Major Curtis Randall hated the A-Team. When both teams had been working for Stockwell - the A-Team with a much nicer house, he remembered - Stockwell had never shut the hell up about them.

'Perhaps I should give the A-Team this job', or 'the A-Team wouldn't have blown that palace up' - which was a total fucking lie - or 'none of the A-Team ever shot another team member over a card game.' Blue-eyed-fucking boys.

Tyler had been cheating anyway. Kowalski was well within his rights. He'd dealt with it. None of Stockwell's damn business.

He watched Peck's struggles weaken in the airlock. They'd have to kill two of them, he estimated. The third one would talk. They'd put Baracus in next. The pilot would talk after that. Peck started banging feebly on the hatch. Maybe he'd decided to talk. Too late now. Randall reached towards the handle that would open the outer hatch.

"Major!" A voice came from the catwalk above and one of the Ables started running down the steps to the deck. "Stop! Ms Frasier said to stop."

"I think he's dead anyway," Tyler said, tapping on the hatch. "Looks like it to me."

"Get him out!" Blaine now, yelling from the catwalk. He caught up to the Able on the stairs and passed him, sliding down the last ten feet, hands on the safety rails, barely touching the steps.

Randall growled his annoyance. "Shit, this place is full of party crashers."

~~~~

"I said, get him out now!" Blaine yelled as he ran across the deck towards the Marines gathered around the airlock.

Randall muttered something, but spun the wheel to unlock the hatch and raised it. The twins reached in and grabbed Face arms, hauling him out to flop face down on the deck.

"Catch of the day," Kowalski said, smirking.

"I'm telling you, he's a dead-un," Tyler said, nudging the unresponsive Face with his toe.

Blaine fell to his knees beside Face and turned him onto his back. He found a weak pulse in the man's neck, but - oh God - he wasn't breathing!

"Get the medic!" Randall yelled and bent over Face, tipping his head back, pinching his nose. He blew air into Face's mouth, his panic making his own breathing fast and shallow. Breathe, Peck! Just breathe! For all of us!

No response. Come on! Don't make me have to go back and tell Smith I didn't save you. He breathed into Face again, and again, lost count... just kept going...

With a sudden, shuddering heave, Face gasped and started coughing and spitting up water. His eyes opened wide, full of terror, and Blaine had to hold him down as he tried to struggle up.

"Easy, easy. You're okay. You're okay." They were all okay. Thank God.

Face's eyes closed again, but his pulse grew stronger. The relief left Blaine dizzy. When he got that under control, he looked up at the Marines. They'd made no effort to help him. The expressions on their faces sickened him.

They looked disappointed.

Well, except the Bowmans, the twins. Their faces wore the usual neutral impression and that made him even sicker. A couple of hours after meeting that pair Blaine had started to have mad theories about cloning projects to grow perfect Marines in a vat.

"We need to get him to the infirmary. You two," Blaine ordered the clones, "get him up."

"Lieutenant," Randall said, in a low voice, "these are my men. You give them another order and we'll see how you like it in the airlock."

The Able, who had come to kneel on Face's other side stared at Blaine. For a second Blaine felt a surge of fear of the dangerous men surrounding him, so recently deprived of a kill. But only for a second, before rage washed the fear away.

"I just saved your lives, you sadistic bastards!" Blaine snarled up at Randall. "Smith would have killed every last one of you! Now help me move him!"

Randall hesitated for a second, then he nodded to the Bowmans. They came over to lift Face and carry him between them. Blaine took one last look at the open, full, airlock. Water sloshed out of it onto the deck.

"Secure that," he ordered Randall and then led the twins and Face away. The Able followed them. Blaine could only think of him as a rearguard.

~~~~

Almost an hour passed before Blaine returned to the team's cell. He brought the key with him and let them out. Hannibal barrelled out and grabbed two handfuls of the man's sweater, pulling him close.

"He'd better be okay, pal."

"He... he's fine. I mean, he's a little, um... I'll take you to him. He's in the infirmary."

The team hammered up the steps after him, forcing Blaine to run to keep from being pushed. Hannibal's rage had been growing for an hour and was big enough that when it exploded it would punch a hole right through the hull. Provided no Marines got in the way first.

They found Face lying on a bunk in the small infirmary, wrapped in blankets. His hair, towelled roughly dry, stuck up messily around his gaunt and pale face. The team gathered around the bunk, but Hannibal turned away after a second, to a man in Navy uniform with a medic's pin.

"You a doc?"

"No, just a field medic." He wilted momentarily under Hannibal's incandescent scowl, but went on. "He should be fine after some rest."

Hannibal nodded a curt thanks at the medic and turned back to Face.

"You okay, kid?" he said, feeling the absurdity of the 'kid'. But in that moment, he couldn't say anything else.

"No, I'm damn well not okay," Face said, voice hoarse and weak, but with plenty of venom in it. The look he gave Hannibal could have raised blisters.

Face's anger just added fuel to Hannibal's own rage. His fury surged.

And then he heard it - the laugh.

From a room only a few yards down the corridor. Randall. Of course they were close by. This wasn't a cruise liner; all the living areas were crammed together.

Hannibal exploded. He burst out of the door, knocking aside Ables. They fell like bowling pins, unprepared for him. He saw an open door a few steps away. Saw the Marine team, some sitting around a table, some lounging on bunks. Chatting, laughing, relaxing.

Relaxing until a ballistic Army colonel entered the room like a missile entered a target. He smashed into Randall, even as the man rose from a chair. The force of Hannibal's charge flung them both over the table, to crash to the floor.

Though too busy trading punches with Randall to look up, Hannibal nevertheless heard the chaos around him. BA and Murdock had followed him and piled into the Marines too. The Ables would be involved, trying to break it up. The small bunkroom was crammed with fighting men. Anyone who ended up on the floor got stepped on or tripped over.

A roar from BA did make Hannibal look up, to see BA toss one of the twins out of the door, into a crowd of Ables. He charged out after him, with another battle cry. The other twin was on the floor. Murdock was fighting Tyler. Blaine ran into the room, shouting orders to stop. Kowalski decked him.

In the corridor, BA now seemed to be fighting, well, everybody on the boat who wasn't already in the bunkroom. Murdock was still pounding Tyler and the twin on the floor was struggling up now. Murdock glanced over, saw him sit up and spared a moment to knock him flat again.

Hannibal turned his attention back to Randall when the major managed to squirm out from under him and scramble to his feet. Hannibal came up like a rocket and took a swing at him. Randall blocked it but the impact drove him backwards, to stumble over the twin on the floor and fall onto one of the bunks. Hannibal gave him no chance to get back up, moved fast, driving a knee into Randall's gut, pinning him. A messy move, suited to the chaos of the melee. Randall made a whooping sound as he tried to breathe, the wind knocked out of him. Hannibal pressed his knee in harder.

"Can't breathe, Major?"

Sounded like payback to Hannibal. Sounded like fine payback. He relished the panic he saw in the man's eyes. What jobs had Stockwell given Randall and his men? Jobs he wouldn't give the A-Team, knowing there were some things they wouldn't do, even for their pardons? But these guys? These guys would do anything. Kill anyone. The A-Team didn't kill... usually. He shoved his knee in harder, but then Ables, too many of them to fight, dragged him off Randall. They slammed him against the wall while Randall curled up, coughing and gasping.

Murdock and Tyler had been dragged apart. In the corridor he saw BA was on the floor with a half-dozen Ables piled on top of him, holding him down. Carla stepped into the room, carefully avoiding debris and men on the floor. She looked down at Blaine and Kowalski still struggling on the floor.

"Mr Blaine," Carla said, making him look up.

"Ma'am!"

He turned back and delivered a final punch to Kowalski, knocking him flat. Hannibal smirked. Looking much the worse for wear, with torn up clothes and wild hair, Blaine staggered up to his feet, wearing a sheepish grin.

"Apologies, ma'am. I was helping to break up the fight."

She looked highly dubious, scowling at him. Definitely learned that scowl from Stockwell, Hannibal thought. Just needs the yellow glasses.

"Put the A-Team into a cabin," she ordered Blaine. "And post a guard. Have the medics check everyone out." She turned to Hannibal. "Now you've had your fun, will you agree to behave yourselves? I'm sure you'd rather stay in a cabin than go back to your cell."

Hannibal would. As the adrenaline ebbed, he started to feel the pounding he'd just taken. His body wanted a nice comfortable bunk to rest on now.

"Sure. I want Face in there with us. And we're ready for some food now."

Murdock nodded in enthusiastic agreement. "And how!"

Carla nodded at Blaine. "Arrange it."

A few minutes later the team were in a bunkroom similar to the one they'd just destroyed. The medic brought Face in and helped him onto a bunk. The medic and Murdock tucked blankets around him and he lay back on the pillows, eyes closed, face turned towards the wall.

"Do any of the rest of you need medical treatment?" the medic asked.

"Just leave the kit," Hannibal said. "We'll manage."

After the medic left, Blaine appeared, wearing fresh clothes and carrying a coffeepot. Two sailors followed him, carrying trays of hot food. They placed them on the table.

"I'll see to it that your meals come on time," Blaine said. "If there's anything else you need, ask for me. We'll arrive in Sydney in about thirty-six hours." He turned to follow the sailors out.

"Lieutenant Blaine," Hannibal said. Blaine looked back and Hannibal nodded at him. "Nice moves, Navy."