![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredbassettTitle : Within These Walls, Chapter 25 of 30
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Ryan, Lester, Nick, Stephen, Connor, Danny, Ditzy, Finn, Blade
Disclaimer : Not mine (except the OCs), no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count : 59,000 words in 30 chapters of approx. 1,500 – 2,500 words each
Spoilers : None
Summary : Ending up in Dartmoor prison for refusing to recant their belief in evolution is only the start of the problems facing Nick, Stephen and Connor. And Sir James Lester soon ends up with other problems on his hands than just an over-crowded prison population.
A/N : For acknowledgments etc please see Part 1.
Ryan hurried with the prisoners to the governor’s office, leaving his men to respond to calls from any of the other wings, should extra assistance be needed. If the wailing sound of the klaxon horn on the rooftop hadn’t been enough to alert everyone in earshot to the fact that they were needed, he’d already given the order for all off-duty soldiers and prison guards to be recalled to the prison. He hoped that would bring in some much-needed reinforcements.
“Enter!” Lester’s response to Ryan’s perfunctory knock sounded sharp and impatient.
“All present, sir,” Ryan said, as Cutter and the others followed him into the room.
“Good.” Lester looked like a man who’d already received all the bad news he wanted to hear in a lifetime. “But our problems aren’t limited to within these walls, Ryan. I’ve just spoken to Jenny. There’s an anomaly on the main road and something very large has just come through. Ms Maitland is with her, but they need some back-up.” Lester paused a moment then said, “The Prime Minister has declared martial law in the area. I have full authority to contain this situation however I think fit.”
Another knock on the door sounded and, without waiting for a reply, Lester’s secretary put her head around the door. “I’ve got the Chief Constable on the line for you, sir, he says it can’t wait.”
Lester snatched up the phone. “What’s happened now?” he demanded without any preamble or deference to the man’s rank. Lester listened intently for a minute and then said, “I’ll get some of my men up there immediately. In the meantime tell them to stay in the minibus and wait for help. Get your people to concentrate on securing the area. I don’t want any traffic incoming on any of the roads. Keep people indoors and if anyone sees anything strange, do not engage it. I repeat, do not engage it. Leave that to my men.” The phone went down none too gently. “We have a minibus full of children on the moor just above the quarry. The idiot driver swerved to avoid something in the fog and put the vehicle into a ditch. He then phoned 999 and told the operator they were being stalked by a lion. The emergency services are getting so many calls it’s a miracle that one even got through.”
“It’s the Andrewsarchus again,” Cutter declared. “They’ll have to be careful. That thing’s strong enough to smash the glass on a windscreen if it wants to.”
“Then let’s hope it finds something else to distract it,” Lester said. “Ryan, take whoever you want and get up there. We need those children brought to safety or the press will have even more of a field day that they’ll be having already when all this gets out. Cutter, I’m relying on you to come up with something to help Ms Lewis and Ms Maitland. Will you give me your word that you won’t just do a disappearing act the minute you’re outside these walls?”
“Do you even need to ask?” Cutter said, his face betraying his anger.
Lester didn’t flinch. “Yes, I do. I can’t make you any promises, Cutter, and you know it, but you have knowledge I need. I can’t afford you taking off in the thick of this.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” Cutter said simply. “You can have my word on that. Just give me yours that you’ll do your best for Stephen and Connor when all this is over. And Danny.”
“I’ll do my best for all of you,” Lester snapped. “Now get out there and start dealing with dinosaurs!”
“Hart, you’re with me,” Ryan said quickly. “Sir, I’ll send Lyle or Stringer out with the others.” He glanced at Cutter and Quinn. “Make sure you do as you’re told. You’re there to help, not make matters worse.”
Without waiting for a response, Ryan gestured to Stephen Hart to follow him as he hurried out of the room. He was already issuing a series of orders into his radio as he jogged down the corridor, telling four of his men to meet him in the main courtyard.
* * * * *
The soldiers piled into one of the prison’s black Range Rovers. Stephen joined the others in the back as Finn took the wheel, with Ryan in the other front seat. They had enough weaponry with them to start a minor war and, at an order from Ryan, Stephen had been promptly equipped with a SIG Sauer P226 and a thigh holster, plus one of the equipment vests the soldiers wore and one of their radio headsets.
The main gate let them through, after several vehicles containing off-duty soldiers and guards had streamed in. As Finn practically did a handbrake turn onto the road, Stephen looked back out of the window and in the distance saw the shape of something almost unbelievably huge. The only thing he could think of that could have been that size was an apatosaurus or maybe a diplodocus. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how Cutter and the others would deal with something that size, but for the moment, that wasn’t his problem. He had an Andrewsarchus to worry about; a creature that had the strongest jaws ever to have evolved on a land mammal.
Stephen dropped the clip out of the SIG, checked it was fully loaded, and slammed it back in to place, before wriggling into the holster and tightening the straps around his loose prison-issue trousers. The equipment vest held spare magazines, a couple of flares, a flashlight, a taser, a pepper spray and an extendable baton. It settled on his shoulders in a comforting weight over one of the black jackets that had been stuffed into his hands by Finn as they’d sprinted for the vehicle.
The green-eyed soldier they called Blade told him there was a spare M4 rifle for him in the metal case in the back of the vehicle. Ryan had clearly decided that he could be trusted. But in truth, the captain’s men were stretched to breaking point now, both in the prison and in the town, so beggars certainly couldn’t be choosers. Ryan hadn’t asked Stephen for any promises, but the fact that he was being allowed weapons spoke volumes for the trust the captain was prepared to place in him and Stephen had no intention of abusing that.
As they left the prison behind, mist closed around them, forcing Finn to rein in his breakneck speed or risk putting the vehicle off the road. Stephen clipped his seat belt into place and hung on for the ride.
* * * * *
“Fucking shit!”
Finn slammed on the brakes and brought the Range Rover to a shuddering halt. It slewed to one side but stayed on the road. In front of them, wreathed in mist, Stephen could see the wreckage of three cars, with several people standing in the middle of the road, arguing the toss, arms waving and voices raised.
Stephen couldn’t work out how the hell they’d managed it, but one of the vehicles had ended up on its roof in the middle of the road and two others seemed to have managed to get embedded in each other in a way that didn’t look easy to extricate either of them from. Two people were sitting by the side of the road, looking dazed. One of them had blood running from a gash on their head and the other was cradling an arm that looked broken.
Ditzy, the medic with the unlikely and extremely inaccurate nickname, took a quick look at both of them while Finn shouted the rest of the group into submission and Ryan got on the phone to Lester, asking for another vehicle to be sent out from the prison or from the police to pick up the motorists.
“Get the kit, we tab in from here,” Ryan ordered, after it had became obvious that the ditches on either side of the road were too deep for their vehicle to traverse and that it would take too long to get the wreckage shifted.
The captain ordered the irate motorists to stay with their cars. Stephen wasn’t surprised that the presence of armed soldiers quickly quelled any dissent. It would have taken a brave man to argue with Ryan when the captain used that tone of voice and Finn had already given them the full benefit of his extensive vocabulary.
Blade tossed an M4 carbine at him followed by four spare clips, which Stephen quickly stowed in the pockets of his tactical vest, and then they were jog-trotting along the road at a fast but sustainable pace. Hard labour in the prison had been a poor replacement for the long runs Stephen had been used to taking, but he’d done his best to remain in good shape, and he was pleased that he hadn’t let his exercise regime slide too far.
The mist closed in around them like an enveloping grey blanket, shutting out both sight and sound. The road snaked ahead of them, climbing steadily as they passed the wide expanse of Merrivale Quarry on the right, the site of an earlier attack by the Andrewsarchus. Stephen drew in a deep breath as his long legs ate up the ground. He moved to the front of the group, next to Ryan.
“We’re going up against one of the most effective predators since T. rex walked the earth,” Stephen said, keeping his tone matter-of-fact.
“The lads like a challenge.”
Stephen grinned, despite their situation. The captain was an easy man to like. Stephen just wished they’d met in different circumstances.
A sudden scream pierced the air. A woman, afraid, very afraid.
They redoubled their pace. Stephen estimated that they were no more than 100 metres from their goal. A sudden gust of wind thinned the mist and Stephen could see, up ahead, a minibus, canted to one side, looking like it was leaning on a large granite boulder by the side of the road, its front wheel off the road and in one of the drainage ditches that he’d helped to dig out during one of the work parties on the moor.
The sound of breaking glass was the next thing he heard as a huge, brindled shape reared up and smashed the front windscreen with two enormous hooved feet that made extremely effective clubs.
“Jesus fucking Christ will you look at the jaws on that bastard!” Finn exclaimed, in total defiance of the anti-blasphemy laws.
“Hold your fire!” Ryan ordered quickly.
From their angle of approach, any bullets – even if they struck their intended target – would go straight through the creature and into a bus full of children. Stephen could now hear the sound of screaming from inside the wrecked vehicle. The woman’s voice was joined by those of the children and the van was rocking backwards and forwards as those inside fought to get away from the massive jaws capable of rending flesh and metal all too easily.
As Stephen stared at the unfolding scene, he could see a man’s body in the road in front of the bus; the bus driver, prostrate in the inelegant sprawl of death, blood pooling around him on the road.
“Hart, this would be a good time for some suggestions,” Ryan said quietly, as they all came to a halt about 20 metres away.
“We need to get it away from the bus so we can get a clear shot at it,” Stephen said. “The problem is that it knows there’s plenty of prey in there. It can smell their fear, and the movement’ll be attracting it like a cat to a budgie cage.”
“Fucking big kitty cat,” commented Finn.
Stephen weighed up the odds, drew in a deep breath and ran. He stopped on the edge of the moor and yelled loudly, “Oi, you! Fur face!”
The Andrewsarchus turned to look at him, its heavy jaws open, blood smeared around the long muzzle.
Stephen waved his arms about, yelled again, and dived into the mist, pinning his hopes on the soldiers’ reaction times.
“Hart, you fucking idiot!”
Stephen just hoped Ryan’s words wouldn’t end up as his epitaph.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Ryan, Lester, Nick, Stephen, Connor, Danny, Ditzy, Finn, Blade
Disclaimer : Not mine (except the OCs), no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count : 59,000 words in 30 chapters of approx. 1,500 – 2,500 words each
Spoilers : None
Summary : Ending up in Dartmoor prison for refusing to recant their belief in evolution is only the start of the problems facing Nick, Stephen and Connor. And Sir James Lester soon ends up with other problems on his hands than just an over-crowded prison population.
A/N : For acknowledgments etc please see Part 1.
Ryan hurried with the prisoners to the governor’s office, leaving his men to respond to calls from any of the other wings, should extra assistance be needed. If the wailing sound of the klaxon horn on the rooftop hadn’t been enough to alert everyone in earshot to the fact that they were needed, he’d already given the order for all off-duty soldiers and prison guards to be recalled to the prison. He hoped that would bring in some much-needed reinforcements.
“Enter!” Lester’s response to Ryan’s perfunctory knock sounded sharp and impatient.
“All present, sir,” Ryan said, as Cutter and the others followed him into the room.
“Good.” Lester looked like a man who’d already received all the bad news he wanted to hear in a lifetime. “But our problems aren’t limited to within these walls, Ryan. I’ve just spoken to Jenny. There’s an anomaly on the main road and something very large has just come through. Ms Maitland is with her, but they need some back-up.” Lester paused a moment then said, “The Prime Minister has declared martial law in the area. I have full authority to contain this situation however I think fit.”
Another knock on the door sounded and, without waiting for a reply, Lester’s secretary put her head around the door. “I’ve got the Chief Constable on the line for you, sir, he says it can’t wait.”
Lester snatched up the phone. “What’s happened now?” he demanded without any preamble or deference to the man’s rank. Lester listened intently for a minute and then said, “I’ll get some of my men up there immediately. In the meantime tell them to stay in the minibus and wait for help. Get your people to concentrate on securing the area. I don’t want any traffic incoming on any of the roads. Keep people indoors and if anyone sees anything strange, do not engage it. I repeat, do not engage it. Leave that to my men.” The phone went down none too gently. “We have a minibus full of children on the moor just above the quarry. The idiot driver swerved to avoid something in the fog and put the vehicle into a ditch. He then phoned 999 and told the operator they were being stalked by a lion. The emergency services are getting so many calls it’s a miracle that one even got through.”
“It’s the Andrewsarchus again,” Cutter declared. “They’ll have to be careful. That thing’s strong enough to smash the glass on a windscreen if it wants to.”
“Then let’s hope it finds something else to distract it,” Lester said. “Ryan, take whoever you want and get up there. We need those children brought to safety or the press will have even more of a field day that they’ll be having already when all this gets out. Cutter, I’m relying on you to come up with something to help Ms Lewis and Ms Maitland. Will you give me your word that you won’t just do a disappearing act the minute you’re outside these walls?”
“Do you even need to ask?” Cutter said, his face betraying his anger.
Lester didn’t flinch. “Yes, I do. I can’t make you any promises, Cutter, and you know it, but you have knowledge I need. I can’t afford you taking off in the thick of this.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” Cutter said simply. “You can have my word on that. Just give me yours that you’ll do your best for Stephen and Connor when all this is over. And Danny.”
“I’ll do my best for all of you,” Lester snapped. “Now get out there and start dealing with dinosaurs!”
“Hart, you’re with me,” Ryan said quickly. “Sir, I’ll send Lyle or Stringer out with the others.” He glanced at Cutter and Quinn. “Make sure you do as you’re told. You’re there to help, not make matters worse.”
Without waiting for a response, Ryan gestured to Stephen Hart to follow him as he hurried out of the room. He was already issuing a series of orders into his radio as he jogged down the corridor, telling four of his men to meet him in the main courtyard.
* * * * *
The soldiers piled into one of the prison’s black Range Rovers. Stephen joined the others in the back as Finn took the wheel, with Ryan in the other front seat. They had enough weaponry with them to start a minor war and, at an order from Ryan, Stephen had been promptly equipped with a SIG Sauer P226 and a thigh holster, plus one of the equipment vests the soldiers wore and one of their radio headsets.
The main gate let them through, after several vehicles containing off-duty soldiers and guards had streamed in. As Finn practically did a handbrake turn onto the road, Stephen looked back out of the window and in the distance saw the shape of something almost unbelievably huge. The only thing he could think of that could have been that size was an apatosaurus or maybe a diplodocus. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how Cutter and the others would deal with something that size, but for the moment, that wasn’t his problem. He had an Andrewsarchus to worry about; a creature that had the strongest jaws ever to have evolved on a land mammal.
Stephen dropped the clip out of the SIG, checked it was fully loaded, and slammed it back in to place, before wriggling into the holster and tightening the straps around his loose prison-issue trousers. The equipment vest held spare magazines, a couple of flares, a flashlight, a taser, a pepper spray and an extendable baton. It settled on his shoulders in a comforting weight over one of the black jackets that had been stuffed into his hands by Finn as they’d sprinted for the vehicle.
The green-eyed soldier they called Blade told him there was a spare M4 rifle for him in the metal case in the back of the vehicle. Ryan had clearly decided that he could be trusted. But in truth, the captain’s men were stretched to breaking point now, both in the prison and in the town, so beggars certainly couldn’t be choosers. Ryan hadn’t asked Stephen for any promises, but the fact that he was being allowed weapons spoke volumes for the trust the captain was prepared to place in him and Stephen had no intention of abusing that.
As they left the prison behind, mist closed around them, forcing Finn to rein in his breakneck speed or risk putting the vehicle off the road. Stephen clipped his seat belt into place and hung on for the ride.
* * * * *
“Fucking shit!”
Finn slammed on the brakes and brought the Range Rover to a shuddering halt. It slewed to one side but stayed on the road. In front of them, wreathed in mist, Stephen could see the wreckage of three cars, with several people standing in the middle of the road, arguing the toss, arms waving and voices raised.
Stephen couldn’t work out how the hell they’d managed it, but one of the vehicles had ended up on its roof in the middle of the road and two others seemed to have managed to get embedded in each other in a way that didn’t look easy to extricate either of them from. Two people were sitting by the side of the road, looking dazed. One of them had blood running from a gash on their head and the other was cradling an arm that looked broken.
Ditzy, the medic with the unlikely and extremely inaccurate nickname, took a quick look at both of them while Finn shouted the rest of the group into submission and Ryan got on the phone to Lester, asking for another vehicle to be sent out from the prison or from the police to pick up the motorists.
“Get the kit, we tab in from here,” Ryan ordered, after it had became obvious that the ditches on either side of the road were too deep for their vehicle to traverse and that it would take too long to get the wreckage shifted.
The captain ordered the irate motorists to stay with their cars. Stephen wasn’t surprised that the presence of armed soldiers quickly quelled any dissent. It would have taken a brave man to argue with Ryan when the captain used that tone of voice and Finn had already given them the full benefit of his extensive vocabulary.
Blade tossed an M4 carbine at him followed by four spare clips, which Stephen quickly stowed in the pockets of his tactical vest, and then they were jog-trotting along the road at a fast but sustainable pace. Hard labour in the prison had been a poor replacement for the long runs Stephen had been used to taking, but he’d done his best to remain in good shape, and he was pleased that he hadn’t let his exercise regime slide too far.
The mist closed in around them like an enveloping grey blanket, shutting out both sight and sound. The road snaked ahead of them, climbing steadily as they passed the wide expanse of Merrivale Quarry on the right, the site of an earlier attack by the Andrewsarchus. Stephen drew in a deep breath as his long legs ate up the ground. He moved to the front of the group, next to Ryan.
“We’re going up against one of the most effective predators since T. rex walked the earth,” Stephen said, keeping his tone matter-of-fact.
“The lads like a challenge.”
Stephen grinned, despite their situation. The captain was an easy man to like. Stephen just wished they’d met in different circumstances.
A sudden scream pierced the air. A woman, afraid, very afraid.
They redoubled their pace. Stephen estimated that they were no more than 100 metres from their goal. A sudden gust of wind thinned the mist and Stephen could see, up ahead, a minibus, canted to one side, looking like it was leaning on a large granite boulder by the side of the road, its front wheel off the road and in one of the drainage ditches that he’d helped to dig out during one of the work parties on the moor.
The sound of breaking glass was the next thing he heard as a huge, brindled shape reared up and smashed the front windscreen with two enormous hooved feet that made extremely effective clubs.
“Jesus fucking Christ will you look at the jaws on that bastard!” Finn exclaimed, in total defiance of the anti-blasphemy laws.
“Hold your fire!” Ryan ordered quickly.
From their angle of approach, any bullets – even if they struck their intended target – would go straight through the creature and into a bus full of children. Stephen could now hear the sound of screaming from inside the wrecked vehicle. The woman’s voice was joined by those of the children and the van was rocking backwards and forwards as those inside fought to get away from the massive jaws capable of rending flesh and metal all too easily.
As Stephen stared at the unfolding scene, he could see a man’s body in the road in front of the bus; the bus driver, prostrate in the inelegant sprawl of death, blood pooling around him on the road.
“Hart, this would be a good time for some suggestions,” Ryan said quietly, as they all came to a halt about 20 metres away.
“We need to get it away from the bus so we can get a clear shot at it,” Stephen said. “The problem is that it knows there’s plenty of prey in there. It can smell their fear, and the movement’ll be attracting it like a cat to a budgie cage.”
“Fucking big kitty cat,” commented Finn.
Stephen weighed up the odds, drew in a deep breath and ran. He stopped on the edge of the moor and yelled loudly, “Oi, you! Fur face!”
The Andrewsarchus turned to look at him, its heavy jaws open, blood smeared around the long muzzle.
Stephen waved his arms about, yelled again, and dived into the mist, pinning his hopes on the soldiers’ reaction times.
“Hart, you fucking idiot!”
Stephen just hoped Ryan’s words wouldn’t end up as his epitaph.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-05-26 04:25 pm (UTC)*bites fingernails*
no subject
Date: 2014-05-29 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-26 04:26 pm (UTC)Yup! That's the Stephen we know and love. I hope Ryan is very stern with him later. Preferably in the shower.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-29 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-26 05:35 pm (UTC)Lester snatched up the phone. “What’s happened now?”
LOL Poor Lester - today is nothing but bad news
“Then let’s hope it finds something else to distract it,” Lester said.
*Immediate bad feeling about where this is going*...
“You can have my word on that. Just give me yours that you’ll do your best for Stephen and Connor when all this is over. And Danny.”
Wow. Bravo, Cutter. Reality has sunk in and he's taking it well.
creature that had the strongest jaws ever to have evolved on a land mammal.
*meep*
the fact that he was being allowed weapons spoke volumes for the trust the captain was prepared to place in him and Stephen had no intention of abusing that.
Yay! Potential Stephen/Ryan rears its lovely head!
two others seemed to have managed to get embedded in each other in a way that didn’t look easy to extricate either of them from.
LOL. Good visual!
Ditzy, the medic with the unlikely and extremely inaccurate nickname, took a quick look at both of them while Finn shouted the rest of the group into submission
One day maybe we'll find out how DItzy got that nickname. *pokes*
LOL for Finn using the time-honoured method of "Loud" for crowd control!
Finn had already given them the full benefit of his extensive vocabulary.
And another Finn ftw!
“We’re going up against one of the most effective predators since T. rex walked the earth,” Stephen said, keeping his tone matter-of-fact.
“The lads like a challenge.”
Stephen grinned, despite their situation. The captain was an easy man to like. Stephen just wished they’d met in different circumstances.
Oooh, a second step towards the desired *ahem* consummation
“Jesus fucking Christ will you look at the jaws on that bastard!” Finn exclaimed, in total defiance of the anti-blasphemy laws.
Finn is on a roll!
*sighs happily*
no subject
Date: 2014-05-29 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-26 06:12 pm (UTC)Yes, I am still hanging in there. This is exciting. I have never followed such a long multi-part story before, and I am gripped!
no subject
Date: 2014-05-29 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-26 06:45 pm (UTC)Go Finn!
Eek! If the prisoners are getting armed then things are really bad. Love Lester making deals with Nick and Nick asking only for him to help the others.
*hugs all the boys*
*purrs loudly*
no subject
Date: 2014-05-29 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-26 08:39 pm (UTC)Wow ! Very exciting.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-29 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-26 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-29 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-27 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-29 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-30 11:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-01 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-01 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-01 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-21 10:21 pm (UTC)Stephen! This is just the sort of rash heroics that get you into trouble. Luckily his companions (hopefully!) quick on the uptake.
I am liking Finn's take on the subject. Big kitty cat.
Whatever they pay Lester it probably isn't enough.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 11:37 am (UTC)