Agent Scully had the dark gray gunbelt Peirson had handed her settled about her waist before the sun had cleared the horizon.
She'd discarded the bulky P3 suit, and instead was down to a smelly pair of jeans and short shirt. In the face of the chill sea wind, she regretted not having more to wear, but many of the needed supplies had been stowed in the lab boxes that had been destroyed in the battle. She'd let her ragged and wild auburn hair down from the tie which had bound it under her mask. She hoped that maybe the comfort would help. Peirson's grenade launcher had been salvaged from his rifle, and attached to the weapon of Petty Officer Connley. Dana in turn had picked up the rifle of a dead man in a rubber suit. She didn't want to look at the name on the front of his togs.
For years, Dana's older brothers had taught her to hunt game, and use rifles and shotguns. She'd learned to hate killing defenseless creatures. Then she had joined the FBI, and they showed her how to use a pistol, and even her own hands. And Fox Mulder showed her that there was still some game that needed to be hunted. Dana swallowed sharply, and hoped she kept all those lessons inside her still.
Soun, Connley, and one other soldier were going to lead the way. Dana was going with them in case the lieutenant or Mulder was hurt. Privately, Dana knew her partner was hurt. He always stood in the path of danger. She was only worried as to the extent of his injuries.
Two SEAL team members were staying to watch after the wounded. And Whitman should be able to take care of both Pryce and Peirson. But the hands that kneaded the rubber grips on her rifle were stained russet under the nails, and Scully couldn't help but worry about the charge she left with an inexperienced doctor.
The top of the stairwell was rent, and opened to the red morning sky. Long shards of helicopter blade had disintegrated upon impact, leaving carbon fibers and char embedded in the rig's structure. But the light filtering through the blast damage illuminated the route Dana and the soldiers were forced to use when looking for Mulder and Quiddis.
Dr. Scully watched the three men before her descend the debris covered steps. Their green fatigues glowed a dull gray under the red sky, and the dark barrels of their weapons gleamed. Then she followed quickly behind them, not wanting to be any great distance from the amassed firepower they represented.
The staircase quickly swallowed any light as the four descended, and just as quickly it consumed all noise. Dana was all too conscious of the heavy pounding made by the soldiers feet, out of rhythm to the sounds of her heart in her ears.
Dana pivoted sharply at each landing, and brought her rifle to her shoulder. She remembered the Bust House at the Academy in Quantico all too well. But if she forgot to check the corners here, it might well be her last mistake.
"All right, level three here." Soun called out in a whisper over Scully's earpiece. "We go through on three, and it's a straight two-by-two advance to the far end. Doc, you're with me."
Dana nodded to the square Asian man as she brought her rifle up. She then realized that the entire team was pointing weapons at the one door. Dr. Scully bit her lip, then swung the light rifle upwards, to cover the stairway she'd just descended.
There was no need to take chances.
She found herself holding her breath as Soun kicked open the hatch.
Quiddis kept his bare forearm behind Mulder's knees, and his shoulder planted firmly in the agent's stomach. With Fox tossed over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, the lieutenant was able to keep up with the pace Glad set.
Colonel White didn't mind being called Glad. He'd been called a lot of things. None of them bothered him anymore. Not in a day and age where he was called un-American for defending his country. Actually, he rather liked the name Sergeant Glad.
White continued to lead the two men toward the catwalk connecting Platforms One and Two. It was a narrow walkway with high railings. He knew the lieutenant would have a difficult time turning around on such a catwalk now that he was carrying a deadweight. And once the Colonel had shot both men, the sea below would consume the evidence.
Now all he had to do was get there.
Seamen Meyers and PO 2nd Connelly were the first through the hatch and into the third floor. In dead quiet, they ran to the next intersection before throwing themselves against the deckplating. Meanwhile, Scully and Soun were pressed back to back, covering the soldiers and the stairs.
Then Dana was running with Soun, her head ringing as they passed the soldiers, and dove for the next intersection. She had barely hit the floor before the first two men bounced to their feet and ran past in a crouch.
Dr. Scully remembered that she was supposed to provide covering fire for them. She had to keep her focus on any threats.
In the space of a few feet, she'd gone from a firefight into a warrior's mentality. Despite all her precious acumen, she was forced to close off all thought beyond these three men, and the remaining feet to the outside hatch.
She scrambled into a low crouch, the shrouded bulk of Soun and his squad support weapon beside her. He used hand gestures to speak, and she picked up with him and his men quickly.
Almost before she could think about it, Dana found her back thrown up against the outside wall next to the gangplank door. The metal, like the air, chilled the sweat on her skin. She didn't want to drag her left hand from the rifle stock just to sweep back her errant red bangs, so she shook her head back against the gray steel wall.
It felt damn good.
And not just the chill metal, but the blood in her ears, in her face. The way her teammates seemed to move in slow motion about her. The tight, cold, liquid feeling inside her chest. For a moment, she knew why these men had chosen this life.
"Okay, the gangway. One at a time, and keep sharp." Soun whispered in her ear, and there was no sensuality to it. Just intensity.
She breathed deeply, and barreled through the open door, into the light.
Glad slid effortlessly along the darkened hallway like a wraith. The taut strap held his gun low, and his rolling gait barely moved the barrel. He was economy of movement, with only the flickering of a single fluorescent distantly lighting his features to give him animation.
Quiddis was stunned as he watched, the skill displayed before him almost washing aside his grubbier concerns. Then his eye caught upon the gently swaying bags at Sergeant Glad's waist, and he was returned to his own thoughts.
Mulder's weight was no grave distraction for the Lieutenant, and instead served to focus him upon the situation at hand. In any other place, Quiddis would have followed Glad with the trust implicit in the chain of command. Now he was carrying a trusted civilian and federal agent over his shoulder in a dead retreat from demonic creatures his mother would have sermonized about. And rather than run in blind fear, he gave himself something to think about, to light the darkness pressing in with chill fingers about him.
He knew from his experience with his men how people worked on an instinctive level. He knew Fox Mulder did not trust Glad. And it made him think.
He'd done too many dark deeds at the bidding of his government not to know that Glad had been sent with a separate agenda. The ripstop nylon and Teflon bags at his waist merely confirmed this.
Glad disappeared around a corner. Moments later, a uniformed hand curved back into view, beckoning Quiddis on. He paused to feel Fox's thready pulse before jogging onward. On a hunch, he stopped momentarily to draw his weapon, and remove the safety. Then he held it pinned against his chest, hidden by the bulk of Mulder's thighs.
It wasn't actually distrust of Glad, he believed. Just an active sense of caution.
Around the corner, Glad halted Quiddis with an abrupt wave of his hand. Quiddis nearly drew his weapon, his shoulders tight. Then he realized that Glad was staring into the gathering light at the end of the corridor, and stopped.
"Okay, here we go. I lead up to the door," Glad gestured to the shattered remains of the hatch he'd demolished to enter the Platform. "And then you go through first. I'll cover you."
"Your work?" Quiddis nodded in the semi-darkness toward the smoking hatch. The smell of composite explosives still scarred the air.
"Yeah. You like?" He smiled.
"Yeah." Quiddis grinned in return. He was confused by the dual vision of the affable companion he saw before him, and the viper he'd seen reflected in Mulder's eyes.
"My favorite part of the job." Glad patted the Lieutenant on the shoulder, scant inches from the hidden gun. Then Glad darted down the corridor, trading stealth for speed.
He tossed himself against the wall near the doorway, and gestured to Quiddis to join him. The bright light through the door nearly blotted out all sight of Glad.
Quiddis knew he had to be illuminated perfectly to Glad. He thought of the gun he had hidden, and burned with shame. What the hell was he thinking, he wondered.
With a burst of speed, Quiddis slammed his right shoulder painfully hard into the wall. He had to do so in order to save Mulder from the pounding.
Glad checked his weapon surreptitiously. "Go, quick!"
Quiddis bit his lip, and ran out onto the planking between platforms One and Two.
Scully charged onto the planking just as Quiddis burst through from the other side. Both stopped abruptly, starring at one another across thirty feet of rusted white grating.
For a moment even the freezing wind seemed to stop, and the ruddy light of daybreak painted Agent Scully in the rich hues of the Impressionists. It seemed her flaming hair billowed about her umber shirt, and Quiddis was transformed into a chiseled statue, his blouse snapping away from his bare torso.
Then Dana's blue eyes caught the Lieutenant, and saw through him. She swung a rifle to her shoulder in a motion seemingly too slow for words. But Quiddis couldn't seem to think of why this beauty before him was trying to kill him.
His hand twitched on his pistol, and his heart leapt.
Colonel White was damn sorry to kill Quiddis. The young man seemed genuinely nice. And he was a patriot. It didn't matter that he'd die in service to his country. Men like that, he felt, could do so much more for America than die meaninglessly. But his orders were clear.
He was sorry Mulder was unconscious. An insufferably smug traitor like that should see what came his way. And he didn't deserve to fall amidst heroes like Lt. Quiddis.
White reminded himself that none of this was personal before swinging into the doorway. He brought his gun up, and had it pointed at the Lieutenant's back before he realized the younger man was stopped in his tracks.
Glad remembered another back, frozen in his mind. The last time he'd seen a soldier freeze like that was before the blast in an ambush. It was that same, useless premonition of death that had cost White a point man.
Then Quiddis fell to the ground, the Special Agent a boneless rubber-suited mass atop him. The narrow steel railings kept them from dropping to less than knee height, but it was enough.
Enough to reveal Dana Scully leveling a loaded CAR-15 at Glad.
White let his small weapon yammer out a burst at Scully as she dropped to the deck. The rounds knocked the man behind her down, his rifle firing mindlessly into the clean sky.
For a moment, White realized that Dana's small form was out of sight behind the bodies of the two men he'd tried to kill. Then he realized he could simply fire through the three at this range, and dropped his sights down onto Fox Mulder's unconscious back .
And the low gray plastic shape of a Steyer Squad Support Weapon led Soun about the far door. The enraged SEAL triggered off a rolling burst on full automatic before he'd acquired a target.
He didn't care. He had fifty rounds of NATO standard heavy that promised him no man would shoot at his team. And what could a gun do to him, next to the aliens he'd just seen?
The thunder of the Steyer rolled over the wind and seasong. Its star-shaped blasts swung across Col. White, who'd abandoned all hope of winning out.
One of the high powered rounds kicked a spray of blood from White as he threw himself off the gantry. It was the worst dive he'd ever made in his life, and the last.
Scully hadn't realized she'd fired until half of her thirty-round magazine was gone. The whine of bullets still echoed in her ears as she swept the sea she'd fired into.
Her mouth went dry. She realized she had just fired into the ocean, praying that she would hit Sergeant Glad.
The moans from around her on the slippery gangplank snapped the impending tears from her eyes. She turned, and saw the Petty Officer, Connley sprawled across the small plank, one arm sticking out into empty air.
Dana tossed her rifle over one shoulder, and crawled over to him. She didn't trust her legs to carry her unassisted. The boy had three crimson holes in the canvas of his blouse, and she tore the large buttons apart to get to the wounds.
Three bullet holes clustered between his nipples, and hissed as he breathed. He was mercifully unconscious, but Dr. Scully watched the thin ropes of blood fall into the water far below.
Dana looked up at Soun, who fitfully trained his gun on the sea beneath them. Their eyes met for a moment, and Dana shook her head softly. Then he returned to his watch, and she to her patient.
"Meyers, take Connley." Soun's soft voice was tightened, thickened.
"Soun! This man cannot be moved." Dana tried using blood-wet cloth to seal the holes in his chest, fighting the steady collapse of his lungs.
"And we can't stay on this bridge. Not with more of those things running around." Soun pulled Scully to her feet with one thick hand.
"Both of you, stand down!" Quiddis stood up, laying Mulder at his feet. The two jumped from where they stood toe to toe. "We've got wounded, and the hospital is on this level. We'll just do a little recon in force. Soun get me Connley's rifle."
Quiddis shouldered Mulder again, and Meyers dragged Connley along toward the rig hospital. Scully couldn't do much to carry, so she instead kept furious watch down the dark corridors. And Soun hefted his Steyer as though he wanted something to shoot.
The Lieutenant felt as though he were lost, and making up the rules as he ran. He was jogging back down darkened corridors, retracing his steps. He'd had no time to ask about the shooting on the bridge. One moment he'd seen Scully, the next Glad had opened fire. He was fairly certain the first shots he'd heard had come from behind him.
Dr. Scully was fairly burning with righteous anger. A soldier had just tried to kill her, and instead fatally wounded the man being dragged behind her. Her partner, Fox, was dangling in front of her, blood covering his sealed suit, and she couldn't do a thing. Just wait until she reached the hospital. It felt as though everyone about her conspired to keep her from saving these men.
She knew Fox would smile thoughtfully at her dreaming of conspiracies. Then she saw the pale face and bloody hand swing from Quiddis' shoulder, and blinked back tears.
"Move faster, dammit." She hardly recognized her own voice inside the gruff words.
Soun's retort was swallowed by a sickening squealing from behind her. She snapped her head back, and saw Soun firing down a connecting corridor. Then she found her back pressed against his, the violence of his rifle shaking her. Dana kept her eye on Quiddis and Mulder ahead of her, covering them. Soun and Meyers could take the rear.
Still back to back, Soun and Dana advanced sideways down the suddenly quiet corridor. Meyers pranced backwards, searching the hallways with wild eyes. There was no sign of Connley's body. One moment Meyers had been dragging his teammate, the next he'd been torn away. Into the darkness.
Before her, Quiddis jogged forward with Mulder over one shoulder. He hadn't even turned as the gunfire erupted. Somewhere inside Scully, this touched an animal instinct, and scared her down to the soles of her feet.
"Lieutenant." Dana hissed at his broad back, so like Mulder's. "Lieutenant!"
"Soon. We'll be there soon." His voice wavered unsteadily.
Before Scully could formulate a reply, he'd slid Mulder to the ground, and tossed open a door quickly. He wordlessly slid into the lighted hospital, unlimbering his assault rifle.
Scully ran to Mulder, while Soun took up a firing position near the battered metal door. He waved Meyers through the doorway in pursuit of their wayward Lieutenant.
The hospital was lit, and the open doorway spilled some ghastly illumination across Mulder's waxen face. Dr. Scully dropped to her knees beside her partner, and quickly ran her fingers along his throat and forehead. He was cold, and his pulse was thready. She hesitated to remove the blood-soaked bandage from his hand.
Instead she silently felt along his sparse frame. She could find no other injuries, no broken bones. The rubber suit needed to come off, but not now. Not until she had him warmed up. From the gray cast to his lips, she guessed that he'd lost a large quantity of blood.
Again.
The SEALs called out that the hospital was clear, and then Meyer was dragging Mulder inside. No sooner did his boots clear the doorway than Soun slammed and locked the heavy metal door. Now it was Dana's turn to take charge.
The room reeked of alcohol, and the floor was a mess of papers and broken glass, but Dana ignored them. The outer room was a simple examination room, and Scully felt that it would do. She didn't want to waste the time trying to find a better location.
She pulled a board out from the end of the padded exam table for Mulder's legs, and turned to Meyers and Soun.
"Lift him up here. Lieutenant, can you find the refrigerator?" When no answer was forthcoming, Soun moved off to look for the cooler.
Scully snapped on a pair of the disposable latex gloves that were in a cardboard box nearby. She was sweating from the stress of getting here, and had no time to sweep her hair back. But she tried to push these things from her mind, along with the image of Connley's blood pouring out of him. Along with a lot of things.
Unwinding the bloody shirt from Mulder's right hand revealed a marginal entrance wound between his thumb and second digit. The hole was ragged, indicating that it was not a simple gunshot. Turning his hand over, she spotted a matching exit wound near his wrist, along his palm. This was the point he'd bled out from. She guessed that the projectile had fractured some of the carpal bones in his hand, and possibly compromised one of the major veins along the wrist.
That meant surgery, and immediately.
"You," Scully nodded toward the remaining soldiers as she applied pressure to Fox's hand. "What's your name?"
"Meyers, ma'am." He was quiet as he watched her.
"Okay Meyers. I need you to apply pressure here while I get set up. Got it?" She hoped first aid was a regular course for these guys.
"Yes ma'am." Meyers hoped to the task with the speed of a duty nurse. Scully was impressed.
Soun returned with four liters of Type O whole blood. "These work?"
Scully didn't answer. She simply tagged the tubing into the bottom of the first liter, and started an IV, leaving the bag at Fox's side. Then she felt for his pulse, and began squeezing the bag in time with his heart. He'd lost enough blood that he couldn't wait for it to simply flow into him.
"Good. Soun, you go find the drug cabinet, and smack it open. Should be a part of the refrigerator." Soun nodded. Scully couldn't see it though; she was dragging up a rolling cart loaded with shining steel implements. "Get a couple of small bottles, labeled morphine."
"Shit." Soun muttered it under his breath as he headed out. If she wanted the man down completely before she got to work, then it wasn't good.
By the time he'd returned, she'd started a second IV into Mulder's other arm, and was tying a surgical mask around Meyer's head. Her own hung about her neck, at odds with the sway of her hair. Soun scattered the ampules of morphine on the surgical tray next to Doctor Scully.
She pushed Meyers aside, started cleaning out Fox's wounds. For the moment, his bloodstained rubber suit was a blessing, because it gave her a surface to place Mulder's hand on.
"Soun, you know how to start an IV drip?" Scully's voice was almost relaxed, like a soldiers as she spoke. Cool, but not cold.
"No. Meyers, you run it.." Soun stepped back out of the way momentarily.
"Good. Hang it for twenty mils an hour." She reached across Mulder's prone form to grab a clamp from the tray. She snapped it on a slashed vein, and set to work sewing Fox Mulder back together.
Soun found his lieutenant standing in the doorway of the doctor's office. His rifle lay amongst the broken glass and crumpled papers on the floor. Quiddis himself was slumped in upon himself, staring into the room Soun could not see.
Soun called out to the taller man from a distance. "El-tee. watcha' got?" He was glad that this team was lax about protocol. It gave him a chance to talk with his officer.
"You take a look around here?" Quiddis' normally rich voice had died. It was almost a whisper.
"It's trashed, like the rest of the rig." Soun still held the Steyer by his side. He knew he had to talk with the Lieutenant about calling in a second chopper, but he was too worried to bring it up now.
"Soun, it's nothing like the rest of the rig." He turned slowly, and Soun jerked at the anger burning in his Lieutenant's dark eyes. With his combat shirt open, and his gear gone, Quiddis no longer looked like a military officer. He just looked dangerous.
Soun was debating what tact to take with Quiddis when the lieutenant tossed a small gray shape at him. Reflexively, Soun caught it with his free left hand as it hit the sweaty cloth on his broad chest.
"What the . . . ?" He turned it over one handed, familiar with the feel of US-issue anti-personnel firebomb.
"Smell the alcohol in here? That little fuck, Glad, was going to torch us all!" Quiddis slammed a swarthy hand into the wall next to him.
"But-"
"Look around. All the paper everywhere, alcohol shattered. I found a propane tank for the emergency generator back here. And the Doc's records have been ransacked." Quiddis had cooled down almost instantly, his face now a mask of impassive calm.
Soun blinked rapidly before his expression mirrored Quiddis. "We've been set up. As decoys." His mouth ran dry at the thought of not getting off the rig.
Quiddis left his rifle, and wandered through the office before turning back to Soun. "Listen, how's the lady Doc doing with Mulder?"
Soun tossed a glance over his shoulder, where Scully's voice could almost be heard ordering Meyers about. "I don't know. He looked bad off, but she's pretty good."
"That guy's the only one who figured out this was a setup. I need him." Quiddis rubbed his eyes, remembering their run through the bowels of this beast. "Not that I'm not happy or anything, but why didn't you evac like I told you?" Quiddis was too tired to muster any anger at his soldier.
Soun leaned up against the wall, his adrenaline high dropping fast. "Chopper blew." What else to say, he wondered.
Quiddis just shook his head. With a smile, he ran his hand over his buzzed black hair. "Figures. Think it's safe to call for backup?"
Soun realized that his lieutenant didn't trust any of their superiors now. "I don't know, boss. Maybe." He raised a thin eyebrow. "But you think we can get away with not calling?"
"Hmph. Where's the rest of the team?"
"Back at the hanger. Whoever's left. Peirson's down, and only one of the Army pukes is still up and running." Soun held himself tensely, worried at the Lieutenant's response.
"Damn. I'll call them first. Once Scully and Meyers get through in there, we'll huddle, and pick out a plan of attack."
The winds froze his fingers, and he barely felt the icy metal rungs he held onto. His attempt to climb up a workman's ladder on the outside of Platform Four was nearly freezing Colonel White to death. But if he didn't get out of the water quickly, he'd simply be choosing which avenue he took to die.
He'd lost the little machine pistol during the fall, and at least one of his parcels. He couldn't remember right now. It was all he could do to push numb limbs further up the rusted hull of Rig 43. Harder still with the gunshot wound in one arm.
Colonel White just waited to lose himself in the pain. He always did. When he thought it could get no worse, the hurting always did. And then it went away, and he kept walking.
He could always keep walking. They'd given him awards and positions because he always kept walking.
The voice of his drill Sergeant back in Missouri floated to him from inside. Left. Left. Left, right, Left! Pick 'em up and put 'em down! What don't you know how to walk? Keep it up! Keepin' it up here, Sarge, he thought.
Resting his sweating forehead against the icy side of the rig, White paused to watch the storm massing along the horizon.
I'll get out of this. I'll get out real soon. Then I can really be Glad. The thought made him smile, despite the burning cold in his fingers.
