H2G2 Storytime III: From Prussia with Love. Part LXIII
Created | Updated Oct 5, 2007
Sreka, even with one arm fractured and a mild concussion courtesy of Daltmooreby, was still a dangerous and lethal opponent to take on in a fistfight.
Arthur and X were also not without training however, and though battered and beaten themselves they readied themselves for Sreka's assault.
Sreka returned their animus with a blank and inhospitable stare. Suddenly he lashed out at Arthur a swinging club with his injured hand, Arthur ducked but was early caught by Sreka's left hook.
The Agent caught it with his left hand and twisted, flexing the bones in Sreka's forearm. He grunted as Arthur tried to hook his arm under his elbow. Sreka responded by grabbing Arthur's back, pressing his fingers into the soft areas where Arthur had been blasted with shot. Arthur gave a silent wheeze of agony at feeling Sreka's clawing at his bullet wounds and released his grip. Caught off guard, Sreka was able to reverse the hold Arthur had on him. He used Arthur's own momentum against him. Pulling him forward and around. Sreka lifted Arthur and flipped him over the side rail of the gantry.
X was horrified to see his partner vanish over the rail - foolishly he rushed in to help, Sreka was prepared for this and brought a swift elbow up and caught X under the nose. Steam erupted up from the side. and X staggered backward and collided with a wall.
Sighting a hand clinging to the metal causeway through the mist, X rushed Sreka who clearly anticipated the move by bending, preparing to drop X over the side. X delivered a swift kick to the side of the Russian's head. Sreka shuddered then pulled X's feet out from under him as the Agent felt his back smack against the floor. X quickly rolled from Sreka's boot as it pounded down with an audible clang where his face should have been.
Meanwhile....
Arthur, suspended precariously, looked down forlornly at the spanner he'd dropped as it sat inches away. Just out of reach caught in a mesh of jutting pipes. Arthur's again felt helpless. It wasn't that he hadn't faced imminent death before but this was different. He'd never had anything he'd cared about before. Well...there was X, but that was different. They were partners. This was about Anna. That poor innocent girl X had nearly driven over in Switzerland. How long ago now? He was ashamed that he couldn't remember. So much had happened since then. Anna. She was dead. He'd seen Sreka kill her in front of him. Anna. The thought revived him. He couldn't die like this. It was enough.
With a snarl of rage, pain and fear Arthur reached upward and caught the rivets of a girder by the tips of his fingers. Every sinew of muscle complained but he pulled himself to safety gave a satisfied grunt of success when he got a foot up onto the side and found himself no longer about to fall to his death. He'd fight Sreka again. For Anna.
Arthur was startled back to reality by his partner colliding with the rail. Arthur could see Sreka was throttling X. The agent was gasping for breath and Sreka's free hand was locked around his throat, the one Arthur had fractured was tucked painfully into his side.
Arthur was crouched on the rim of the girder that supported the walkway that led to the shuttle airlock. X's eyes rolled upward and he saw Arthur there and grimaced a smile.
Arthur stood up and confronted Sreka, who surprised looked up from killing X and hesitated at seeing Arthur. The moment's pause cost him as Arthur delivered a thunderous swinging punch, cracking Sreka's nose with the palm of his hand. The Russian reared backward screeching and gargling blood. He released X. As Sreka stumbled about gagging, Arthur slid across the rail and down next to X who had collapsed onto the gangway.
Though tactics had had little to do with this strategically the agents were better off. Sreka was no longer blocking their path to the shuttle.
"Come on" Arthur said, stumbling and half dragging his partner toward the Cult's rocket.
The doors of the shuttle slid open and the Agents collapsed through them into the airlock that led into the shuttle interior.
X rubbed his hand around his neck and preening like a cat winced at where Sreka had held him. "..'anks" he croaked at Arthur.
"X!" Arthur pointed.
X turned as the doors slid open and Sreka entered behind and above him.
Time slowed down.
X started to rise, his calves were half-unfurled in a desperate attempt to stand, when Sreka seized him by his hair and yanked his head backwards stretching his already bruised throat.
X watched as Arthur waded as if through water toward him, fists clenching slowly like retreating anemones, knees rising as if running over boulders his face twisting into muted battle cry, ready to engage.
Normal temporal service resumed and X was suddenly tipping forward as Sreka took his head and slammed him face-first into the wall comprising a battery of control panels and lights. As X slumped knees-first to the floor his head wedged into the dent Sreka had created.
Arthur leapt over his stricken friend and partner and engaged Sreka in hand-to-hand, close quarters fighting. Each was a master of several martial arts and fighting styles and each dodged and weaved, hemmed in by the constricting space of the airlock. Elbows and fists flew and bodies twirling, their heads bobbed and bodies ducked: blocking turning, hit and hitting. Sreka fought hard and Arthur gave as good as he got.
X clawed at the wall trying to free himself, his fingers found an edge and he pulled. The control panel gave way and he tumbled down onto the floor. He gazed up at where his head had been rammed by Sreka and saw something he recognised and blinked twice.
Behind him the grunts of effort of Sreka and Arthur slowed by did not dwindle. They were tiring but each wanted the other dead and a single lapse would give the other victory. Move and counter move, Arthur held Sreka at bay.
X looked again at the slim black device attached...no...hacked into the control panel. He'd seen one before. The ceramic dials revolving, the roman numerals. It was an Agency surge device. He'd seen them in R&D. The sheer queerness of what it was doing in their brought him back to the few senses he had left.
"Arthur!", he called out, "what does LXVII mean?"
Arthur ducked an elbow from Sreka and tried to stamp on Sreka's left kneecap. "Little busy here X!" he called back, catching Sreka's punch to his heart and wrenching Sreka's arm. "Um...67!"
After a few seconds X called back: "what about LIX?"
Arthur stepped to the side and watched with interest as Sreka's club-like fist chopped down trying to connect with his head. He took Sreka's open palm turned it upwards and tried to break his elbow from underneath.
"Err...59. WHY?"
"It's counting down." X muttered to himself. I think...no...that's impossible."
The dials rotated and settled down to XLIII.
X tried standing up. "Arthur when I say NOW! I want you to duck!"
Arthur took a hard right from Sreka to the jaw and staggered. He turned from the force and looked at X.
"What?"
NOW!
Arthur's eyes grew wide as X charged at him. He did as he was told and threw down his head curling into a little ball Just as Sreka closed in for the kill coming in low to snap his neck.
X threw a colossal straight kick over his partner's head that caught Sreka on the point of his open and protruding jaw.
The Russian's head snapped backwards and he stumbled out of the automatic doors that drew open and deposited him on with a metallic thump the gangway outside the airlock.
X looked over to the surge device.
XI, X, IX
"Get down!" he cried. Arthur hit the deck.
Sreka crawled onto his front supporting himself on his good arm. With the other he reached gingerly back toward the airlock.
The surge device fizzed purple sparks and triggered the locking mechanism.
The automatic doors snapped shut, closing on Sreka's fractured wrist, grinding the fragments of bone against each other.
The Russian let out a cry that was more animal than human. It spoke of white-hot agony.
Sensing the obstruction, the doors retreated and Sreka withdrew his shattered arm, ashen and grey with pain.
The doors closed properly this time and locked, trapping Arthur and X inside the shuttle. Sreka was left writhing on the gantry outside.
A small light above the doors went green with a little 'ping', causing X to look up, and indicating that the doors were sealed.
He and Arthur gazed through the pressurised seal at Sreka, who stood up slowly, cradling his useless limb close to his chest.
Through gritted, bloody and missing teeth, The Russian extended his good hand and pointed at X through the glass, the tip of his index finger hovering over X's brow separated only by a sheet of tempered and vacuum proof glass. Menace was something Sreka new well. He mouthed the words some words that X could just make out as 'something...dead: and in the relative quiet of the pressurised airlock chamber, X new that this wasn't over yet.
Outside, and by way of contrast, all was noise and heat and activity as steam vented, pipes shook and scaffolding wobbled as various systems prepared to launch the shuttle.
Sreka looked at Agents shut inside way from him. He knew he'd lost this battle. Worse, still that this injury was significantly more dangerous than many he had had before. He had to get out. But where could he go? Annabel would not forgive him a second time.
Daltmooreby's cruel jibes returned to sting him. He'd have to run.
He backed away slowly, not taking his eyes of X, not until he was at the end of the walkway through which Arthur and X had earlier entered. A burst of steam and Andrei Sreka had vanished.
