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fredbassettTitle : The One That Got Away, Part 2
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Becker, Lester, Connor, Abby, Matt, Emily
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word Count : 3,192
Summary : It’s big, slippery, and decidedly unwanted.
A/N: Written for the <![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
primeval_denial> Art Challenge for this artwork by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eriah211. Thanks to lukadreaming for the beta. This is for the wonderful artwork of eriah211 HERE. many thanks also to her for creating this lovely cover and icon for the fic.
As far as they could tell, the giant eel – for want of a better description – hadn’t realised that it had vastly outstayed its welcome.
Westminster Bridge was decidedly the worse for wear, with large sections of its masonry now at the bottom of the river, several chunks having narrowly missed the police launch. Sergeant Marks had responded to that particular hazard with some choice Liverpudlean language and even Connor had been heard to say ‘fuck’.
But for the last two hours, they’d seen nothing of the eel since it had slipped below the murky waters of the Thames. There had been no signs of disturbance in the water in the vicinity of the anomaly and eventually Matt had decided that the risks of keeping it open outweighed the benefits.
Lester was still fielding increasingly irate calls from Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, with only the Assistant Chief Commissioner acting as Gold Commander remaining relatively unfazed by the day’s events. The only good thing was that with the anomaly locked, the fog was finally starting to dissipate, easing the traffic congestion and allowing the traffic police to start to bring order out of gridlocked chaos.
The situation on the water, however, was less easily resolved. All river traffic had ceased. The Thames was being patrolled from the air by two Fleet Air Arm Lynx Mk8 helicopters, each one carrying a full Royal Marines assault team equipped with machine gun pods, sniper rifles and, in the event of something more substantial being needed, Sting Ray missiles and depth charges. The Marine Policing Unit had deployed their largest boat, the Targa 37 Logistics Vessel, as well as two more of their Targa 31 Fast Patrol Vessels, one of which was still just upstream of the anomaly.
Connor was still monitoring the anomaly, but Becker – along with Matt and Lester –had transferred their base of operations to the Targa 37. An impressive array of equipment was now being deployed in an attempt to locate the eel, with a side-scan sonar device currently being towed beneath the boat as it made its way down the Thames. According to the technicians operating the kit, the sonar range was sufficient to pick up something the size of the eel, even whilst moving faster than would be usual in a standard search and rescue operation. As one of the women operators had succinctly put it: “We’re looking for something a fuck of a lot bigger than your average dead body, sir.”
There had been one reported sighting under Tower Bridge that they were taking seriously, but with calls pouring into the hotline the Metropolitan Police had set up, it was almost impossible to sift out genuine information from the usual crack-pot rubbish. The caller who had reported seeing the eel in the Serpentine typified the problem but the person on Tower Bridge who’d said they’d seen the creature heading down river had been an off-duty MPU officer, and Sergeant Marks had vouched for his sanity, so for that reason, Matt had taken the decision to search in that direction, rather than upstream, although one police launch had been sent west, just in case.
It had taken an hour for the Targa 37 to travel from Westminster Bridge to Greenwich and in that time it had picked up nothing even remotely large enough to be their quarry, although they had spotted some dead fish in the water at one point, consistent with Connor’s latest theory that they were actually looking for some sort of gigantic electric eel. That wasn’t the most comforting statement that Becker had ever heard.
Any attempt to create an exclusion zone the length of the river had very quickly been given up as wholly impractical, and if the crowds lining their route past the O2 Arena and through the Docklands were anything to go by, the whole search was rapidly turning into a complete three-ring circus. With the exception of their own air support, Becker had insisted on a no-fly zone over the river, and the ARC’s head of Media and PR was doing his best to keep the press at bay, but most news channels had switched over almost exclusively to coverage of Eel Watch, as the operation had been dubbed.
“You’ve been cleared to pass through the Barrier Control Zone,” Jess announced over their comms links. “You’ll be at the Thames Barrier in 17 minutes. Before you ask, no, there have been no reported sightings there, either. There was one report near Deptford Creek, but it turned out to be a Newfoundland dog chasing a duck.”
Becker raised one eyebrow in disbelief, but Alex Marks just shook his head and mouthed, “Normal for there.”
They were starting to lose the light now, although that wouldn’t make any difference to the sonar search. Matt wanted to keep one of the helicopters in the air just in case they did get a report that wasn’t barking mad. The searchlight underneath the Lynx was powerful enough to work by, even at night, but the second one would be kept overnight at Greenwich on standby.
By the time they reached the Thames Barrier, it was fully dark. The fog had all dissipated but the onlookers thronging the river were still out in force. Becker was starting to wonder how long they were going to keep the full team in the field, but with a gigantic electric eel loose somewhere in one of the country’s main waterways, he didn’t anticipate getting home any time soon. A delivery of takeaway pizza via their support boat helped lift morale slightly, but when the news came through from Connor that the anomaly had just winked out of existence, their spirits sank again. It was now obvious that even if they could locate the creature, the only course of action open to them would be to kill it.
“We could always sell it to the Dutch for smoking,” Lester commented, staring out over the dark waters of the river. “Might go nicely with some Bols gin.”
“We’ve got to catch it first,” Matt said. “And if it reaches the estuary, our chances of that are going to plummet.”
Lester waved one elegantly-manicured hand in the direction of the empty pizza boxes. “Thank you for that perfectly timed impersonation of the spectre at the feast, Mr Anderson. I believe the Prime Minister stated just 15 minutes ago that he was only at home to Mr Good News.”
“He’s going to be fucking unlucky then,” Alex Marks commented from the back of the boat. “You do realise it could easily have reached the sea by now, don’t you?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Lester said. “Despite the opinion of my staff to the contrary, I’m not actually a complete idiot.”
“He loves us really,” Becker injected, in a no doubt vain attempt to lighten the tone of the conversation.
“Captain Becker suffers from some unfortunate delusions, but I’ve been trying not to hurt his feelings.”
Before Becker could come up with a suitable retort, Jess’s voice cut in, sounding as sharp and bright as ever, despite the fact that she’d been at her post now for approaching 12 hours with only minimal breaks, “The coast guard have received a distress call from a yacht two kilometres out from Shoeburyness. Something big has hit it. They’re taking in water and are about to abandon the vessel using an inflatable. I’m diverting the Lynx to pick them up.” Before anyone had chance to question her, she cut them off with the words, “More reports coming in, I’ll get back to you…”
“I rather think we’re wasting our time, here, gentlemen,” Lester comment. “At the risk of mixing metaphors, the eel appears to have flown the coop.”
When Jess came back to them five minutes later to report that the owner of the yacht was claiming to have been hit by a sea serpent, even Becker found it hard to muster any enthusiasm for the thought of a trip out over the North Sea in a helicopter.
* * * * *
When there had been no confirmed sightings of the eel in the next 24 hours, Lester was finally forced to stand down the search teams. The navy had started to complain about the cost of keeping both the Lynx helicopters and the Royal Marines on stand-by and even the stoical Sergeant Marks had pointed out that he had better things he could be doing with his time than searching for a needle in a haystack.
The Sun beat its rivals to the headline: THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, Lester threatened to sack the next person who asked him if he was feeling a little ‘eel’ and the Bad Joke Eel tumblr went viral on the internet. But after a week, the story started showing signs of losing momentum. Topless pictures of a prominent member of the royal family suddenly eclipsed the ARC’s failure to serve up a sufficiently large eel pie, leaving Connor to give voice to everyone’s thoughts by cheerfully asking quite how many favours Lester had called in to get that story to break at the most opportune moment. The inscrutable look on their boss’s face had done nothing to dispel that particular rumour.
Another week later, as Becker was leaving the ARC on a Friday evening after a busy day chasing things that looked like giant wombats around Kew Gardens, he saw the light still on in Lester’s office and put his head around the door to say good night.
A pile of manila folders were open on the desk in front of him, and even at a distance and upside down, Becker recognised the distinctive cursive handwriting that covered various sheets of paper. Even nearly two years after her death, Becker still found a lump forming in his throat at such a tangible reminder of the woman whose life he’d failed to save.
Lester looked up, the slight smile on his face belying the sadness in his eyes. “Sarah would have been in her element the past couple of weeks,” he said quietly.
Becker stepped into the room, relying on a raised eyebrow to ask the question that he didn’t quite trust to his voice.
Lester pushed a few sheets of paper across the desk, then opened a drawer and brought out a bottle of single malt and two glasses. “According to Sarah’s notes, there are several candidates for our missing creature,” he commented. “The worm Ouroborus is one, although personally, I’m inclining towards the Midgard Serpent. I always did have a soft spot for Norse Mythology.”
“The nearest I’ve come to is it watching Thor on one of Connor’s movie nights,” Becker admitted.
“A huge sea serpent, the bastard love-child of Loki and a giantess. Odin threw it into the sea and it grew so large it ended up encircling the world.”
Becker winced. One big enough to wrap itself around Westminster Bridge had been quite enough for him. He picked up one of the sheets of paper and glanced down at Sarah’s list of mythological creatures. There were several possible candidates, but after speed-reading the page, he had to admit that he agreed with Lester’s conclusion.
Jormungand definitely seemed to fit the bill.
“Connor’s going to love this,” he said.
Lester smiled. “Yes, he is, isn’t he?”
And they both raised their glasses in silent tribute to Sarah Page. She would have loved this as well.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Becker, Lester, Connor, Abby, Matt, Emily
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word Count : 3,192
Summary : It’s big, slippery, and decidedly unwanted.
A/N: Written for the <
primeval_denial> Art Challenge for this artwork by eriah211. Thanks to lukadreaming for the beta. This is for the wonderful artwork of eriah211 HERE. many thanks also to her for creating this lovely cover and icon for the fic.
As far as they could tell, the giant eel – for want of a better description – hadn’t realised that it had vastly outstayed its welcome.
Westminster Bridge was decidedly the worse for wear, with large sections of its masonry now at the bottom of the river, several chunks having narrowly missed the police launch. Sergeant Marks had responded to that particular hazard with some choice Liverpudlean language and even Connor had been heard to say ‘fuck’.
But for the last two hours, they’d seen nothing of the eel since it had slipped below the murky waters of the Thames. There had been no signs of disturbance in the water in the vicinity of the anomaly and eventually Matt had decided that the risks of keeping it open outweighed the benefits.
Lester was still fielding increasingly irate calls from Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, with only the Assistant Chief Commissioner acting as Gold Commander remaining relatively unfazed by the day’s events. The only good thing was that with the anomaly locked, the fog was finally starting to dissipate, easing the traffic congestion and allowing the traffic police to start to bring order out of gridlocked chaos.
The situation on the water, however, was less easily resolved. All river traffic had ceased. The Thames was being patrolled from the air by two Fleet Air Arm Lynx Mk8 helicopters, each one carrying a full Royal Marines assault team equipped with machine gun pods, sniper rifles and, in the event of something more substantial being needed, Sting Ray missiles and depth charges. The Marine Policing Unit had deployed their largest boat, the Targa 37 Logistics Vessel, as well as two more of their Targa 31 Fast Patrol Vessels, one of which was still just upstream of the anomaly.
Connor was still monitoring the anomaly, but Becker – along with Matt and Lester –had transferred their base of operations to the Targa 37. An impressive array of equipment was now being deployed in an attempt to locate the eel, with a side-scan sonar device currently being towed beneath the boat as it made its way down the Thames. According to the technicians operating the kit, the sonar range was sufficient to pick up something the size of the eel, even whilst moving faster than would be usual in a standard search and rescue operation. As one of the women operators had succinctly put it: “We’re looking for something a fuck of a lot bigger than your average dead body, sir.”
There had been one reported sighting under Tower Bridge that they were taking seriously, but with calls pouring into the hotline the Metropolitan Police had set up, it was almost impossible to sift out genuine information from the usual crack-pot rubbish. The caller who had reported seeing the eel in the Serpentine typified the problem but the person on Tower Bridge who’d said they’d seen the creature heading down river had been an off-duty MPU officer, and Sergeant Marks had vouched for his sanity, so for that reason, Matt had taken the decision to search in that direction, rather than upstream, although one police launch had been sent west, just in case.
It had taken an hour for the Targa 37 to travel from Westminster Bridge to Greenwich and in that time it had picked up nothing even remotely large enough to be their quarry, although they had spotted some dead fish in the water at one point, consistent with Connor’s latest theory that they were actually looking for some sort of gigantic electric eel. That wasn’t the most comforting statement that Becker had ever heard.
Any attempt to create an exclusion zone the length of the river had very quickly been given up as wholly impractical, and if the crowds lining their route past the O2 Arena and through the Docklands were anything to go by, the whole search was rapidly turning into a complete three-ring circus. With the exception of their own air support, Becker had insisted on a no-fly zone over the river, and the ARC’s head of Media and PR was doing his best to keep the press at bay, but most news channels had switched over almost exclusively to coverage of Eel Watch, as the operation had been dubbed.
“You’ve been cleared to pass through the Barrier Control Zone,” Jess announced over their comms links. “You’ll be at the Thames Barrier in 17 minutes. Before you ask, no, there have been no reported sightings there, either. There was one report near Deptford Creek, but it turned out to be a Newfoundland dog chasing a duck.”
Becker raised one eyebrow in disbelief, but Alex Marks just shook his head and mouthed, “Normal for there.”
They were starting to lose the light now, although that wouldn’t make any difference to the sonar search. Matt wanted to keep one of the helicopters in the air just in case they did get a report that wasn’t barking mad. The searchlight underneath the Lynx was powerful enough to work by, even at night, but the second one would be kept overnight at Greenwich on standby.
By the time they reached the Thames Barrier, it was fully dark. The fog had all dissipated but the onlookers thronging the river were still out in force. Becker was starting to wonder how long they were going to keep the full team in the field, but with a gigantic electric eel loose somewhere in one of the country’s main waterways, he didn’t anticipate getting home any time soon. A delivery of takeaway pizza via their support boat helped lift morale slightly, but when the news came through from Connor that the anomaly had just winked out of existence, their spirits sank again. It was now obvious that even if they could locate the creature, the only course of action open to them would be to kill it.
“We could always sell it to the Dutch for smoking,” Lester commented, staring out over the dark waters of the river. “Might go nicely with some Bols gin.”
“We’ve got to catch it first,” Matt said. “And if it reaches the estuary, our chances of that are going to plummet.”
Lester waved one elegantly-manicured hand in the direction of the empty pizza boxes. “Thank you for that perfectly timed impersonation of the spectre at the feast, Mr Anderson. I believe the Prime Minister stated just 15 minutes ago that he was only at home to Mr Good News.”
“He’s going to be fucking unlucky then,” Alex Marks commented from the back of the boat. “You do realise it could easily have reached the sea by now, don’t you?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Lester said. “Despite the opinion of my staff to the contrary, I’m not actually a complete idiot.”
“He loves us really,” Becker injected, in a no doubt vain attempt to lighten the tone of the conversation.
“Captain Becker suffers from some unfortunate delusions, but I’ve been trying not to hurt his feelings.”
Before Becker could come up with a suitable retort, Jess’s voice cut in, sounding as sharp and bright as ever, despite the fact that she’d been at her post now for approaching 12 hours with only minimal breaks, “The coast guard have received a distress call from a yacht two kilometres out from Shoeburyness. Something big has hit it. They’re taking in water and are about to abandon the vessel using an inflatable. I’m diverting the Lynx to pick them up.” Before anyone had chance to question her, she cut them off with the words, “More reports coming in, I’ll get back to you…”
“I rather think we’re wasting our time, here, gentlemen,” Lester comment. “At the risk of mixing metaphors, the eel appears to have flown the coop.”
When Jess came back to them five minutes later to report that the owner of the yacht was claiming to have been hit by a sea serpent, even Becker found it hard to muster any enthusiasm for the thought of a trip out over the North Sea in a helicopter.
* * * * *
When there had been no confirmed sightings of the eel in the next 24 hours, Lester was finally forced to stand down the search teams. The navy had started to complain about the cost of keeping both the Lynx helicopters and the Royal Marines on stand-by and even the stoical Sergeant Marks had pointed out that he had better things he could be doing with his time than searching for a needle in a haystack.
The Sun beat its rivals to the headline: THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, Lester threatened to sack the next person who asked him if he was feeling a little ‘eel’ and the Bad Joke Eel tumblr went viral on the internet. But after a week, the story started showing signs of losing momentum. Topless pictures of a prominent member of the royal family suddenly eclipsed the ARC’s failure to serve up a sufficiently large eel pie, leaving Connor to give voice to everyone’s thoughts by cheerfully asking quite how many favours Lester had called in to get that story to break at the most opportune moment. The inscrutable look on their boss’s face had done nothing to dispel that particular rumour.
Another week later, as Becker was leaving the ARC on a Friday evening after a busy day chasing things that looked like giant wombats around Kew Gardens, he saw the light still on in Lester’s office and put his head around the door to say good night.
A pile of manila folders were open on the desk in front of him, and even at a distance and upside down, Becker recognised the distinctive cursive handwriting that covered various sheets of paper. Even nearly two years after her death, Becker still found a lump forming in his throat at such a tangible reminder of the woman whose life he’d failed to save.
Lester looked up, the slight smile on his face belying the sadness in his eyes. “Sarah would have been in her element the past couple of weeks,” he said quietly.
Becker stepped into the room, relying on a raised eyebrow to ask the question that he didn’t quite trust to his voice.
Lester pushed a few sheets of paper across the desk, then opened a drawer and brought out a bottle of single malt and two glasses. “According to Sarah’s notes, there are several candidates for our missing creature,” he commented. “The worm Ouroborus is one, although personally, I’m inclining towards the Midgard Serpent. I always did have a soft spot for Norse Mythology.”
“The nearest I’ve come to is it watching Thor on one of Connor’s movie nights,” Becker admitted.
“A huge sea serpent, the bastard love-child of Loki and a giantess. Odin threw it into the sea and it grew so large it ended up encircling the world.”
Becker winced. One big enough to wrap itself around Westminster Bridge had been quite enough for him. He picked up one of the sheets of paper and glanced down at Sarah’s list of mythological creatures. There were several possible candidates, but after speed-reading the page, he had to admit that he agreed with Lester’s conclusion.
Jormungand definitely seemed to fit the bill.
“Connor’s going to love this,” he said.
Lester smiled. “Yes, he is, isn’t he?”
And they both raised their glasses in silent tribute to Sarah Page. She would have loved this as well.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 09:38 am (UTC)*breaks out my Sarah icon*
no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 05:05 pm (UTC)This was very good, very exciting with the team working well together but too bad they lost the eel with an electrical charge! Cool. Connor must have been thrilled.
Was there a slight Becker/Connor here or was I imagining it?
no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 09:53 pm (UTC)It was in my mind as gen, but happy for people to interpret it how they like. *g*
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Date: 2014-06-11 07:17 pm (UTC)Great fic! Nice to get a mention of Sarah.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 09:47 pm (UTC)Very realistic, I loved to see that sometimes, even if they try really hard, one (or a few) do get away. Not that I would be glad to a monstruous eel free around the world, but you know what I mean ;-)
And I sporfled very loudly at the fail jokes :D Poor, Lester! But Connor's theory might be right, I do believe that too ^_^
Great story, I loved it!
no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 09:55 pm (UTC)Thank you for such an inspirational piece of art! *hugs* I'm glad you enjoyed it!
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Date: 2014-06-11 10:41 pm (UTC)And that was a nice tribute to Sarah at the end.
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Date: 2014-06-12 12:22 pm (UTC)But I was gutted by the paucity of eel jokes on the internet!
no subject
Date: 2014-06-12 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-12 06:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-12 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-12 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-12 12:16 pm (UTC)No, thank you *g*
Loved how you referred to places in London and the Thor film.
Aww at raising their glasses in tribute to Sarah. Lovely.
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Date: 2014-06-12 12:24 pm (UTC)It was nice to be able to bring in Sarah's memory.
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Date: 2014-06-12 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-13 01:56 am (UTC)“Thank you for that perfectly timed impersonation of the spectre at the feast, Mr Anderson. I believe the Prime Minister stated just 15 minutes ago that he was only at home to Mr Good News.”
I also think it's hilarious that no one was entirely sure if Lester pulled strings to have that story break about the topless Royal at the most opportune time. *g* Of course, I think the whole media circus around the giant eel is brilliant. I especially love the Bad Joke Eel tumblr. :-)
That moment in Lester's office where Lester and Becker remember Sarah is really touching. It would be wonderful if her notes could help the team track down the eel.
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Date: 2014-06-22 11:59 am (UTC)The Bad Eel Joke Tumblr was quite a find.
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Date: 2014-06-15 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-13 05:25 am (UTC)*snorfle*
There was one report near Deptford Creek, but it turned out to be a Newfoundland dog chasing a duck.”
Oh, my. *boggles*
leaving Connor to give voice to everyone’s thoughts by cheerfully asking quite how many favours Lester had called in to get that story to break at the most opportune moment. The inscrutable look on their boss’s face had done nothing to dispel that particular rumour.
Devious Lester is devious!
*sniffle* Loved the mention of Sarah at the end. Nice knowing they keep the past members in mind.
Beautiful work.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-13 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-31 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-31 05:43 pm (UTC)Thank you, I really enjoyed writing it :)