17
Andy and John are climbing. WATER THUNDERS down - it's like showering under a thousand fire hoses.
An access hatch turns, opens. Andy falls out of the howling water. The hatch is part of a duct that runs from floor to ceiling. Moments later, John falls into the room.
They lie on the floor like docked fish, gulping air. They don't know where they are. They only know they're alive.
John makes it back to his feet. Moves to the hatch. Pushes it closed - but something blocks it open.
The Rogue's face rages at the crack.
Andy slams into the hatch, adding his weight - but still they can't close it. John looks frantically around the room, spots a skein of wire.
"The wire, the wire! Loop it around!" John yells.
Andy pushes away from the hatch and runs for the wire.
The Rogue's leg thrusts through the crack, groping for the floor. That one lethal claw like a bloody sickle is swinging closer with each thrust.
John pushes for all he's worth.
The arm sweeps around the hatch, swiping blindly. John ducks, dodges, holds his ground as he yells at Andy to hurry the fuck up.
Piece by piece, the Rogue begins extruding through the foot-wide crack, plates and ribs unhinged. John is losing the battle - and maybe the war.
The hatch explodes open. John flies back.
The Rogue surges into the room and snaps together with a body-flex. John turns to run... And finds a flame-thrower staring at him.
He ducks as Jack pulls the trigger. FLAME ROARS right over John's head... Engulfing the Rogue.
Ianto appears with a worse for wear Suzie, opening fire with chattering stitch rifles and concussion grenades. Blinding flashes. Streaming trails of phosphorous. Flaming acid.
John hits the deck and covers Andy as they both ball up.
Burning needles stitch across the Rogue's neck, severing the head from body. Impossibly, it stays on its feet.
Finally the headless Rogue falls.
The guns go quiet. A long smoky beat. This was, very simply, one of the most hellacious fire fights we've ever seen. The room has been blasted into another time zone.
John un-balls and looks. The Rogue Alien lies dead. It's over. The nightmare is over.
Suddenly the floor caves in... crash-landing John into the room below. Shaking off unconsciousness, he sees... Skin Walkers. All dead. All torn apart in the most hideous fashion imaginable. And now John realizes that, no, the nightmare isn't over. In fact it's just begun.
.
.
.
"How the hell did you get out of that mess?" Andy asks.
"Ianto was still holding Suzie, wouldn't let her go and the adult Dermil was struggling with him. I placed my Webley against it's head and pulled the trigger."
"You're kidding? That sidepiece actually works? I thought it was purely ceremonial" Andy shakes his head then motions "Come on. Let's keep going. John's waiting down there."
The rest of the team drops through the hole, following John with haste and he motions for them to freeze as a Dermil, burrowing its head into the belly of the Skin Walker, stops.
Looks up.
Everyone watches as the creature senses them. The Dermil hisses. Rears back.
John looks away, contemplative. We see a gamut of emotions cross his face, but his posture passive, sacrificial. He does not move.
Everyone watches, too afraid to breathe.
The Dermil lunges at him, leaping across the room in two bounds. It's on him - and he spins, swinging his Katana and it flies to one side for the impact of the blade.
It lands in a tangle but is up again in a microsecond, jumps at him, knocks him back into the room, on him, its claws digging into his skin, piston tongue at him face, inches away.
He locks an arm around its slick, long head and pulls back we hear its tendons strain, snap.
"Shoot it! Shoot it!" Jack yells.
Ianto grabs a flame thrown and burns it. Screams fill the room as it briefly disentangles from John, the two of them thrown apart.
The beast recovers first, dodging the next blast and going for Ianto as John hits the Dermil again, John's momentum sends them over a railing and they fall twenty feet- the Dermil lands with a spine snapping crunch, John only slightly better.
A few crew members rush to look over the railing. Jack starts down the spiral staircase to that level.
The creature rolls back onto John, grabbing him with its dying strength.
A scream wells up in his throat. A totally animal kill-shriek that he screams, victorious, as he rips the Dermil's head clean off its damned neck.
"What the FUCK is going on here?" Suzie finally asks "Why are these things attacking us? I thought there was just the one. We killed on in the water… here is another… what the fuck! These are fully grown, furless bastards!"
How many are there?