Sleeping Dragons

by Soledad

Title: The Old Terror

Author: Soledad

Fandom: Torchwood AU, with inevitable elements of Dr. Who.

Genre: Action-adventure, Friendship

Rating: General to Teens, for most parts.

Disclaimer: Dr. Who and Torchwood – settings and characters – belong to the BBC. I am just borrowing them. No copyright infringement intended and no money made.

Timeline: Torchwood Alternate Season 2.

Summary: The team of TW newbies goes to Scotland to help organising the Archives of TW House. However, there are worse things lurking in the Scottish highlands than just the Loch Ness monster.


Author's note: While this story can stand on its own, reading the previous instalments would be ready helpful in understanding the entire background.

This is the fifth instalment of the "Sleeping Dragons" series, a Torchwood Season Two AU. Certain canon events have been moved up or down the Whoniverse timeline to make the series' events possible. All changes have been made deliberately.

Beta read by the generous Janiemc whom I owe my gratitude.


Chapter 01 – The Fearful Summons

Colonel Alan Mace, commanding officer of the secret UNIT base on the outskirts of Cardiff, stared at his tabletop calendar morosely. The one-year anniversary on his current post was coming up but he certainly didn't feel like celebrating.

What was there to celebrate anyway? He'd basically been exiled to this godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere – after having commanded the entire British Division of UNIT through the Sontaran crisis… and for what? For violating the ruddy fraternisation rules?

It was ridiculous. Marion – Captain Price, the best and brightest who had ever served with the Royal Engineers – was first and foremost a comrade whom he greatly respected for her knowledge and professionalism. So, what if she had lost control after having survived (against all hope) the Sontaran invasion and impulsively kissed him in front of his entire staff? They hadn't even met outside of duty shifts back then.

At first Colonel Mace had blamed the antiquated rules of the armed forces for his exile. But lately he was getting suspicious that there might have been more behind it. Captain Magambo was certainly the most disciplined, by-the-book officer UNIT had ever had the luck to call its own, not likely to make a similar mistake… and yet she, too, had been removed from the London Headquarters and reassigned to another rotten, insignificant outpost.

Facts like that made one think about what might be going on upstairs.

It seemed as if all of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's people – everyone who had been hand picked by the Brig and thus had contact with the Doctor – had been removed from their positions, in order to make room for Colonel Oduya's boot-lickers, and yet there had to be more to these changes than just an over-zealous staff officer on a power trip. Somebody had to have sponsored Oduya, helping him to his current position; a position he clearly wasn't worthy of holding.

Oduya was xenophobic, paranoid and obsessed with control, quite the opposite of the Brig… or Mace himself, for that matter. Sure, he liked order – which ranking officer did not? – but he wasn't a control freak. Or so he hoped.

Whoever Oduya's sponsor might be, they clearly wanted a puppet. One stupid enough to believe he was in charge. One who would do everything to keep the power he believed – falsely to be his. And that made Colonel Mace worry seriously about the future of UNIT:

I'm not so sure about UNIT in these days, the bitter comment of Captain Jack Harkness echoed in his mind. And while he was not a great fan of the former Torchwood Three leader, to put it mildly, deep in his heart Colonel Mace had to agree with that statement. He wasn't so sure about UNIT in these days, either. Not since Oduya had taken over.

Unlike other ranking officers, Colonel Mace knew about The Year That Never Was – not because he'd have been on the Valiant but because Director Jones, the new Torchwood leader, found it necessary for him to be informed and had authorised Dr. Martha Jones, the medical officer for his base and his liaison to Torchwood Three to tell him everything. Colonel Mace was of two minds whether he should be grateful for such previously undemonstrated trust from Torchwood's side or not.

On the one hand such knowledge was always power and enabled him to be careful around certain fellow officers. Mostly those who had been on the Valiant and had incriminated themselves in the service of Prime Minister Harold Saxon – who, apparently, had been a renegade Time Lord… and a rather mad one at that. These officers could still remember everything, having been in the eye of the storm when Time had been reset and a whole year eradicated from history. They were also the ones thinking they were the only ones in the known, and Alan Mace felt some dark satisfaction knowing how wrong they were.

Besides, it was infinitely easier to work with Torchwood since Director Jones had taken over.

On the other hand, ignorance was bliss. It would have been easier to believe that he'd been exiled for the violation of the non-fraternisation rules indeed than to accept that the organisation that had been his backbone since coming of age, that had represented all the values he had always believed in, would suddenly take a turn to the worse and become corrupted.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what it looked like. Without the strong leadership of The Brig to keep it on the right path, UNIT had become the playground of the Oduyas and their powerful supporters in the shadowy chambers of Whitehall.

And he couldn't do anything to stop them. Not here, isolated from everything and everyone of true importance. Not even with the surprisingly steady cooperation of Torchwood.

Oh, he knew that Director Jones was worried, too. The few meetings of the young Torchwood Director with Oduya, though amiable on the surface – generally due to Jones's unshakable calm and impeccable good manners – hadn't gone well, And while he had his own connections to Whitehall, most of the senior civil servants working at the Home Office seemed… reserved at best when it came to Torchwood. While some of them had become awfully friendly with Oduya, which was concerning, to say the least.

The colonel's somewhat circular thought process was interrupted by the muted ringing of his phone. Not the landline on his desk, not even his regular mobile phone. The incredibly advanced little tool vibrating in his breast pocket was a Torchwood-issue phone, enhanced with alien technology; one that not even the Secret Service could have hacked.

Well… their current "guest", Agent Johnson from MI5, might have managed to do so if she had really tried. Which was why no one but the colonel himself and some of his most trusted men knew about the very existence of that phone in the first place. The number was practically non-existent; any call could only come from Torchwood directly – or for Commodore Sullivan, the only potential ally still in London.

Or, in this case, from Captain Marion Price, the only other granted access to it. It was meant for emergency access only, so Colonel Mace was understandably shocked to see her ID on the display. She'd never called him on that phone before!

"Marion," he said, picking up the phone. "What's wrong?"

Because something had to be wrong. Such an unexpected call could only mean trouble.

"I must be short," she replied. "I've been reassigned to a secret research facility, somewhere in Scotland. Forgill Castle or something like that. Alan, I don't even know where it is! Never knew we had any facilities there… it must been something really new. Rumour says it's a genetics lab of some sort…"

"Why would they need you then?" Mace asked in surprise. "You're an engineer, not a biologist, for God's sake!"

"Yes, but I also have a degree in cybernetics, and apparently that's what they need," she replied. "I don't like this, Alan. Why would a genetics lab need a cybernetic engineer? We're not so far yet that we could create organic technology on our level of scientific development. What if they found a Cyberman and are trying to reprogram it or whatnot? One of those things on the loose would be enough to raise an entire Cyber-army, and we both know that Earth doesn't have the means to fight that!"

"When do you have to leave?" Mace asked. "Perhaps if we alert The Brig he can interfere with your orders long enough to…"

"There's no time," she interrupted, sounding positively hysterical. "I'm leaving now! In fact, I should be on my way already. The car is waiting right in front of the house, so I must hang up before they'd become suspicious. Don't worry, though. I've manipulated this phone to self-destruct ten seconds after I end this call. They won't be able to track it back to you."

"Who are they?" Mace asked. He was getting a very bad feeling about this.

"I don't know, all right?" she was clearly fighting her rising panic. "The orders came from upstairs, from the highest levels, but I haven't got a clue who was the one who actually gave them. I just wanted to say you good-bye, in case I'm gonna vanish without a trace. Take care, Alan. I still love you."

And with that she hung up, not giving him the chance to answer.

Colonel Mace stared at his mute phone in utter frustration. What was he supposed to do? How could he help Marion? How could he even find her to begin with?

His only clue was the name of the place: Forgill Castle. A name that, quite frankly, he'd never heard before. But again, he'd never been big at that sightseeing thing, either.

Still, it was a starting point – probably the only one he'd get. Now he only had to find the right person to dig out more. Somebody who could work well with the internet, was good enough not to get caught and reliable enough to entrust them with such a delicate task.

After a moment of quiet contemplation the colonel pushed the intercom button on his desk.

"Corporal, find me Private Jenkins," he ordered.

"At once, sir," Corporal Carol Bell, nicknamed the Iron Hag among the young soldiers, replied crisply.

She'd been pulled out of retirement after the Sontaran invasion when too many UNIT soldiers had found an untimely death. She was efficient, not easily intimidated – Mace was still trying to find a way to do so – and seemed to enjoy her reactivation enormously. The Colonel could be sure that Jenkins would appear in his office in less than five minutes, even if Corporal Bell had to drag him out of the shower. Or from under his car.

He checked his wristwatch and counted.


It was indeed only three minutes forty-eight seconds after giving his order that there was a knock on his door. At his invitation a tall, slim, very handsome soldier came in and saluted in a rather sloppy way.

"Private Jenkins reporting for duty as ordered, sir," he said.

Colonel Mace suppressed a sigh. Jenkins was a hopeless case when it came to proper discipline. Hadn't he had a great number of relatives in very high places – even though most of them refused to talk to him in these days – he'd have been dishonourably discharged long ago. Which would have been a shame, really, because he was actually a very good soldier – or rather had been until the Sontaran invasion.

As it was now, Mace had to put up with his antics for an unpredictable length of time. On other days, the colonel deeply despised that fact. Right now, however, both Jenkins's computer skills and his contacts could come in handy.

"I need you for a very… specific task, Jenkins," the colonel said. "You must do some… err… sensitive research for me, but no-one must get wind about it. It's of utmost importance that only you and me know."

The usual blasé expression of Jenkins's beautiful face gave room to cautious interest. He'd been bored out of his head here, too, unfit for even light duty because of the nerve damage he'd suffered from that sodding Sontaran weapon and was more than happy to be assigned to a task that he actually could perform."

"Just how sensitive are we talking about, sir?" he asked. "Would my personal laptop do or should I ask Torchwood permission for the use of their Mainframe?"

Mace knew that Jenkins's laptop was anything but a standard model. It was enhanced by alien technology, thanks to his friendship with Torchwood Three's Number Two geek, that Trevor Howard character. The colonel also knew that the central processing unit of the Torchwood Three Hub, called Mainframe, was a living, constantly expanding piece of incredibly advanced alien tech of unknown origins. He was not sure he wanted it to know about his inquiries.

"Let's stick to your laptop first," he said to Jenkins. "Should it not be enough, we can always involve Torchwood later. Right now, it's still just private research."

"Understood sir," Jenkins was already making notices in his PDA. "What should I research for you?"

"A place in Scotland called Forgill Castle," Mace replied. "Ever heard of it?"

To his surprise Jenkins actually nodded, although a little uncertainly. "Yes, sir, I think I have, but I can't remember the context right now. I think it was in one of Uncle Harry's outrageous stories he used to tell me when I was just a kid."

Uncle Harry, that was Jenkins's godfather – no lesser person than Commodore Sullivan himself. Given that Sullivan had once been a companion of the infamous Doctor, for however short a time, and later became the Deputy Director of MI5, only to go on some very hush-hush missions for the NATO from time to time, that could mean a lot concerning Forgill Castle.

Covered-up alien presence being only one of them.

"I can ask him if you want me to, sir," Jenkins added.

"Later perhaps," the colonel said. "Let's do some research first. If you don't find anything conclusive I might ask you to pay your godfather a visit. Assuming we can make that appear something harmless, that is."

"We can," Jenkins replied. "Uncle Harry celebrates the anniversary of his entering the Royal Navy next week. I'm invited, as usual, though I rarely go. It's always a fancy party, one can meet with the most… interesting people."

"Then why don't you go every time?" Mace frowned.

"Those people often include family," Jenkins explained with a shrug. "And such encounters can lead to… awkward situations. Not for me – I don't really care – but my so-called family always dances on eggshells around me. They can't ignore me, but they don't want to admit that we are related, so… it's easier for everyone if I stay away-"

This was the most he'd ever told anyone about his family and his difficult relationship with them. Colonel Mace felt properly honoured.

"You'd be willing to go this time, though?" he asked carefully.

"Oh, yes," Jenkins replied, with a gleam of unholy glee in his eyes. "I'd need a pretty lady to come with me, though. Female company is expected on Uncle Harry's parties."

"You could take Doctor Jones with you," Mace suggested. "She is certainly pretty enough and has the manners."

Jenkins shook his head. "No, sir, that wouldn't be wise. She's too well-known by… by certain people. Somebody from Torchwood will have to do. Perhaps I'll ask Rhys Williams to allow his wife to accompany me. She would fit rather nicely."

The colonel pulled a face. "I'm not sure I want to involve Torchwood in this just yet."

Jenkins shrugged. "I understand that, sir, but considering that they're the only ones we still can trust, at least to a certain extent, we can't really afford to be choosy."

That was, of course, depressingly true, and so Colonel Mace agreed to give Jenkins free hand in the matter.

"Just see what you can find out about the place online first," he said. "When we have some results at least we can decide how to proceed."


One could say many unflattering things about Ross Jenkins (most of them very true), but one thing was sure: he could handle the internet like a professional hacker. Being addicted to online war games like Alien Invasion had to be good for something, after all.

The more surprising (not to mention disappointing) was it, then, that after several hours of intensive research he came up with… well, basically nothing.

Oh, there was a lot of conventional stuff about Forgill Castle online. Most of it meant for tourists, amateur historians or fanatic Celtic patriots with an overblown sense for their home country's supposed importance.

"Well, sir, the actual facts are rather spare," Jenkins admitted reluctantly, handing his commanding officer a printout. It consisted of three meagre pages. "Forgill Castle is the home of the Duke of Forgill – who is currently Sir John McNutt, the president of the Scottish Energy Commission, among other things – and is located on a rock above the coastline of Loch ness. It's a fortified house that had served as the home of the McNutts for the last eight hundred years and is surrounded, according to the tourist industry, by picturesque gardens, rolling hills and waterfalls."

The colonel rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Oh, for God's sake, Jenkins, don't give me that nonsense!"

"I'm just quoting the official website, sir," Jenkins shrugged. "The castle is a tourist attraction, most of all because of the closeness of the Loch Ness and the irregularly revived hysteria about the Loch Ness Monster. It has thousands of visitors each year, including from outside of Great Britain."

"Can the castle itself be visited, too?" asked the colonel.

"Parts of it can and are," Jenkins replied. "However, the wing actually inhabited by the Duke is off limits, and entry to the Library is not possible either, owing to the precious nature of its contents, as it is said."

He made quotation notes in the air with his fingers while saying that. The colonel pretended not to notice when his right hand spasmed uncontrollably by the gesture.

"Do you think it's possible to hide some secret, high-security lab in plain sight, with thousands of visitors roaming the estate?" he asked.

"Not in the castle itself, I don't think so," Jenkins answered, after a few moments of consideration. "But there are always the farm buildings, of course. They lie outside the castle, further down the lakeshore and are supposedly abandoned."

"Supposedly being the key word here," Mace said sourly. "Well, we cannot learn more from here, I'm afraid. That leaves us with your godfather."

"And Torchwood," Jenkins reminded him. I know you would prefer not to involve them just yet, sir, but there's a good chance that they would know more about possible alien activities in Scotland than we. They've got a branch in Glasgow, after all."

"That's just an office, run by an eccentric nobleman with way too much time on his hands," Mace replied dismissively.

Jenkins shook his head. "Sir Archibald may be eccentric, but he is nobody's fool. He takes notice of more things than people would give him credit for. And what he knows, Jones would know, too."

Colonel Mace sighed unhappily. "I guess I can give them a call."


At the same time in the Torchwood Hub the morning shift was coming to end. Ianto had just got back from Providence Park, where he was still undergoing physiotherapy three times a week, and was looking through the reports from the morning and the previous night. He decided against going straight home, choosing instead to wait for Rhys and Emma who were about to serve lunch for the entire team in the boardroom.

Well… almost the entire time. Save for those from the night shift who had already gone home.

In the tourist office Beth Halloran was doing some non-confidential filing and Jenny was down in the basement with the Weevils. She had developed a bond with Janet, their oldest resident; one not unlike to that of Tom Milligan with his adopted dog, Molly. With the marked difference that Janet could actually communicate with the Gallifreyan girl via some crude sort of telepathy that transmitted images instead of thoughts.

Owen was fascinated by this, of course, even a bit envious that it hadn't been him to make the connection. But he was eager to learn more about Cardiff's most steady alien population and spent a great deal of time down in the basement with them and Jenny. Ianto was secretly glad that Owen had found something to bring him out of his post-alcoholic depression.

The reports didn't contain anything extraordinary – with one exception. Jack had discovered that the little coral, the one that had stood unchanged on his (now Ianto's) desk for so many years, had begun to grow. It was a slow, barely visible process, but Jack had used a scanner from the 39th century to take measures and established the fact that the coral showed a steady growth of 0.02 per cent a day.

"What could be a reason for this?" Ianto asked. "What sort of thing is this anyway?"

Jack bit his lip and hesitated for a moment before answering.

"I'm not sure," he finally admitted. "The Doctor said once that TARDISes are grown from such corals, but I always thought this one was dead."

"Or it just waited for the touch of a Time Lord," pointed out Ianto. "In which case Jenny must have been the one to 'wake it up', so to speak. Do we truly have a baby TARDIS growing in our basement?"

"The organic shell of one, in any case," Jack corrected. "I'm not sure how the technology comes into one; perhaps Jenny will be able to tell. She does have the general knowledge of the Time Lords."

"If the Doctor had any idea in the first place," reminded him Ianto. "Even in our time, not everyone who can drive a car would be able to build one, too."

"Still, Jenny is our best possible source of information," Jack argued. "Unless the Doctor chooses to drop by in the not too distant future."

"Even if he does, I doubt he would tell us anything," Ianto returned dryly. "We both know what he thinks about us hairless apes in general and about Torchwood in particular."

Before Jack could have answered, Ianto's phone rang. He picked it up and raised an eyebrow at the caller ID.

"Jones," he said crisply. "What can I do for you, Colonel?"

"You can tell me what do you know about a place called Forgill Castle and about aliens in Scotland," Colonel Mace replied without preamble.

Ianto frowned. He hadn't expected Colonel Mace to contact him about something so… extravagant. Their discussions were usually to-the-point and extremely dry.

"As far as I know the only alien in Scotland is the Loch Ness monster; and that is closely watched by Torchwood Two," he said.

"What about Forgill Castle, then?"

"I'm not sure," Ianto admitted. "I'll look up if we've got anything about the place in the Archives. I seem to remember having heard the name, but as Torchwood wasn't directly involved…"

"Torchwood might not have been," Mace said, "but the Doctor probably was… one of the earlier Doctors, most likely. Jenkins says his godfather had mentioned the place, but he can't remember anything of use."

"I see," Ianto knew, of course, who Private Jenkins's godfather was, and the thought that one of the previous Doctors might have messed up something in Scotland in the past that had now come back to bite them in the backside didn't make him happy.

"Which is why I'm sending Jenkins to the next family reunion," Mace added.

"That may prove helpful," Ianto agreed. "In the meantime, Colonel, you and I should speak. In private."

"My thoughts exactly," Mace said. "I'm planning to come into town tomorrow. Are you available?"

"My schedule is pretty flexible," Ianto replied blandly and Jack, who knew this meant that the young Torchwood Director spent most of his waking hours in the Hub rolled his eyes. "When would it be convenient for you, sir?"

"I have a meeting at 10 am in the Town Hall with Mr Grainger, but after that I am free for the next couple of hours," Mace explained.

"That is a lucky coincidence," Ianto said. "I'll have to meet Mr Grainger's PA, who is our liaison to the Town Hall, at the same time. We can meet there and I'll treat you to lunch somewhere where we can talk without being disturbed."


Mace agreed and hung up, without bothering to express any thanks – not that Ianto would have expected him. Jack grinned at Ianto.

"Coincidence, is it? I never knew you believed in coincidences… unless you've arranged them yourself."

"True," Ianto confessed. "I asked Idris Hopper to organise our next meeting for the same time Colonel Mace is scheduled to meet Mr Grainger. I hoped to run into the colonel accidentally; but if he seeks me out on his own, all the better."

"And where are you planning to treat him to lunch?" Jack asked. "It should be a safe place; the two of you have some sensitive subjects to discuss."

"You mean the three of us, don't you?" Ianto corrected. "I need you with me on this, Jack. Which is why I'm considering to take the colonel to your place and simply order in."

Jack shrugged. "Works for me. I'll even break out the good china for the occasion."

"You don't have any good china," Ianto reminded him.

"Actually, I do; although it has been in storage for the last century or so," Jack said simply. "I used to be married once, back in the olden days, you know."

Ianto stared at him in disbelief. "You are full of surprises, Jack!"

"I hope so," Jack replied with a flirtatious grin; then he became serious again. "Forget ordering in. I don't cook often, but I'm more than capable of putting together a proper lunch if I have to."

"As I said: full of surprises," Ianto said with an indulgent smile. "Well, let's have lunch, Captain, my Captain, and afterwards I'm going to give Sir Archibald a call, on a secure line. I'm fairly sure that he can tell us more about Forgill Castle than all the Internet research Colonel Mace's subordinates may come up with."


The huge colony ship had reached the outer plants of the system: a series of spectacular gas giants, one of them surrounded by multiple rings. The automatic board systems reacted to the presence of planetary masses and stent the ship into stealth mode, so that no hypothetical inhabitants of the target world would detect them. Secrecy was a vital aspect of this operation.

There was still no report from the spearhead unit that had been sent to said planet several local decades ago, but the ship could not tarry any longer. It was behind schedule already, and the young of its masters had begun to hatch. This was a biological imperative that could not be held back.

It was also a dangerous process. Outside the gestation chambers, the shielding was minimal. It would protect adult individuals, but the hatchlings were more vulnerable to cosmic radiation; and once hatched, they couldn't be kept in the gestation chambers. The environment there would no longer match their needs.

The artificial intelligence steering the ship's systems analysed the facts and came to a decision. It would no longer wait for a report from the spearhead unit but continue the journey straight to the target planet. It was a choice that contained serious risks; but any other solution would have meant to risk losing the entire brood – and that risk simply wasn't acceptable.

There were no reports about any of the other colony ships having survived the massive solar outburst that had caught the fleet in the neighbouring system. They were the last. But even if they were not, the safety of the next generation would have had priority over any other considerations.

The artificial intelligence checked the amount of available food for the hatchlings. It would be enough – barely – if they didn't waste any more time reaching the target planet. The artificial intelligence had no concept of hope – it was a machine, after all – but it knew that on the planet enough fresh food would be available, if the spearhead unit had succeeded.

There was an equal probability that it had not, of course. But the programming of the artificial intelligence offered no solution for that case.

~TBC~