------- Operation Arrakis I Saw This In A Film Once... By Durandir and Sylvana Lorrdain Thanks to Josh N, for Aussifications. ------- The door of the cell clunked shut behind her, and Becki, still dizzied from being rushed through secret doors and dim passages beneath the streets of Baghdad, sank to the bare floor with a forlorn "Good grace!" English? That was ENGLISH! Only that horrible woman had spoken it to him, but here was a much more... defeated sounding voice. Russell got up and pulled himself to his feet, looking out the barred cell to across the way. "Oi!" he called in a whisper. "Psst! Hey!" Only silence answered, until he tried calling again. Then there was a rustling sound, like draperies drawn back, and shortly a face appeared at the bars across the hall from his. "Who's that?" asked the woman in the cell. There was a groan from the cell beside her, and a rustling sound as someone else attempted to pull themselves to look out the bars. "Will you keep it down," a voice muttered. "I'm tryin' ta keep my strength up before that horrible woman comes back, Crowe." "Oh shut up, Mike, there's someone else here too," Russell peered out from the bars to look at Becki, then he groaned. "It figures I'd see one of you people here. Hello again," he banged his bruised head against the bars. She peered at him in silent concentration for a moment, then her eyes went wide. "You're . . . " She broke into an uncertain grin, muttering half to herself. "Unless there are more NRI folk on Terra than they warned us, there's only one man on this planet who looks this much like Janson." To him again, she said, "I guess we met in Mendellia, didn't we?" "Just what are your people up to this time?" he asked with a sigh, looking up through sweaty and dirty hair at her. "This lady keeps beating us up and demanding some shield thing?" Her look of alarm confirmed his guess that Terra Group was somehow mixed up in yet another of his mishaps. But she schooled her face and hid her surprise, asking, "How did you get here? Why would they think you . . ." Then understanding shadowed her eyes. "Oh . . . Oh dear. They think Janson. . . ." "Don't forget me," came the voice next door. "Who the hell is Kill-a-van, Cleave-a-van, Klivian - whatever-the-hell-his-name-is - anyway?" despite his words, his voice was quiet, pain filled. "I feel like I'm in a bad movie." "Don't we all," she laughed ruefully. "We are in a bad film," Crowe confirmed, with a sigh, looking at Becki. "We gotta get outta here. Any ideas?" She shrugged. "They took my blaster, all my gear. You'd think they'd have had the courtesy to take these confounded robes, too, but I guess they were in a hurry." She looked thoughtful. "At least. . ." She glanced around cautiously, lowering her voice. "D'you know if we're monitored? Can they hear?" "Typical bad guys," the voice in the cell beside her said. Crowe nodded, "Yeah, there's no surveilance... they beat us up so much they figure we can't get out." "And would they be right about that?" she asked coolly. "If we do find a way out, can you make it?" "I still got one leg that works, and two arms, so I'm good. I just wanna go home!" the voice in the cell beside her whined quietly. "I can make it. Can you, miss?" Crowe asked She grinned. "My team's out there without me. That won't do. I can make it." "Well, at least we know we can make it... but how? We're kinda locked up." Crowe chuckled, still leaning against the door for support. "Well," and she still spoke softly despite their assurances that noone outside the cells could hear, "before I was caught, the Chief thought he'd pinned the location. So we might have help on the way." "Well, at least we're not stuck here forever... but I don't want to just sit around either. This is the second time you people dragged me into this stuff, I don't wanna sit back and take it." "What ARE you all talking about, and why won't anyone clue me in?" the voice next door bemoaned. "Who's he?" Becki asked Crowe. "Mike Vartan," he chuckled. "Fellow actor and taken for one of your guys too." "Ah. Sorry about that," she called to Vartan in his cell. "It's . . . a bit much of cluing in to do right now. Suffice to say, we don't have the shield either. Right now, they have the shield. All of it." She smiled slowly. "For all the good it'll do them." "Sabotage?" Mike asked. "Man, this really IS some kind of movie. Okay wher're the cameras? Where's my agent, I don't remember signing for a reality show...." "The doctor who signed your birth certificate signed that for you," she teased. Then her expression darkened. "I'm not entirely confident about the sabotage part, though. They may suspect -- especially now they've caught me, and they took my tracker, too. If they can undo our work, they're all set. It was the last piece of the shield. Once they have it operational, the city -- or the whole nation -- or maybe just this complex, we don't know what they've got planned -- will be shielded from most anything the rest of Terra can throw at them." Her eyes met Crowe's in a resolute stare. "We have to stop them, before that can happen." "Sounds like save-the-world-time again," Crowe sighed. "Tell me you got your hair in a bun?" "No room for that under the veil-thingy," she grumbled. "Okay, well all we've got is the clothes we're barely wearing, what've you got?" Crowe wondered. "The same, about hundredfold." She moved slightly in the barred window so he could see the black robes in which she was swathed. Crowe thought for a minute, then spoke. "Just HOW much cloth are you all dolled up in?" "Feels like enough to curtain the bridge-window on a Star Destroyer," she grumbled. "But . . . more specifically, it's about as much as I'd use to make a toga to dress my students up in . . . five or six yards, I think." "You wearing anything underneath it?" "Unfortunately, in this heat, yes." She frowned. "You have a point to these questions?" "Yeah, take off the robes," he grinned. "I have a plan." She arched an eyebrow doubtfully. "I'm serious!" "He has a plan, call the press." Mike muttered. With a dubious glance from one of her neighbors to the other, Becki finally shrugged. "Well, if nothing else, if we do get out of here, it'll be easier to run for it without this thing on." Her face disappeared from the window for a few moments as she stepped back to disengage from the robes. "Now what?" "Throw one end to me," Crowe said, "And tie the other end to a couple of the bars on your door." "Um...it's a little heavy for throwing," she said. "This is like serious curtain tapestry here, I think." And for a second it looked very much a curtain indeed, as she held the black cloth up to the window. "Hm. . ." she considered the drapery. "Wait a second. We might tear it narrower, if it's a rope you want and not just a curtain for the hallway." "If you can do that, it'll be easier, yeah," Crowe nodded. She disappeared again, sitting down to work on the fabric. There was a brief silence, then various mumblings of "Hercle!" and "What'd they weave this of, mithril-thread?" and "Land sakes, if this doesn't tear soon I'll --" before finally the welcome skrrit of torn fabric silenced her grumbling. "I wasn't aware yelling at things made them work, I should try yelling at the door," Mike said sarcastically. "Hey door, if you don't quit it, I'm gonna blow you up with my big brain skills or something. Uuuuse the foooorce miiiike. Khoooo kheeee...." "Hush you," Becki said calmly between ripping-sounds. "Hushing," Mike said. Russell just chuckled. Minutes passed while all, save the tearing, waited in a hush. Then, at last, Becki called out that she had finished. "Can you tie 'em together and throw one end to me?" "I'll try." Moments later, a ragged strand of black came tumbling out through the bars of her window . . . only to tumble limply to the floor of the passageway, well short of Russell's cell. "Try again, tie a knot to the end." She did so, but the knotted rope reached little farther than before. After several equally laughable attempts, she leaned against her window-bars and looked at him forlornly. "It's not going to work." "Keep trying," Crowe encouraged. "Is there something you can weight it with? "Um . . ." She looked about her cell. "Not much to work with here. There aren't even any blankets on the cot. The . . . I suppose that's the chamberpot . . . wouldn't fit through the bars." "You wearing shoes?" She brightened, bent out of view, and the next thing he saw was a sandal flying straight at him, trailing black rope behind it. He ducked -- needlessly; again her missile had missed its mark. But three tries later, the sandal finally came within his reach. He grabbed it and drew it into his cell. "Yes!" he hissed in joy, untying the sandal. "Tie your end on the bars of your door," he told her as he moved to tie his end to his window bars. She complied quickly. "Now what?" "I saw this in a film once... just stand back and hope, I guess." Russell kicked at the leg of his bench and there was a loud snap as it broke off. He heard her mutter in disbelief, "You saw it in a film . . . Mike, better watch yourself, Russell's caught Terra Group fever; it must be spreading." "What is Terra Group anyway?" he asked with a sigh, sitting with his back against the door with an audible thud. She laughed a little. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." "At this point.... I'd believe in wookies, ET, and little green men from outer space," Mike muttered. "Oh. Well, that's all right, then," she giggled. "That pretty much sums up Terra Group, after all." Meanwhile, Russell was working on threading the benchleg around the cloth, working it like a winch, and slowly the bars began to creak. "You've gotta be kidding." Mike muttered. She spoke in a rush. "'Star Wars' really happened; the Empire's got agents on Terra; it's our job to keep 'em out. That's all. Really." "I'm drunk.... I'm drunk and I'm gonna wake up in New Orleans, it's Martigras, I just know it...." "Long way from Baghdad, Mike." "Baghdad... right... we were filming," he sighed. "Filming?" "We... were making... a movie," Crowe said, sounding as though he were straining... and again, the bars, or rather the wood, on Becki's window creaked. "Just finished, anyhow. Took the jeep for a joyride... boy lemme tell ya, that's the last time I'll pull THAT kinda stunt." "What happened?" she asked. "Isn't it obvious? We got kidnapped by aliens," Mike laughed. "Ah! Of course." Becki chuckled. "Looks like I've gone and done the same." Creeeeeak SNAP! the bar pulled right out of the window and clattered to the floor. Crowe's face, sweaty, appeared in his window. "That's one down...." "Oh! You did it!" she cheered, beaming at him from the gap where the bar had been. "There's some kinda touch pad near the side, can you reach it? It should be the same side as it is on my door...." She glanced to his door to see what he meant, then leaned out through the gap as far as she could, reaching for the touch pad. "Almost . .. I think . . ." Pushing herself up on her toes, she lunged for it. "There!" But nothing happened. She frowned at the touch pad, then back to Crowe. "And . . . ?" "Shit, okay.. uhm..." he rubbed at his head a bit. "Can you see the pad? or should we try to get another bar out?" "I can . .. I think . . ." She squirmed to an angle to bring her nearer the pad. "Yes, I can see it. Sort of." He grinned. "Good.Try green, red, yellow, blue, blue, yellow, green, red." "Oooh, an observant cellmate. My lucky day." She touched the colors he had called. Her door, ponderous on neglected hinges, swung open -- nearly taking her with it before she stumbled back out of her window perch. "Well, it's what they use on Mike's door, can you get us out too?" he asked. "So THAT'S how he gets his script memorised so fast," Mike mumbled. "Can't leave you behind," she grinned as she went to work on their doors' pads. "After all, it's save-the-world-time again, and this time it's your turn to be the heroes." "...Yay..." Crowe said with a grin, though his voice was monotone. He was in bad shape, but at least nothing was broken.... when Vartan's door opened, however.... He was badly beaten, worse than Crowe had been. One leg was obviously mangled, and there were lashmarks covering his body. His pants, the only clothing left to him, were in tatters. "Poor thing," Becki winced over him. "Here -- we've still got all this fabric -- can we make some sort of splint or something, for your leg?" "Man, didn't know aliens caught angels too," Mike said, sitting on the floor with a wince. Crowe came in with the bar that was pulled from Becki's window, and the benchleg he'd used to pry it. "Will these help?" "I'm not sure, really," she frowned. "I'm no medic; our medic's . . . well . . . in worse shape than Mike at the moment, actually." "That sucks...." "I saw this film once-" "Don't start that again, Crowe, this isn't a film." "No, bear with me...." Becki grinned to herself at their exchange, while she set about holding the makeshift splints to either side of Mike's leg, adjusting them one way then the next, trying to remember what Thayer had done to splint Sylvana's broken leg. Crowe moved and pulled Vartan's leg straight, earning a grunt of pain from the blonde man, before he put the splints on either side and began working on tying the ropecloth around them. "I think this is what they did...." "Well, I'm sure there will be other movies," Mike muttered. "Gimps, the masquerade...." Becki watched Crowe work. "We'd better move, quick. They can't have left this place totally unwatched, and we won't have much time to . . . do what we must do." "And what's that?" Mike asked through grit teeth as Crowe tied up his leg. She ticked off mission objectives on her fingers. "Find the shield, and disable it, or at the least transmit its location to the rest of my team so they can destroy it. Find the one called Sahhar, if he's here, and deal with him." She thought a moment. "And Tavira -- I'll bet that's the woman who's hurt you; we had heard she was here -- it would probably be good to deal with her, too. And we might need to get Khalil out of here, if he's still on our side." "But first and foremost -- the shield." "I'm never stealing another humvee again," Mike groaned as Crowe helped him to his feet, supporting him by holding an arm around his shoulders. Crowe looked down at Becki and nodded, a serious look on his face. "Let's go."