night.
The seven soldiers and Stephen Hart had taken up a defensive stand close to the remains of the tanker. Stringer was doing his best to repeat the trick with the laser flare, with some success, and for a moment, Lester thought the creatures were going to slink back into the ferns, but then an even larger animal barrelled its way past the others, lunging forward, impervious to the sudden burst of automatic weapons fire. Lester heard a cry of pain, and the flare fell to the ground, trampled under the powerful hind legs of the predator.
Beside him, Abby stiffened, “Joel!”
Before she had a chance to try and clamber down from the cab, Lester had his hand on her arm. “Abby, no! Let them handle it!”
Below them was a scene of rapidly unfolding chaos. The charge had scattered the soldiers into the darkness, making it impossibly dangerous to fire at anything other than extremely close quarters without running the risk of hitting their comrades. Torch beams jerked in the darkness and from what Lester could make out, at least half a dozen of the creatures had hurled themselves into the fray.
“We should have had one of the flares!” Abbey’s voice was brittle with fear.
She was right. Lester leaned out of the broken window and yelled into the darkness, doing his best to make himself heard above the bellows of the predators and the noise of gun fire, “Flares! Someone get me a flare!”
At first he thought his words had gone unheard then, from below, Ryan’s voice answered, with the single word, “Catch!”
Something clattered on the floor of the cab and Lester scrabbled on the floor at their feet, bringing up something closely resembling a relay race baton.
“Twist the base!” Abby commanded, urgently.
Then the red beam of the laser illuminated the inside of the cab.
From below him, Lester hear Ryan’s yell of, “Face outwards!”
That was all he needed to know. Feeling rather incongruously like a kid playing at being Darth Vader, he swept the beam from side to side, the way he’d seen Stringer do earlier. A second cry of pain sent a jolt of fear up his spine. They were taking casualties and their attackers showed no signs of backing off.
He could feel Abby’s small body pressed up against his side, her breathing quick and irregular, and the realisation dawned that he wasn’t the only one with a soldier for a lover.
“They’ll make it,” he muttered, wondering whether he was trying to convince her or reassure himself.
Then, as suddenly as it started, the attack ended, and in the bright red laser light, he saw the creatures backing off, shaking their heads as though blinded by the light. A surge of adrenaline washed through him as he continued to target their eyes with the beam. It was working, it was fucking working!
Lester could hear harsh, laboured breathing in the darkness as the soldiers regrouped. Ryan’s voice, calm and authoritative, demanded a roll-call. At his side, Abby tensed, waiting for Stringer’s reply when Ryan called his name. Her body started to shake in the silence that followed.
The voice that answered was Ditzy’s. “He’s unconscious,” said the medic. “Someone give me a hand here.”
The roll call continued. The only one who didn’t answer was Dane. After an uncomfortable silence, they heard Stephen announce, “I’ve got a pulse, but he’s bleeding. Ditz!”
The medic swore violently and started rapidly giving orders.
In the absence of any directed at him, Lester simply continued to flash the laser beam into the darkness, over the soldier’s heads, simply grateful beyond measure that Lyle had spoken his own name in the hastily conducted head-count.
“I’m going down,” announced Abby, and without waiting for an answer, the girl scrambled past him, dropping lightly down onto the trampled ground.
He scanned the darkness as best he could, sweeping the beam from side to side. It didn’t provide light the way a torch did, but he could tell when the laser light hit one of the predators, the flash reflected back from their eyes. They’d retreated a little way along the shore and appeared to be bending down to tear at something on the ground. It looked like their desire for food was being satisfied by one of their own number. A shiver hit him as he realised how close they’d come to one of their own being the victim.
Lester was concentrating so hard on the task of keeping the laser trained on the predators busily feasting on one of their own that he almost missed the first scrape of claw on metal from behind him, but then it came again, followed by a low, snuffling sound.
He turned his head, staring out of the other shattered window, to find two very large and unblinking eyes staring straight back at him. His heart made a very creditable attempt to leave his body via his throat as he watched the creature poke its jaws through the empty space where the window had once been, blocking out the faint, grey light that had been seeping in from that side.
Lester was close enough to smell the sickly sweet odour of fresh blood on the beast’s breath and to hear the spluttering of mucus in its nostrils as it sniffed the air. Some long-forgotten nature programme came incongruously back to mind, with Sir David Attenborough talking about how animals which hunted at dusk and dawn relied on their sense of smell. He was all too aware of the fact that it wouldn’t take a specialised sense of smell to detect the reek of sweat and fear that he was no doubt giving off.
He struggled against the natural desire to scream. If he yelled, or moved, it could almost certainly reach him before he could even try and scramble out of the other door. His right arm still held the laser flare out of the other window. He had no idea how the hell he could attract anyone’s attention without attracting unwelcome attention somewhat closer to home, so he did the only thing he could think of in the circumstances and dropped the flare.
A sudden yell of, “It’s opened!” came from outside the cab, making him jump in shock as hope suddenly flared as brightly as the laser had done a moment ago.
The creature lunged forwards, jaws snapping no more than an inch from his nose. Fetid breath gusted over him, and saliva splashed on his face, hot and rank.
His yelp of horror was lost in the ragged cheer that had gone up from the soldiers. The anomaly had re-opened and he was about to get his head bitten off by one of the star attractions in Jurassic Park. Great, just fucking great! He plastered himself as far back against the door of the cab as he could get, praying it was far enough.
It lunged again, but this time its head slammed against the top of the metal surround of the window, bringing it up short. A bellow of frustration followed its abortive attempt to embed its fangs in Lester’s face. Outside the cab, the cheering suddenly fell silent. The creature roared again, covering him in droplets of snot and blood.
Behind him, Lester heard hands scrabbling at the door of the cab, attempting to yank it open, but Lyle’s unmistakeable cursing told him that it remained obstinately stuck. A second lunge forward saw the metal surround of the window start to buckle, and this time he felt the actual brush of a fang against his face.
The staccato rattle of automatic fire filled the air. The huge head jerked, but didn’t withdraw. The creature was too intent on its prey to even register the bullets tearing into its flesh.
Lester twisted in the seat and tried to jack-knife out of the window, feeling broken glass tear at his stomach. His legs thrashed wildly and he felt teeth graze his ankle. Expecting any moment to feel teeth in his flesh and to be dragged backwards, he felt strong arms grab his as he was heaved out, to tumble in a heap onto the soft ground. A pain-filled roar followed him, rapidly drowned out by rifle fire.
Hand grabbed him under the arms and hitched him up and he heard a voice he recognised as Kermit’s say, “Come on, sir, time to go!”
With an arm round the young soldier’s waist he limped up the slope toward an anomaly that flickered and shone like a beacon. He could see one of the soldiers being half-carried, half-dragged through it, then they disappeared from view, lurching through the break in time. He could hear Ryan’s voice, still shouting orders, and Ditzy demanding assistance.
He hesitated, pulling back from Kermit, scanning the chaos on the slope for any sign of Lyle. The grey light of dawn had replaced the darkness that had prevailed even a few minutes ago. He watched Ditzy and Abby stagger towards them, struggling with Stringer’s weight. Stephen appeared and bent down to assist Abby, grabbing the man’s feet to help the diminutive but determined girl.
A final burst of rifle fire sounded from close at hand. He saw Ryan and Blade, supporting Lyle between them, coming up the slope towards him.
“Don’t just stand there, James!” yelled Lyle, limping heavily. “Ryan, I’m OK, do a sweep for the rest, it’s fucking bedlam here!”
Lester closed the gap between him and his lover as Ryan broke away, scanning the ground with the beam on his torch, doing a rapid and no doubt impossibly difficult job of checking that his men and their civilian charges had made it to safety.
As he hitched one of Lyle’s arms around his shoulders, another rifle shot echoed out in the silence, muffled by distance.
“What the fuck?” Blade’s head whipped round, green eyes scanning around him. “Boss, that wasn’t one of ours!”
Ryan came to a halt next to them. “I know.” He pointed out across the lakeshore to where the long line of hills in the distance stretched darkly in the dawn light. “There was a muzzle flash over there.”
The four men hesitated, then Cutter’s voice, urging them to hurry, galvanised them back into action and, without needing any further urging, they struggled the rest of the way up the slope and hurled themselves breathlessly back into the present.
It still smelt of a mixture of petrol and oil.
They were back in the Brynglas Tunnel.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 07:38 pm (UTC)Ooh err! Is that HELEN! around? *g*.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 07:48 pm (UTC)Eek!
And although they were royally fucked Lester still wouldn't sanction overtime payment?! Bummer, that man definitely needs a good shag.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 07:50 pm (UTC)But OMG, my heart was racing when Lester was stuck with the predator!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 12:18 am (UTC)You should try concentrating on betaing when the Hound thows something like that at you!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 08:08 pm (UTC)Man, the action here was just excellent. Poor Stringer and Dane and Lester, all dino-snack material. I was on tenterhooks.
Lester is sheer brilliance, and yay for being back in the present at least.
*mops my fevered brow*
Thank you!!!
And whoever is firing guns in the past can get lost now, heh.no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 08:19 pm (UTC)Good that the Anomaly has reopened finally.
But who the hell is firing at the lake shore?
Can't wait for the last chapter.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:47 am (UTC)*evil doggy grin*
no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 08:19 pm (UTC)Rifles aren't usually Helen's style, so I'm really perplexed about who else was there, and why!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 08:34 pm (UTC)“If any of you think I’m sanctioning overtime payments, then you’re very much mistaken.” HAHAHA, I love Lester! :) And you know, even in this situation I have to admire the view... broken!Lyle cuddling Lester in the prehistoric sunset... *happy sigh*
NONONONONO!!!! *hides under bed* (Also, I do like Abby/Stringer quite a bit)... NOOOOOOO!!!! They're gonna be fine, right, right? I'm totally with Lester, btw, at least Lyle is ok.
FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!!
HOLY SHIT! That was intense again. And call me a selfish bastard but I was less scared knowing that since Lyle had already been in a very tight situation in this series he most probably wouldn't be high on the list of possible dinner snacks... *looks guilty* I do love all the others but I can't bear the idea of anything happening to Lyle.
One more chapter to go of the "let's scare the shit out of sunsets_dinos" fic. *dances*
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:50 am (UTC)*hugs you tight*
no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 09:10 pm (UTC)But who the hell else was shooting? Unless it's a time loop paradox and it's *them* who are shooting, or a future version of them.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 10:18 pm (UTC)What have you done to Dane & Joel?!?! *hyperventilates*
Loved the hint at Abby/Joel and, dammit Hound, you're trying to kill me with the cliffhangers. Who the hell is shooting at them?!?!
*taps foot waiting for the last chapter*
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:52 am (UTC)I brought them all back, didn't I?
no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 10:28 pm (UTC)Oooh who's shooting?!? I can't wait for the last part *bounces*
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 10:44 pm (UTC)Thanks for another great part! I'm really looking forward to the last one! :-)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 11:21 pm (UTC)Ohh.. who else is there.. Helen?
Is it Friday yet - though I really don't want this brilliant fic to end.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 11:53 pm (UTC)Wow the scene with Lester nearly becoming dino dinner had me holding my breath the entire time and then the scenes with Lyle *guh!* totally made me melt.
Lester is really a romantic (very very) deep down!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 12:24 am (UTC)You know how much I love this. How everybody gets a part, especially in the mayhem of the nighttime attack. It reminded me a little of the huge battle scenes you had in Devid's Crowll... and the injury count too. *veg*
Lester was wonderful, but it was also lovely to see Abby through his eyes.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:55 am (UTC)Remind me again why I end up doing it? *grins*
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 02:22 am (UTC)about next chapter. So looking forward to it, but don't want it to end :(
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 07:41 am (UTC)Other guns - Helen? Hmm...
Fantastic installemnt!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 06:46 pm (UTC)Thanks :)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 05:38 pm (UTC)*flails some more*
You really know how to ratchet up the tension don't you! Great action scenes.
Now I'm off to hug Stringer.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 06:47 pm (UTC)And I hate writing action scenes!!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 08:08 pm (UTC)He was less certain of his own skills in that area. Something he resolved to ask Lyle to remedy,
That has definitely got to be written. I never get tied of the soldier teaching the geek type person how to shoot fics.
You certainly bashed the boys around in this one. Case of you only hurt the ones you love?
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 11:00 pm (UTC)And it does! But with a hint of mystery...
So, can the spoiling of injured boys (which now includes Stringer and Lester) begin? I do Abby will be unleashing more Paddington Bear glares at Joel when he misbehaves ;-)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-03 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-03 05:58 pm (UTC)For someone who doesn't like writing action scenes, you do a damn good job of it!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-04 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-04 09:08 am (UTC)What is there not to love about Lester? He had so many good lines.
And a closing mystery!!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-04 07:27 pm (UTC)