Temporal Location: 5036.243 Physical Location: Galaxy 744 Sol-3 "Earth"
The craft entered orbit taking a wide elliptical trajectory, bringing it up on the orbital base quickly. It's appearance causing a flurry of activity within the station itself. UNIT and Torchwood agents armed themselves and took up defensive positions in strategic locations around the important parts of the base. Retros fired on the ship and it nudged into a parallel position in space a kilometer from the station. A small shuttle dispatched from the ship and moved towards the nearest entry point.
Within the station, armed UNIT soldiers moved into the small anti-chamber inside the airlock. All the lights turned green and the military men took up a defensive stance. The door of the airlock slid into the recess built for it, revealing two vacuum suited figures, one black one white, they entered the anti-room slowly. The figures stood silently for a moment surveying the situation. The white suited figure, reached up and removed her helmet, revealing a wavy shock of strawberry hair, falling in ringlets around a beautiful, ageless face. Looking at the nervous guards, she beamed a huge, friendly smile; "Could one of you be a dear and ask Captain Harkness to receive us?"
The dark suited woman woman removed her helmet, her dark hair dropping back between her shoulder blades, her cherubic face looking out of the dark waterfall. The guards relaxed, neither woman appeared to be a threat. The squad leader dispatched one of the soldiers further into the base, while they waited in the standoff. A sudden jerky alert rippled through the squad as the tall, red haired woman closed the airlock door.
Jack Harkness listened to the soldier, quietly, elbows on his desk, hands together as if in prayer, index fingers touching his lips. As the private finished his report, Jack smiled and jumped up, "OK, lets go receive our guests." Minutes later, he was face to face with his visitors. Staring across the room at each other sternly, they could not hold the stoic face for long, He smiled at the redhead.
"Hello, cutie."
Back in his office, River Song faced the immortal, "I need your help," she simply said, "I have to go somewhere dangerous, I need to make contingencies in case I don't return." He looked past her into the control room of the station, where the other woman stood discussing something with one of the technicians.
"Her?" River nodded, "Who is she?"
"HIS daughter," she registered the look of surprise on his face, "Our daughter, Autumn. He doesn't know, and I don't want him to know." She suddenly looked old and tired, suddenly, almost as if she had a breath of something evil at her back. Jack listened silently, River placed an old doctor's bag on the table. "This is her legacy, I want her to have this, but not till I leave. Please." He nodded.
"Anything." He simply replied. "How long will you be staying?"
"Hours. I have to be leaving when we get the last member of the exploratory team. Our employer insists that we deploy immediately."
"Where are you going?"
"The Lux Library."
"That's a death sentence. Nobody has landed on that planet and returned for over 100 years."
"Playing it safe was never my thing, didn't he ever tell you that?" She smiled at him but it had no humor in it.
The girl was leaning over the female technician, "... And varying the modulation of the shield harmonic profile will turn the detection grid into a repulser net."
"Autumn?" Autumn Song did not react to her mother being absorbed in the technical discussion she was having with the Torchwood scientist, "Amelia Martha Pond," she said raising her voice a little, the girl stiffened, "I am going now."
She turned flushed, "Mother," she pouted, "You know I don't like that name!"
"It's the name you were given, your grandmother's name."
"Yes, I know I was Christened with my family name, but you know I use Autumn Song, THAT is my heritage, Melody." She gave a sly, playful smile. River was amused by the shared riposte. River turned to the waiting Captain, "This is your Uncle Jack Jack, meet Autumn, my daughter." She offered her hand and Harkness shook it.
After an emotional farewell and a short shuttle flight, Autumn watched the Lux cruiser depart Earth space from the observation level of the Torchwood 1 station. As the ship reached the minimum jump distance from planet and station, it erupted in a celestial blue flash and silver line to the limit of vision, then nothing. She turned, then, to Jack Harkness, "Uncle Jack, will she be OK"
"She will be exactly where she needs to be, as always, and if she is in danger at all..." He smiled, "Your father always seems to appear." The confidence he showed, but did not feel, seemed to placate the girl. They walked back into the depths of the station in silence.