A/N:- This came from a particularly vicious plot bunny that hitch-hiked here in a letter from my mate in Australia. Thanks to the irritating-but-brilliant Gavin for being my sounding board and a scarily quick beta read. And yes, I'm flushing in shame over the terrible pun in the title, but I couldn't quite resist. *grin*

(Also, this is the first part of a five part series, and for the next part I require a lot more knowledge of aboriginal legends, because frankly what I know could fit on the back of a postage stamp. And I lost all faith in wikipedia when it informed me that Hitler got horny when people peed on him. So if anyone out reading this happens to actually be Australian, or just knows a lot about their mythology, then please, drop me a line. I'd be hugely grateful for any information I can collect. You can contact me by PM or at x_bellaitalia_x on livejournal.)

Part 1

'Professor! Professor!'

There was a crash, a muted mumble of 'Oh shit', and then the sound of running footsteps.

'Professor! Damnit, Cutter! Cutter!'

Staring at the door to his cupboard of an office, Ryan considered leaving the bloody great pile of paperwork mounted on one side of his desk, and going to find Temple, simply for the pleasure of binding and gagging the boy. He was aware that the qualities of balance and tact had been surgically removed from Connor at birth, but was it actually necessary for him to be rushing in and out of every room in the lower level of the ARC like a hurricane with a hat? And he might desperately need to find Cutter, but must he accompany his search by consistently yelling the man's name?

Ryan resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands as he heard Temple's footsteps approaching his office. Pulling a mask of professionalism back into place to hide both his weariness and his irritation, he yanked a report into view and attempted to look busy.

Five, four, three, two….

On exactly the count of one, the door burst open with a resounding crash and Connor bounded through with a shout of 'Cutter! You in…'

He froze when he saw Ryan, probably unused to seeing the Special Forces Captain in jeans and a casual shirt, sitting behind a desk. And the fact that Ryan had a feeling his smile was of the slightly predatory variety probably hadn't helped matters either.

'Oh sorry, Captain Ryan, I was just…'

'Looking for the Professor, yes, I heard. I think the entire floor heard.'

'Right, sorry. Have you seen him?'

Ryan did an exaggerated mime of looking around the tiny room and raised an eyebrow.

'Right, no, sorry. Have you seen Stephen?'

Ryan resisted the urge to bang his head on the desk.

'Well, unless he's hiding in the filing cabinet, then no.'

Connor looked crestfallen.

'Damnit. Anyway, sorry to have bothered you.'

He started to back out of the room and the door was almost closed when Ryan stopped him.

'Wait, Connor, what was the crash?'

'W…what?'

'In the lab next door. What was the crash?'

Connor went red.

'Oh that was just…some test tubes and…stuff. It'll be fine. I swept it all up, no-one need know.'

Ryan grimaced.

'Well…'

But he didn't get much more than a word out before Connor was gone from the room, door swinging behind him.

Ryan sighed. Not his problem. He turned his attention once more to the ruddy great stack of papers on the left side of his desk. Lester had told him in no uncertain terms that he wanted Ryan's last month of reports done by the end of the day, and he was probably devising some suitably unpleasant mission as punishment right now. Ryan contemplated the pitifully small pile of completed paperwork on the right side of his desk. The weight distribution was so uneven he was surprised the thing wasn't tilting.

Looking at the half done report in front of him, he groaned. It was dated 25th November, and if he remembered correctly the entire day had been a complete fucking catastrophe. There had been an anomaly in an antiques store in some fancy part of the city, and if nothing else the day had certainly proved that a bull in a china shop could indeed be disastrous. Especially when it was a prehistoric bull, with extremely long and extremely fucking sharp horns that had taken an instant dislike to the human race. The day had ended with two of his men in hospital, Hart bleeding profusely from a long slash down his back, everyone else with more cuts and grazes than was healthy, and Lester with several hundred thousand pounds of damages to deal with.

Ryan picked up a pen, and twirled it idly for a few seconds. He was a Special Forces Captain. He was good at commanding operations, hand-to-hand combat, and shooting things until they were very dead. He was not good at filling in forms, writing reports, and kissing the asses of those higher up.

He signed a couple of appropriate spaces, and, after spending a minute or so trying to decipher a sentence in Cutter's illegible hand writing, he gave in. Nothing was happening fast here. Reaching back, he opened the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, and pulled out a six pack of beer. Tearing one off, he rummaged in his desk for a bottle opener, took a much longer swig than he had originally intended and slumped back with a sigh, noting with building irritation that the door to the room had been left open. Several hard years in the army had left him with a resolute distrust of open doors. And an equally resolute dislike of irritating university students who burst into rooms and left again without shutting the fucking door behind them.

He got up, carefully manoeuvring his six foot frame out from behind the cramped desk, between the three inches of space between the side of said desk and the filing cabinet, and then shuffled slightly back, so he could pull open the ajar door without whacking himself in the nose. Stepping out into the corridor, Ryan stretched in relief, feeling several joints pop, and decided to fuck paperwork. If Lester had complaints about missing reports he could voice them on Monday. It was his day off after all, and right now, a thirty mile run, and then a drink with the lads sounded a damn sight more appealing.

He had little idea what his team were actually doing today, but he figured that the local pub this evening would probably be a fairly safe bet. He headed up to the ARC kitchens on the main floor to check that everything was alright with Becker's team, and found them assembled there with various coffees, playing cards. The Captain himself was nowhere to be seen. When Ryan enquired as to his whereabouts, he was informed by Becker's second-in-command, a worryingly tall, dark-haired man, who went by the name of Squid, that the new Captain was checking the security system, which Ryan took to mean he was arsing around with Quinn in the absence of anything better to do. Doing reports had probably not even entered Becker's head. Still, being on this project with Lester on his back for a couple more months would soon change that outlook.

Ryan waved goodbye, and was just heading across the main floor of the ARC towards the exit and freedom when he heard hurried footsteps behind him. He kept moving, silently praying it wouldn't be Temple again.

'Captain Ryan!'

It was Hart. In some surprise, Ryan turned, having taken Cutter and Hart's absence from their lab to mean that they weren't in that day. After all, no anomaly alerts generally meant that the team buggered off home, while him or Becker and their assigned men were required to stay in case of emergencies, and fill their time drinking tea, re-arranging the armoury, or carrying out other such pointless tasks.

If it had been anyone other than Hart calling, Ryan would probably have kept on walking. He had nothing against the anomaly team, but this was Becker's day, not his, and he really didn't want to have to work. But over the past few months, he had built up a sizeable amount of respect for Cutter's lab technician. The man was a professional, intelligent, extremely adept at tracking and able to handle both a weapon and the Professor with an admirable level of skill. He was also, according to Abby, a fabulous dancer, although Ryan wasn't really sure exactly why that was important. Perhaps because if you put him on a dance floor he turned into the equivalent of Gordon Brown dancing ballet. Still, at Hart's call, he turned, a smile on his face that wasn't as fixed as he thought it might have had to be.

Stephen smiled back, and Ryan attempted to strangle the irritated pang of envy inside him. He wasn't exactly unaware that he himself had various charms, which could, if necessary, be perfectly accented by the army uniform and certain accessories, but he had nothing on this man. Hart was all long-limbed grace, spiky hair, blue eyes and ludicrous eyelashes. And Ryan was pretty sure that underneath all those baggy clothes was a man who was in damn good shape, not that he had ever been in a position to know that for sure. Ryan might perhaps have tried to get to know him a bit better, had it not been for the fact that he had never seen those insanely blue eyes without a wall behind them. Stephen was polite, friendly, but if you looked a bit closer, he sent out very firm 'steer clear' signals. And Ryan wasn't about to start taking risks just on the off chance he might be able to override those signals.

He wasn't sure exactly how many people knew for sure he was gay. Becker, obviously, but then they'd grown up together, and been in the same class at Sandhurst, so the other man must be aware, even if he had never said anything. The same was probably true of most of Ryan's team, although like Becker, they never mentioned it. But really, that was about it. Ryan liked to keep his private life exactly that, private. Although he did have a sneaking suspicion that both Abby and Jenny suspected. Women's intuition or whatever his ex-wife used to call it. And sadly that meant it probably wouldn't take Sarah all that long to catch on either.

Jerking his attention back to matters at hand, Ryan refocused on Hart, who was watching him with one eyebrow slightly raised. Ryan got the impression he had been talking for some time. God, he must be tired, if he was allowing his attention to wander to that degree.

The corner of Stephen's mouth quirked up in amusement, and Ryan got the feeling Hart was perfectly aware that he hadn't heard a word said.

'Tired,' he muttered by way of explanation. 'Been a long day.'

A line appeared between Stephen's eyebrows, which meant he was confused or thinking. Although why Ryan knew that he wasn't sure.

'I thought today was Becker's shift?'

'Yeah, but between us we've got more outstanding paperwork than any man should have to do in a lifetime, and I've got a feeling Lester wants my balls in a vice.'

Stephen winced.

'Sorry to have to say this then, but he wants to see the whole team in his office. Immediately.'

'Why?'

'Something to do with something Connor found.'

'Not the grievous bodily harm he caused to the lab?'

'What?'

Ryan had a feeling he wasn't supposed to have said that.

'What's Connor done now?'

'He was looking for you and Cutter this morning, and there was a god almighty crash from the lab. Not sure what it was, Connor said 'test tubes and stuff'.'

Stephen looked horrified.

'God, not the test tubes with the samples from the Permian?'

Ryan made a face that indicated he neither knew nor had any inclination to know what went on in the labs.

'Fucking hell, those took hours to set up! And we aren't going to be able to get anymore, the anomaly's closed.'

Ryan grimaced.

'Any chance when you tear a strip of Connor for this that you won't tell him I told you?'

Stephen's smile was grim.

'Oh I wouldn't worry about Connor, Captain Ryan. You could take him blindfolded and with one hand behind your back and you know it. Anyhow, I expect that Cutter will kill Connor long before he gets to you.'

Ryan cleared his throat.

'Right. Anyway, Lester's office. If it isn't a lecture on not running in the laboratory, I'd like to know what's happened, get out of here, and not see anything older than my grandmother until Monday.'

Ryan turned, and headed for Lester's office, pretending not to have heard Stephen's muttered 'hear, hear.'

On entering Lester's office, Ryan's first impression was that he hadn't known it was possible to fit that many people in one room. Lester was seated behind his immaculate desk, so different from Ryan's own, and was shooting looks of extreme dislike at a rumpled and dusty Danny Quinn who was slouched back against the side of it knocking several previously parallel pens off kilter, and rumpling a document that was probably highly classified and extremely important.

Over in the far corner was Connor, who was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and wringing his hands, clearly extremely excited. He was muttering fast in geek into Cutter's left ear, and Ryan felt a momentary sting of pity for the Professor.

Abby, Sarah and Jenny were clustered in the corner behind Lester's desk, grouping together as though for protection, which was highly possibly considering Squid and another soldier he didn't recognise were standing too close for comfort; their combat uniforms and guns making them look larger than life and just as out of place in the office.

Becker was slouching against the glass wall, as though trying to prop it up, hands in his pockets and dust in his hair. He looked, in Ryan's opinion, younger than ever.

'Ah Mr Hart, Captain Ryan. Nice of you to finally join us.'

The emphasis was on the 'finally' and Lester's smile was a little too fixed and a little too toothy. Ryan and Becker exchanged a glance.

'It would appear we have something of a problem.'

Lester spoke again, and despite the snark his voice held undertones of exhaustion and Ryan couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for the man.

'Problem, sir?'

That was Becker, and Ryan instantly recognised his 'pacify the boss' tone. Becker could be a bit of an idiot in the field sometimes, the curse of fast-track promotion, but it had to be said that his arse-licking skills were a lot better than Ryan's. Which considering he was queer and Becker was straight as a die was really saying something.

Lester heaved a sigh.

'It would appear that we have our first overseas anomaly.'

Connor jumped in, clearly needing to say something to avoid bursting with excitement.

'It's amazing! A farmer found it, and took photos, and it's all over the internet!'

'All over the internet?' Sarah did not sound convinced. 'I was checking some facts on the internet this morning, I didn't see any mention of it.'

'What Mr Temple means is that it all over the conspiracy freak sites that he frequents. The story doesn't appear to have actually broken properly yet.'

All eyes turned to Jenny. She nodded.

'Well, that should be fairly easy to control then. I'm sure we can find an excuse to force the moderator's into deleting the material. They'll have to sign the Official Secrets Act, but other than that there shouldn't be a problem.'

Lester sighed.

'Sadly, the internet coverage is the least of our worries. Professor Cutter?'

Cutter stepped forward, pinning a blown up photo of what looked like a…giant snake skin. Next to him, Ryan felt Hart twitch involuntarily in disgust.

'What is that?'

Cutter ran a hand through his hair.

'We're…not exactly sure. It appears to be a giant snake skin of some kind, but it has very unusual markings. It doesn't match anything in the fossil records.'

'Did it definitely come through the anomaly?'

'No doubt about it. It was found in the bushes, a couple of feet away, and it definitely isn't from any creature native to Australia.'

Sarah's head shot up.

'Australia?' She moved forward, peering closely at the photograph. 'No…no, it can't be.' She looked up at Cutter, who grimaced. 'You have got to be joking.'

'Clearly, Doctor Page, the rest of us lesser mortals are missing something. Care to explain?' This was Lester, and it really wasn't Ryan's imagination, the man looked wrung out.

Sarah was still staring alternatively at the photo and at Cutter, the expression on her face one of complete disbelief. Luckily Connor's self-control snapped again and he jumped in before Lester could start firing people.

'The man…the man that found it? He was babbling, saying all kinds of stuff about monsters. He claimed to have seen a giant snake in the bushes. He said when he saw it, a rainbow formed in the sky.'

If that was supposed to have been a bombshell it fell fairly flat, as everyone else continued to stare at Connor, Sarah and Cutter with expressions of complete confusion. Ryan was no better off. Giant snakes and rainbows? His mind typed that into his mental computer but all his paperwork-addled brain could come up with was gay snakes.

He glanced at Hart next to him, but the man didn't appear to be making connections either. He was still staring at the huge snake skin, an expression of extreme distaste adorning his features. Ryan tried Becker next, with fairly little hope, but to his surprise, he could see a dawning understanding in the other man's eyes. Becker narrowed his eyes slightly, as though contemplating whether or not to actually speak.

'Perhaps I'm being ridiculous, but you're not suggesting that that,' he waved a hand at the photograph, 'that that thing could be the Rainbow Serpent?'

Sarah beamed at him, but the look that Connor sent implied that out of all the people in the room Becker was the one he would have least expected to pick up on the hint. Sadly for Temple, Becker didn't miss it.

'I'm not all brawn and no brains you know, Connor.' His tone was acidic.

'Could have fooled me.' Ryan couldn't resist. Becker glared at him.

'Now, now children. Listen to what the nice Professor has to say.' Clearly Lester wasn't about to risk a fight breaking out in his perfect office. Cutter took to the floor.

'As we're all aware we've recently been looking at the connections the anomalies might have to mythology and legends. As…some of you may be aware, one of the biggest aboriginal myths is the Rainbow Serpent, said to be a giant snake that inhabited the deep waterholes of Australia, and revealed itself to people as a rainbow, moving through water and rain.'

Lester interrupted.

'Surely you aren't actually implying that this creature is the mythical Rainbow Serpent?'

'No, I'm implying that the mythical Rainbow Serpent is in fact this creature.'

There was a pause as everyone tried to wrap their minds around that. Then Abby spoke for the time.

'So…you think that this anomaly has been opening and closing like the one in the Forest of Dean, and these…creatures have been coming through?'

Cutter ran his hand through his increasingly tousled hair again.

'I think it's a distinct possibility, yes.'

'But…if the Rainbow Serpent is actually just a giant snake, or several, then how do you explain the rainbows? It can't be a coincidence that they keep forming nearby.'

Abby had a point there, in Ryan's opinion. Sadly, Connor appeared to have an explanation.

'Rainbows, well, they're a meteorological and optical phenomenon and…'

'In English, if you please Mr Temple.'

Thank God for Lester.

'Sorry. Anyway, they form when the Sun shines onto droplets of water in the Earth's atmosphere, right? So what if the rainbows that form aren't just a coincidence? What if the anomaly that the snake or snakes have been coming through leads from a time where the air had a much higher water content? If some of that air was coming through the anomaly, it might explain why there have been so many rainbow sightings with the snakes.'

Ryan had no real interest in rainbows, and knew next to nothing about weather patterns but that made sense even to him.

'So what happens now? Is there a team out in Australia that deals with this kind of thing?'

Lester sighed.

'I've spoken to the minister, and depressingly he thinks it is necessary to send a team out there to take a look.'

Stephen spoke up, looking rather pale.

'Well, it might be an anomaly and a large snake, but it's an Australian anomaly and an Australian large snake. Can't they deal with it?'

'I've spoken to the Australian government, and either they really don't know anything about anything, or they have become worryingly adept at lying. It would appear that we have no choice but to send a team to Australia.'

Murmurs of excitement broke out around the room, and looking at Temple expression, Ryan wondered whether he might actually burst.

'It doesn't need all of us though, does it?' said Stephen, sounding, to Ryan's ears, slightly desperate, 'I'm quite happy to stay and oversee things here.' His eyes were large, and Ryan suspected that if it had been anyone other than Lester he might have been fluttering his eyelashes.

Sadly for Stephen, Lester appeared to have made up his mind already, and he bulldozed right through his offer.

'Professor, you will be heading up the team going to Australia. You will take Mr Temple, Miss Maitland, and Mr Hart. Quinn, you're staying here, with Doctor Page, and Miss Brown as back-up. Much against my will, I have been instructed to send the bestsoldiers with Professor Cutter, to try and insure against complete fiasco, and that means you, Ryan, you, Becker, and Corporal Martin.'

There was a brief pause, as the team stared around in confusion, trying to work out who the hell Corporal Martin was, before understanding dawned, and all eyes flicked to Squid, all six foot six of him, looking like he wanted to melt into the floor.

There was another few seconds silence before the complaints began; Stephen really didn't see why his skills were necessary, Sarah didn't see why she had to stay here because mythology was her area of expertise, Becker wanted to know exactly who would be heading up the soldiers at the ARC if both he and Ryan were required to go, and Connor was muttering that he always suffered from terrible sunburn.

Lester held up a hand, a pained expression crossing his features.

'Mr Hart, I don't care whether your fear of snakes renders you completely unable to enjoy this opportunity, your tracking skills will be invaluable and you will go. Doctor Page, quite frankly, we need you here working on the artefact, and you can display your expertise just as easily over a telephone. Captain Becker, I am bringing in a man called Lieutenant Jon Lyle to oversee security at the ARC. I'm told he's very good. And Mr Temple, I really have nothing to say, except remember your sun hat.'

There was silence. It would appear Lester had made up his mind. They were going to Australia. Lester stood up, flapping his hands as though it was sheep he was herding out of his office.

'Now, is everything clear? Excellent. You will fly to the other side of the world using the tax payers money, catch this snake, sort out this anomaly, and for heaven's sake, try not to get eaten.'