Owen emerges from the can and looks down, puzzled, at the puddle running the length of the corridor. He missed the whole thing.
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Mess Hall … Lights on. Everybody there. Ianto is really strutting, high on life, now that he's been proven right. "Okay, raise your hand if you think that was a Russian water-tentacle. Lieutenant? No? Well, a breakthrough."
Saxon is looking out from under his eyebrows like Nicholson in "The Shining".
Jack gives Ianto a warning look. Don't poke at the rattler. "You done impressing yourself, Tiger?"
"No way that could just be seawater." Toshiko is still in shock.
"They must've learned how to control water... I mean at a molecular level. They can plasticize it, polymerize it... whatever. Put it under intelligent control."
"Maybe their whole technology is based on that." Jack agrees "Controlling water."
Saxon is hunched over, elbows on his knees. His hands are out of sight. His arm is moving in a slow rhythm. We can't see what he's doing.
"That thing was probably their version of Big Geek... like an ROV." Owen points out.
"Just checking us out, huh?" John snorts "How come?"
Saxon has his K-BAR Knife under the table gripped white-knuckle in one hand. He is drawing it slowly and repeatedly across the skin of the other forearm. Neat chevrons of blood from wrist to elbow.
He doesn't flinch. His eyes are hard and bright as diamond drills. No one notices. He's keeping the edge.
"They're curious, maybe." Ianto surmises "We could be the first people they've seen up close."
"Hope they don't judge the whole race offa us." Sonny laughs.
"Maybe I oughta shave." John agrees.
Saxon stands abruptly, snags Schoenick with his eyes, and leaves, walking through the group as if they were smoke. This cold behaviour brings the mood down a notch.
Outside the mess hall, Saxon pauses, listening to the conversation resume. Bright speculation, a few jokes. Saxon is visible shaking. Breathing hard. Pupils dilated. Schoenick looks at him with concern.
"It went straight for the warhead." Saxon snarls "And they think it's cute."
"You need to get some sleep."
Saxon walks away without hearing him. Schoenick catches up.
The door opens in the dark room. Saxon enters, moving with purpose. He pulls his gear bag out from under the work table. Unzips it. Pulls out a short-barreled CAR-15 assault rifle. "We have no way of warning the surface. Do you know what that means?"
Schoenick doesn't know. He hopes Saxon knows. Because he's a fearless man who's discovering what it is to be afraid. Saxon inserts the magazine with a CLACK! Snaps the bolt. Tosses the rifle to Schoenick.
"It means... whatever happens is up to us."
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Owen passes the maintenance room. Looks in. The warhead and its cart are missing. He looks around. Heads toward the sub-bay.
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The discussion in the Mess Hall is still in progress.
"You think they're from down there originally?" Toshiko asks "Or from... you know".
She jerks her thumb toward the ceiling.
Ianto nods "I think they're from 'you know'. Some place that has similar conditions... cold, intense pressure. No light."
"Happy as hogs in a waller down there, prob'ly." John nods.
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Owen freezes in the corridor as he hears a loud ratcheting sound echoing from the sub-bay. He edges forward slowly, trying to keep his feet silent on the steel floor. Slides up along the wall next to the door. Inches his eye around the doorframe. Across the room. Schoenick is working with a chainfall, lowering Big Geek onto the MIRV warhead, which is still on its cart. He begins to attach them together with a sling of tie-down straps.
Owen lets his breath out slowly. His expression is Holy Shit.
He slides back along the corridor wall, silently. Away from the door. Then turn turns quickly to go... WHAM! Saxon slams him up against the wall! .45 pressed to Owen's temple. Owen gulping air as Saxon ears back the hammer.
"Sniff something did you, rat boy?"
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The meeting is breaking up as the door CLANGS open and Owen is thrust inside. His hands are taped behind his back and he stumbles onto his face. Saxon steps through smoothly, straight-arming the .45. Schoenick flanks him with the assault rifle aimed at the group.
"FREEZE! Don't move. That's it". Saxon barks then says to Monk "Here, hold this a second. We're going to phase three."
He hands his gun to Monk, with the assumption of absolute loyalty from a team member. Monk's eyes move between Saxon and the pistol. We can't tell what he's thinking. Saxon grabs Owen and shoves him onto a chair.
OWEN
"They're using Big Geek to take the bomb to the NTIs! We set it up to go right to them." Owen tells them.
Ianto looks stricken. His plan is betraying them all.
"Oh my God... Oh no..." Ianto gaps as he steps toward Saxon "Please, you can't. Saxon, think about what you're doing... for God's sake…"
Saxon lets him approach him, his eyes glittering. Without warning he grabs him by the hair and hurls him against the Coke machine, pinning him there with one hand.
Jack leaps forward.
"GET BACK!" Schoenick warns.
Jack freezes. The rifle's muzzle is aimed for a heart-shot.
Saxon moves up close to Ianto. "This is something I've wanted to do since I first met you."
His hand reaches down. We hear something RIP. His hand comes back up... holding a piece of gaffer's tape. He slaps it over Ianto's mouth. Then pushes him down into a chair.
Owen looks at Monk and Schoenick. "You boss is having a full-on meltdown. Guy's fixing to pull the pin on fifty kilotons and we're all ringside!"
"What's the timer set for?" Monk asks.
"Three hours." Schoenick answers.
"Shut up!"Saxon roars "Don't talk!"
"We can't get to minimum-safe-distance in three hours." Monk gapes "The shockwave will kill us. It'll crush this rig like a semi driving over a beer can."
Saxon screams "Shut up! SHUT UP! What's the matter with you?!"
Everybody is twitching a hyper. Schoenick is white-knuckling his assault rifle... looking from Monk to Saxon to the group.
"Just stay calm." Saxon snarls "The situation is under control."
Saxon backs out quickly with Schoenick.
Saxon dogs down the watertight door and wedges a piece of steel pipe into the mechanism so it can't be opened.
"Stay here."
Schoenick take a position in front of the door. Saxon turns and runs through the corridor like demons are chasing him.
Their only hope is to sway Schoenick. But the SEAL's fear is making him the perfect machine, totally dependent on external orders. And his orders are clear. They can see him through the tiny window in the door.
Ianto rips the tape painfully off his mouth. "Schoenick... your Lieutenant is about to make a real bad career move..."
"That guy's crazier'n a shithouse rat!" Owen snorts.
"We have to stop him!" Jack tells "Schoenick!"
They pound on the door. Schoenick turns and hangs his cap over the tiny window.
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Using the chainfall, Saxon manoeuvres the completed Geek/MIRV package over the back of Flatbed, obviously preparing to use the submersible to take it out and launch it.
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Ianto is up next to the door, with Jack.
"... he's about to declare war on an alien species, Schoenick, just when they're trying to make contact with us." Ianto is yelling through the door, then says to Jack "I think I'm reaching him."
There is a CLUNK-CLATTER and the door unlatches.
"See?"
The door opens. Jammer is standing there. Schoenick is in a heap against the far wall, moaning. Jammer hands the rifle to Owen as he walks in. Owen turns to cover the other SEAL.
Monk puts his hands up, passively. "I'm the least of your problems."
Jack appraises Jammer, who seems a little weak and dazed but basically okay. "Thanks. How you feeling, big guy?"
"Figured I was dead, there, when I seen that angel comin' toward me."
They all look at him for a second. What?
"Uh, okay, right." Jack says with confusion "You can tell us about it later. Let's go."
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Jack drops down the ladder followed by the others. He tries the door into the main corridor. The wheel won't turn. The others get on it. Won't budge. "He's jammed the mechanism".
"Now what?" Ianto sighs.
They're locked in trimodule-C. No other doors give access to the sub-bay corridor. Jack's mind is racing. He drops down the ladder to Level One, into about two feet of water. He reaches down and open the emergency lockout hatch. Takes off his boots.
"Okay, I'm gonna free-swim to hatch six... get inside, get the door open from the other side." Jack tells everyone.
"Jack, that water's only a couple degrees above freezing." Ianto says in warning.
"Then I guess you better wish me luck, huh?"
John is pulling his boots off as well.
"Wish us luck" John amends, and then hands his wallet to Owen "'Case I don't die. Okay, Jack... let's go, podner, I ain't got all day."
Jack clasps him on the shoulder and starts hyperventilating. He drops into the water.
Jack shoots down through the hatch. The cold hits him list a fist, becoming instantly paralyzing. He starts kicking in powerful strokes through the dark water, manoeuvring around tangles of umbilical cable twisted tubular steel.
John is behind him, swimming like hell. They reach hatch six. Together they spin the wheel and heave upward, opening it.
Jack surges up into the lock. John jams into the tiny airspace with him. They try the upper hatch. Jammed. They're both panting with the exertion
and intense cold.
"Hafta... go on to... the moonpool. Only way." Jack gasps out.
"I can't... make it... partner."
Jack looks at John, shivering and heaving, wide-eyed. "Okay, Fish. You head back."
Jack hyperventilates rapidly and pikes over diving back out through the hatch.
Jack is stroking rapidly through the tangle of pipes and conduit. He sees the lit rectangle of the moonpool far ahead.
In the moonpool, Jack surface with an explosive gasp beside the full of Flatbed. His wracked breathing is masked by the WHINE of HYDRAULICS as Saxon uses the external controls to extend Flatbed's big hydraulic arm, locking the Geek/MIRV in its gripper.
Jack strokes to a point where Saxon can't see him and heaves up out of the water onto the deck of the pool. He lies gasping behind Cab One's cradle.
His limbs are wooden and unresponsive from the cold. His fingers are completely numb. He hugs himself, putting his hands under his armpits.
Scans the situation. He can't get to the door, which is across the room, without Saxon seeing him.
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Ianto watching the whole thing going down, ON THE SCREEN, a high angle of the sub bay... Jack is moving up on Saxon.
"He can't get to the door..." Owen mutters "I think he's going to try and take him himself."
"He couldn't be that dumb. The guy's a trained killer. Jack's idea of a fight is arm-wrestling Toshiko over laundry duty." Ianto sighs.
Jack picks up a piece of pipe. Hefts it. Moves forward, crouched... stalking. Ianto yells at the screen in frustration.
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Jack chucks a tool across the chamber, creating a clattering distraction, then wades in with the pipe in a vicious swing to the back of Saxon's knees, taking him down. Saxon spins even as he falls, catching Jack in a scissor kick that topples him.
Grappling, they fall together into the freezing water.
Saxon is momentarily stunned by the cold, giving Jack time to haul himself out, hoping to make it to the door.
Saxon launches from the water and grabs him legs.
He pulls himself up as Jack kick out. Claws his way viciously over Jack's body until he has him pinned to the deck. Then he pulls out the .45. Puts it unceremoniously to Jack's forehead.
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"NOOO!" Ianto screams.
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Saxon pulls the trigger... CLICK. Jack flinches, then opens his eyes, staring cross-eyed at the muzzle of the .45. Saxon cocks it and tries again. CLICK. Nothing. Really pissed off beyond description, Jack hurls the commando off him with a powerful heave, sending him clattering against a rack of equipment. They face off, panting.
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The rig crew turns from the screen at the sound of Monk's voice.
"I took the liberty of removing this before I gave it back to him." Monk pulls his hand out from under his blanket and holds up the magazine from the .45."
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Even so Jack is getting his ass kicked. Saxon's really trying to put him out of business. It's mostly duck and dodges on Jack's part. Throw a few things. When Saxon connects, Jack goes down hard. Give him credit, though. He manages to scramble back up.
The fight wrecks the room, scattering tools and gear.
Compressed air cylinders roll dangerously around the floor.
Saxon slips on one and Jacks get in a couple of good licks.
Slams the SEAL's head in an equipment locker door.
But the Navy man is just too massive. Jack is hammered back into a wall. Saxon has his fist cocked back for the coup de grace. Spins around at the sound of a voice.
"Hey!"
John is right behind him. Dripping wet. A trail of water goes back to the moonpool a few feet away.
CRACK! John's 'Hammer' punch comes in so hard and so fast, Saxon is knocked right on his ass. He doesn't get up. Just sort of flops around.
John helps Jack to his feet. They advance on Saxon, who crab-scuttles sideways, his eyes rabid.
He picks up a helium tank and hurls it at them. As they duck he sprints to Flatbed and drops through the hatch and slams it down.
Jack yells to John "Get the door!"
Jack leaps across the water to land on Flatbed. The hatch is already sealed.
He grapples with Geek/MIRV, trying to free it from the steel claw.
Saxon crawls along the access tunnel to the pilot's compartment. He claws his way into the control seat and starts rapidly flipping switches.
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John pounds down the corridor like he's never run before, his gut doing a rumba. He reaches the door, tears out the piece of pipe and spins the wheel. Owen pushes it open so fast it hits John in the stomach. Owen tears past him, running with the assault rifle. John Wayne.
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Flatbed is submerging, with only the hatch tower still above the water. Jack is being dragged down, still trying to free the ROV. He gives up when he sees Owen run in, waving the assault rifle around like a 130-pound Rambo.
Jack climbs the hatch tower and leaps to the deck of the moonpool.
Owen clumsily raises the unfamiliar rifle at Saxon, visible inside his viewing bubble beneath the swirling water. Saxon looks up, stares at the gun... doesn't seem to care.
"SHOOT!" John yells.
Owen's squeezing the trigger and nothing's happening. Flatbed's hatch tower goes under.
"Safety's on!" John us yelling "On the side... the lever! Up, push it up!"
Owen fumble with the selective-fire lever, BLAM-BLAM-BLAM! He put three quick rounds into the ceiling.
"SHIT!"
"Give me that!" John grabs it out of Owen's hands and aims it at the sub. He racks the water with a long burst. The rounds nip nasty contrails through the water. They barely scar the front port.
"Forget that... go for Big Geek!" Ianto yells, running too.
John rakes the descending sub with more bursts, trying to hit the
shimmering shape of the ROV on its back. The rounds are arcing wild, a few hitting the ROV but causing little damage.
Saxon completes his descent to just above the seafloor. John empties the weapon.
"Gimme a hand!"
They all turn. Jack is fumbling into his wetsuit like a madman. The others rush over to help him.
"Get the rest of my gear. Grab that hat there...let's go guys! Come on, come on!"
John slams a backpack onto Jack's shoulders, grappling with the straps and hose connections. Owen and Sonny (with one hand) are clipping, zipping and buckling all over him. This is a world-record suit-up time. Jack pulls the rubber neck-dam of the helmet's lower ring down over his face.
"Helmet... helmet! Work fast."
Beneath the habitat, Saxon is maneuvering Flatbed through the twisted pipe and debris left by Torchwood's slide to the edge. Bloodied, his fatigues ripped half-off, he looks like a feral animal. His eyes burn with the determination of his mission.
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Jammer expertly works the crane controls, moving Cab One out over the moonpool from its drydock cradle. Ianto and Toshiko are scrambling like monkeys over the port side crash bars of the swinging sub, clambering up to the hatch tower.
"I'll unhook." Toshiko yells.
"Ianto hesitates then Toshiko shouts "GO! You're better in these than I am."
Ianto recognizes this for what it is... a sign of respect, a reconciliation. He nods and drops through the hatch.
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Saxon passes under the twisted wreckage of the big automated derrick and makes a tight turn beneath the drill-floor module. Flatbed scrapes through between twisted conduit, metal screeching on metal.
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Jack has his 'hat' locked down and his air cut on. He take two quick strides to the edge of the pool and just drops in.
Jack rockets down in a column of bubbles. He looks around. Through the lattice of conduit under the rig he can see Flatbed moving forward from its exit point under the stern. Jack sees a shortcut under the platform.
He kicks along a lattice a pipes, heaving himself along in frantic hand-over- hand stokes. He reaches for Flatbed's stern as it passes.
Misses the last hand-hold... but just manages to seize a tie-down trailing behind it. He is jerked along behind the sub.
Jack holds on with both hands as he is buffeted in the wake of the powerful thrusters. Flatbed gathers speed, moving out toward the edge of the abyssal wall. The current slams him, spinning him like a fishing lure. He pulls himself forward slowly until he can grip the stern rail of Flatbed's platform.
Flatbed appears over the edge and stops.
Hovering.
Jack has the break he needs. He scrambles up onto the deck and opens and equipment locker. Nothing in it but one of the yellow nylon safety lines. The big arm begins to unfold, lifting Geek/ROV.
Saxon works intently. His eyes are the cool ice of lethal madness in a face streaked with blood. He brings the ROV into view with the boom arm.
GEEK/ROV had a passenger. Harkness. The diver is holding Geek's skid with one hand, doing something with the other. He turns to look at Saxon.
Saxon releases the ROV with the gripper and makes a grab at Jack with the steel claw. Jack dives. The gripper hits his helmet a glancing blow. Jack kicks away rapidly, letting nylon rope pay out. He has managed to tie one end to Geek's skids. Saxon hits the button to activate the ROV, sending an acoustic pulse to Geek's transponder. The little robot, pregnant with its load of death, turns nimbly around and dives out and down toward the void.
Saxon pivots his machine toward Jack. Jack strokes rapidly to a large jumble of wreckage. He loops the rope around a twisted pipe. Big Geek is hauling ass away from him. The line snap taut an instant later. The ROV strains, like a Rottweiler on a leash... trying to go. The rope is slipping as Jack fights to make a knot.
Flatbed slews around, thrusters whining. As it banks, it hurls up clouds of sediment from the escarpment face.
Through the front panel we see Saxon jerking on the controls.
The big arm extends menacingly. The smaller from manipulators open. An enormous predatory instinct, its lights blaring.
The big machine roars forward. Straight at Jack.
Jack gets his knot partly done. See Flatbed looming.
Glare-lit in its lights, Jack grabs a handle hold and pulls himself downward as Saxon closes the last few feet.
One manipulator slams into his backpack, tumbling him, and the sub's underside rakes across his legs as it passes over. Flatbed crushes into the tangle of pipework.
K-CRUUUNCH!
Saxon is slammed hard over the controls, up into the front dome port. He gets back in the seat. Strains to free his machine.
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Jack swims clear, diving down at an angle along the wall, hoping to stay in Saxon's blind area. Flatbed backs out of the wreckage in a cloud of debris.
It pivots toward Jack.
Moves after him.